There is an inherent tension between self and society in human life. Such a tension is also embodied in the way people talk. The dissertation is a demonstration of how Chinese deal with that tension via Chinese collectivist and self-interest talk in solving social problems. A case study is presented from the perspective of the CMM theory. Several important theoretical issues are also discussed, as to how can we achieve the validity of a text analysis, and what should be the basic unit of analysis in communication studies, and in what ways are Grice's (1975) conversational maxims inadequate in accounting for human communication. The dissertation answers those questions on the basis of a study of a Chinese mediation case.

In principle, mediators claim to empower disputants--but do they in practice? My approach to this question is based upon three interdependent assumptions: (1) mediation is a process of communication, (2) forms of life (identities, relationships, cultural patterns) are reflexively reproduced in communication, (3) empowerment is the appropriate elaboration or transformation of disputant forms of life. I apply this perspective to three cases by using Pearce and Cronen's theory of the Coordinated Management of Meaning. The first major finding of this study is that the mediators enacted their neutrality by allowing disputants to elaborate whatever autobiographical and relationship narratives were already in progress. This enactment of neutrality was empowering in the one case where disputants began with a positive connotation of their relationship; it was not empowering in the two cases where the disputants had negative interpretations. The second finding is that the mediators constructed disputants as two kinds of person: expressive individuals who talked in terms of moral-laden narratives, and utilitarian individuals who talked in terms of concrete proposals. In two of the cases, the mediators attempted to facilitate negotiation by separating the disputants' dysfunctional narratives from their proposals. In both of these cases, the strategy was disempowering because it did not aid in the transformation of the dysfunctional narratives. In the third case, the disputants were empowered: their narratives were positive and productive, and the mediators did not attempt to bracket them and separate them from the negotiation. The third finding of this study is that mediators constructed "success" less in terms of their ability to work constructively with disputant definitions of episode, relationship, and autobiography, and more in terms of the disputants' ability to reach an agreement. This definition of success makes the disputants responsible for their own empowerment, while mediator responsibility is limited to the proper enactment of the mediation episode. The results of this study carry implications for research. Since the final test of mediation values is their successful enactment in face-to-face interaction, we need more critical studies of the patterns of discourse in actual cases. There are also implications for mediation practice: mediators can take more responsibility for the empowerment of disputants by learning constructive ways of working with disputant forms of life.

This case study encompasses the issues of cultural difference, moral orders, and the public and private accounts of the conflicted patterns of interaction that occur when differing, often incommensurable, ways of being human and living a life of dignity and honor are not rendered comparable. Instead, these ways of being in the world promote and privilege a type of "us and them" $\...$ "we're right and you're wrong" diatribe that (re)creates and increases the socio-cultural tensions on the island of St. Croix. The focus of this research was on the narratives about the patterns of interactions between "Locals" (Black/Crucian men and women) and "Expatriates" (White men and women); "Relief workers" (White/"Off-Islander" men) and "Islanders" (both "Locals" and "Expatriates"); and, most importantly, between "Local" (Black/Crucian) men and women and how these practices are associated with tourism and the racial/social/political tensions on the island. Narrative data obtained through field interviews with people who live on or are presently working on St. Croix were analyzed by interpreting the data in light of Pearce and Cronen's (1980) CMM conversational model of analysis. CMM helped me to look at the narratives about communication practices in which people (re)create, manage, and transform social reality and to interpret how these discursive practices (re)create problematic ways of living. CMM also provided a way of describing how some people where "stuck" in their conflict or were able to reframe their situation to break free from the conflict. This way of interpreting narrative data illuminated the dual and sometimes triple cultural patterns and associated lifestyles, social class, and relationships that the Black Crucian men and women have to make sense of in the living of their lives. Without CMM analysis of the data, the distinctions between the "us and them" relationships would not have been identified nor would the gender related issues of black Crucian men and women have been associated with tourism practices. Key findings are categorized into the following topic areas: (1) use of physical space, (2) "us and them" situations and the acculturation process of Black Male and Female Crucians, (3) tourism as a catalyst for change, and (4) the changes brought about by the devastation of Hurricane Hugo.

This study examined how communicative practices create a cultural "voice": who has it, how is it affirmed or disconfirmed and reified or not. Towards this end, notions of personhood as communicated within a "Cultural Center" were explored. Ethnography of communication (Carbaugh, Hymes, Philipsen) formed the basic theoretical and methodological foundation for this study. Data were collected at the Puerto Rican Cultural Center in Springfield, Massachusetts through participant-observation. This study is based on two cultural scenes, monthly board meetings and the 1994 Annual Dinner. The central questions addressed in this study were: how is personhood symbolized and lived at the Puerto Rican Cultural Center? What are the culture-specific meanings given to these symbols? What is the relationship between communication and personhood? The main analytic framework consisted of these terms: key symbols, person reference, norms, voice, communication event and cultural code. The principal findings from this study were that Puerto Ricans speak with the valued symbol, "community." The symbol "community" orients their world view such that talk makes sense within a symbol system that privileges voices of the community over individual voices. Communicative enactments of this perspective are many and varied. For example, person referring devices are used to locate persons in relation to others in the community by designating particular roles that people play. In addition, the way that some conversations are constructed highlight the cultural importance of community as when individual persons weave their personal threads of talk into a social fabric of collaboratively produced utterances. Persons are valorized by their participation in these cultural sequences of talk by using the significant symbols of "community" in the "proper" ways. This demonstrates how valorized members speak from the voice of the communal, rather than through an autonomous, individual voice.

This dissertation is an ethnographic exploration, and a cultural discourse analysis of the relationship between communication and culture. The study of cultural discourses as they are active in situated speech communities allows for the description and interpretation of the way members of a particular speech community come to make meaningful their symbolic worlds. The perspective adopted suggests that cultural identity and its enactment is locatable through rhetorical dimensions of communication (such as symbolic clusters and public forums for talk) and at the local level of particular speech communities (such as situated communicative acts) where participants, through communication, create and constitute what it means for them to be, act, and feel like a person. This study presents the symbols, forms and meanings of one particular cultural discourse and how this system constitutes culture in this scene. Specifically, the dissertation is organized to review the public discourse of the havurah movement; how one particular havurah (“our havurah”) constitutes a sense of what it means to be a member of this group; the appropriate ways for acting in that particular scene; the cultural premises of belief and value that are deeply meaningful throughout this havurah's communicative enactments; and the rules communicated throughout symbolic rituals. This study of cultural communication contributes to a growing body of literature that emphasizes the local, emic narrative that is active in a particular speech community and analyzes it through a systematic etic theory of cultural discourse.