Naming the Discipline of Communicology
Naming the Discipline of Communicology
The Discourse of Human Communication has been studied under many academic names through the centuries. In ancient Greece, Rhetoric was studied alongside Philosophy as public speaking (sophistic) and as conversational dialogue (maieutic). In the Middle Ages, Rhetoric was taught in the universities as part of the Trivium of "Arts" (Rhetoric, Logic, Grammar) in comparison to the Quadrivium of "Sciences" (Arithmetic, Astronomy, Geometry, Music). Hence, the origin in USA universities of a "college of arts and sciences".
The study of Rhetoric in the United States of America evolved from the study of oratory to a focus on the pedagogy of written expression and then back to an emphasis on Speech (oral language) as a distinct subject matter crossing all of the arts and sciences. The need for a defining name for this new comprehensive human science discipline of communication was debated for many years resulting in a 1958 proposal by Wendell Johnson, then advanced in print by Franklin Knowner for the disciplinary name COMMUNICOLOGY. [Franklin H. Knower, "A Model for Communicology", The Ohio Speech Journal (annual publication), 1962, vol. 1, pp. 181-187; diagram, p. 183]
A prototypical Western modernity list includes the following discipline names leading up to the present international use of Communicology.
The Eighteenth Century
Grammar [art of written discourse]
Homilitics [art of preaching]
Logic [art of rational thinking; later glossed as Critical Thinking]
Oratory [art of public address]
Rhetoric [art of spoken discourse; argumentation and debate]
The Nineteenth Century
Philology [the meaning of human speech as found in the language of literature and cultural practice]
Public Speaking [public address; oratory]
Rhetoric [art of spoken and written discourse; argumentation and debate]
Semiology [study of signs in linguistic codes]
Symbology [study of applied signs as Icons, Indices, and Symbols of culture; a synonym for Communication]
The Twentieth Century
Communication [Network Levels: Intrapersonal, Interpersonal, Group, Culture]
Communication Arts
Communication Sciences
Communication Sciences and Disorders
Communication Arts and Sciences
Communication and Fine Arts
Communication and Informatics
Communication and Information
Communication and Media
Communication and Media Studies
Communication and Rhetorical Studies
Communication, Culture, and Media Studies
Communication Studies
Cybernetics [Communication and Control Theory in (1) humans and machines; variously Ergonomics, Human Factors, Complex Systems, and in (2) biology; variously General Systems Theory, Social Systems Theory]
Journalism
Journalism and Integrated Media
Linguistics; Applied Linguistics [variously Language Arts, Psycolinguistics, Sociolinguistics, Cultural Linguistics]
Mass Communication
Mass Media
Mass Media and Journalism
Radio and Television
Rhetoric [spoken discourse; contrasts with written, especially fictive, discourse in English departments]
Semiotics [study of all verbal and non-verbal Codes and Signification; Divisions: Semantics, Syntactics, Pragmatics]
Speech
Speech and Theater
Speech Communication
Speech Communication and Theater
Speech Pathology and Audiology [Physiology, variously Communication Disorders; Audiology, variously Hearing Science]
Theater
Theater and Performing Arts [variously Performance Studies; often includes Dance]
The Twenty-First Century
Communication and Culture
COMMUNICOLOGY [proposed 1958; formally adopted by ICI in 2000]
Culture Studies [variously Critical Studies]
Culture Studies and Communication
Discourse Studies [variously Conversational Analysis Studies]
Human Communication Studies
Linguistic Semiotics and Communicology
Language, Culture, and Communication
Media and Culture Studies
Rhetoric, Pragmalinguistics, and Journalism
Rhetology [art and science of discourse] ♦ appeared on unattributed webpage 2009 ♦
Semiotics [study of all signs as communication systems: animal (biological), human, machine]
► National Communication Association (USA)
Analysis of Communication Department Names in the USA (Published October 2011)
Note: Study data did NOT include "Department of COMMUNICOLOGY, University of Hawaii" created in September 2011.
Building the Discipline’s Future
Thinking about updating the COURSE TITLES in your university department or degree program? Consider the Nominal Category Designations that students are already reading on the world-wide-web. Go to: Definition: Communicology
