Interpersonal communication can be defined broadly as "communicating between persons." As Arthur Bochner (1989, p. 336) points out, though, that definition can be made more specific:

The anchor points [for a narrower and more rigorous conceptualization] are: 1) at least two communicators; intentionally orienting toward each other; 2) as both subject and object; 3) whose actions embody each other's perspectives both toward self and toward other. In an interpersonal episode, then, each communicator is both a knower and an object of knowledge, a tactician and a target of another's tactics, an attributer and an object of attribution, a codifier and a code to be deciphered.

In attempting to apply this narrower definition to research in interpersonal communication published in a leading communication journal (i.e., Human Communication Research), Glenn Stamp (1999) found that very few articles met all of the definition's rigid criteria. The definition embodies particular perspectives regarding the character of...