How we communicate and interact within ever-evolving communities and societies is central to the study and practice of speech communication. These relations are deepened in time, engendered across contexts, and accomplished via multiple modes and means. While they can be smooth, easy, and generative of ties that bind and commitments that endure, they can also be tough, rough, and productive of either lasting or short-term tensions or conflicts. 

 

To understand how we come together, communicate, and engage in all sorts of activities is at once a rich and enriching undertaking. After all, whether done by an individual or produced by a public, these communications and convergences almost always demand delicate, dedicated work. We have to constantly shape our language, consistently maintain our relations, painstakingly clarify our terms of engagement, diligently condition our communicative contexts, and persistently strive for mutual understanding.

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In this path-setting collaboration, the Department of Speech Communication and Theatre Arts (DSCTA) of UP Diliman and the Department of Humanities (DHum) of UP Los Baños join forces in mobilizing theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches from speech communication and other allied disciplines to better comprehend human relationships that take form and gain ground in a variety of social, political, expressive, and creative environments. Riding on the success of the 2023 Speech Communication Conference: Freedoms of Speech in Asia, the DSCTA and the DHum explore the changing configurations of communication in the present-day Philippines that significantly affect how Filipinos speak, behave in the company of others, forge partnerships or relationships, and negotiate with diverse publics.

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