Charting a Research Agenda for Relational Dialectics Theory: Forwarding Critical Theorizing in Interpersonal and Family Communication Research

Abstract

ABSTRACT In 2011, Leslie Baxter published Voicing Relationships: A Dialogic Perspective, updating the 1996 articulation of relational dialectics theory (RDT). Baxter provided clarity on concepts introduced 15 years prior. Organized around RDT’s central premise – that the meaning of phenomena transpires in the moment through struggles of competing discourses – Baxter positioned RDT within the critical postmodern project. Since then, RDT research has proliferated, but no systematic assessment of its theoretical characteristics has transpired. We conducted a prescriptive review of the first decade of research following the 2011 volume. We first identified sources citing Baxter’s (2011) volume (n = 505), ultimately narrowing to studies using RDT with its companion method, contrapuntal analysis (n = 55). We then coded for six constructs (genre, utterance, utterance chain location, speaker, addressee, and semantic object). This article presents our selection criteria and processes of review, findings, and research agenda based on our review.