Theories of Human Communication

I read an earlier edition of this book when I was a graudate student. I now recommend this book to any of my own students wanting a concise overview of the many different theories of communication. There is no better book for this purpose.

Dr. Littlejohn does a masterful job of describing the various theories in human communication. The book is divided into manageable segments which place the theorists into understandable blocks. Before introducing the various theories, however, he discusses the nature of academic inquiry and what theory building is all about.His various categories of theories include: general theories, thematic theories, and contextual theories. A person familiar with the writers in these various categories will find this book easy to follow, however beginning students need to be prepared to spend a little extra time with some of this material as it can be challenging when you're exposed to it initially.