The Heritage of K. Marx and the Study of Speech Communication

Karl Marx's conceptions of lang & interpersonal communication are examined & their relevance to contemporary linguistic studies is assessed. Marx's adaption of G. Hegel's idealistic notions of dialectics to social & material phenomena resulted in a treatment of linguistic communication as one of the manifestations of social interaction & action in general. The relationship between human action & communication as treated in the Marxist conception of lang & society is discussed & the process of transformation from the abstract to the concrete is investigated. Human action was the genetic & functional source of communication which determined its form & content. Marx's categorial paradigm: action-communication-social relations, his concept of form transmutation, & his emphasis on the dialectics of form & content & the abstract-to-concrete evolution should become the methodological framework for a descriptively & explanatorily adequate investigation of speech communication. 32 References. Z. Dubiel