TOPIC 1.

LANGUAGE AS A MEANS OF
COMMUNICATION
 What is Language?
• What comes to your mind when you hear the term ‘language’?

• To use language is to use a rule-governed communication system to represent one’s thoughts

and feelings to members of one’s community who share one’s language (Valli,2000).

• But what exactly we mean when we say ‘we use language to Communicate?

• Are communication and language synonymous?

• Communication and language are different but strongly related.
Let’s dive deep into the concept of
communication to understand the
interrelation between language and
communication…
• “Communication” Comes from the Latin
word communicare, which means
✔ “to share” or
✔ “to be in relation with”.

• Defined as ‘The imparting of information’.

(Webster's, 2001).
 Understanding Communication: A three-way approach

• Based on the concept of ‘Transmit, Share and Create’.

1. Claude Shannon & Warren Weaver’s Linear, one-way
model-

A process of transmitting information. (ex: telegraph, radio, etc)

2. Dean Barnlund’s Transactional model-

A process of achieving shared meaning among individuals.

3. Robert Craig’s Constitutive model/ approach-

A process of meaning creation (ex: social reality).

 Understanding the
Process of Communication
• Communication Process involves Transmission and

interchange of ideas, facts, feeling, or courses of action.

• ‘How well we communicate is determined not by how

well we say things, but how well we are understood’ –

Andrew Grove

• It depends on the level of experience, intelligence,

knowledge and purpose of the sender and the receiver.

 Factors of Communication
• Addresser/Sender/Speaker: The person who delivers a message to a specific audience.

• Addressee/ Receiver/Listener: The audience that receives the message.

• Context: The setting or the reason for the message that is being communicated.

• Contact: A relational channel and connection between the addresser and the addressee, which

keeps the lines of communication open.

• Common code: The rules that combine to form the message and correspond to the type of

language used by both speaker and listener.

• Message: Information sent by the addresser and corresponds to an experience, idea,

explanation, and so on.

Communication- Encoding, Transfer, and Media

• Successful communication requires a recipient who understands your message.

• Unsuccessful communication requires a message that reached its target but was not understood.

• A message sent but not received by the target is a "failed communication."

• A signal is communicative if it is intended by the sender to make the receiver aware of something

of which he was not previously aware.

• A signal is informative if regardless of the intentions of the sender, it makes the receiver aware of

something of which he was not previously aware.

Communication Cycle
1. Message – The speaker decides the nature of the content.

2. Encoding- Speaker encodes the message.

3. Selection of appropriate Tool – speaker uses words, actions, signs, objects

or a combination of these.

4. Selection of appropriate Channels – selection of media of

communication – face-to-face, on paper or through electronic or digital media

such as the Internet.

5. Decoding – Listener receives the message, decodes it and acts on it.

6. Noise cancellation – External or internal noise can affect the decoding process of the

communication. It refers to inappropriate or unexpected information that gets transmitted

along with the message that leads to breakdown or interference in the communication.

7. Total Feedback – The transmission of the Listener’s response to the sender is called

feedback, measures the effectiveness of communication.

⮚ Communication cycle is complete only when there is a response from the recipient of the

message.
Roman Jacobson’s
Communicative Functions of Language
• Roman Jakobson’s Theory of Communication (1960)

• Looks at what needs to be present in the process of linguistic communication,

beyond the simple relationship of sending and receiving information.

• Six elements or factors take part in the communication process and lead to six

different communicative functions of language.

• Each function focuses on and interacts with one factor of the communication

process.
 1) The Referential/ Informative Function:

• Use of language specifically to describe a situation or an object in an objective manner.

• Corresponds to the factor of context.

• The primary goal of the communication becomes provision of factual and objective data.

• Characteristics that aid in identifying the referential function include:

⮚ Use of factual and descriptive language.

⮚ Focus on conveying information, often devoid of emotional bias.

⮚ Reliance on clear, unambiguous statements.

• For example: Sales are up by 3% this year.

 2) The Conative/Vocative/Imperative Function:
• Use of language to get the attention of or a reaction from the addressee.

• This function focuses directly on the receiver of the message.

• Characteristics that help identify the conative function include:

⮚ Use of imperatives and vocatives to command or address the listener directly.

⮚ Employing persuasive language or rhetoric to motivate a specific action.

⮚ Focus on engaging the audience and provoking a response.

• For example:

• Can you show John where to find the paper clips?

• Discuss this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrlmT1OiIKE
 3) The Emotive/Expressive/Affective Function:

• Use of language specifically to express emotions, feelings, desires, and moods of the subject.

• Corresponds to the speaker as it gives us direct information about the sender’s internal state.

• Communication driven by this function is characterized by:

⮚ Emotionally charged vocabulary and phrasing.

⮚ Use of first-person pronouns to emphasize personal perspective.

⮚ Conveying the speaker's attitudes and emotions toward the topic.

⮚ Watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vL2S2WnWT7Y

• For example:

• Interjections and other such sounds changes that do not alter the denotative

meaning of an utterance but do add information about the Addresser's (speaker’s)

personal attitude, e.g. "Wow, what a view!"

• exclamations,

• Swear words,

• Words of admiration,

• Gratitude words
Activity: Identify the overt and covert
communicative functions used in these.
 4) The Phatic Function:

• Corresponds to the factor of Contact.

• Focus: the connection between the sender and receiver.

• Use of language to establish a social connection without really communicating any

semantically impactful unit of information (only for the sake of interaction).

• Key features that indicate the phatic function include:

⮚ Use of conventional greetings, pleasantries etc.

⮚ Less emphasis on conveying meaningful information and more on maintaining

communication channels.

⮚ Fostering a sense of connection and rapport between communicators.

• For example:

• Greetings,

• “How are you?”,

• “I’m fine.”,

• “See you later.”

• ‘”hmm”

• Let’s go for lunch sometime. (When not immediately followed by a specific invitation.)
5) The Poetic / Aesthetic Function:
• Poetic function focuses on the message for the sake of the message itself as well
as on the way it is communicated.

• Language is used with the purpose of aesthetics.

• Key characteristics that distinguish the poetic function include:

⮚ Use of figurative language, such as metaphors, similes, and imagery.

⮚ Employing rhythm, rhyme, and other auditory devices to enhance the auditory
appeal of language.

⮚ Encouraging interpretation, symbolism, and multiple layers of meaning.

• For example: The operative function in poetry, slogans.

• Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.

• She sells seashells by the seashore.

• “Peter is a rock”.

• It attends more to the signifiers in linguistic signs than the signified by superimposing similarity on

contiguity.

• “The music is sad”, or “This poem is sad”.

• Here, similarity between linguistic units in a continuous text is exploited to display a perceptual

quality that has a structural resemblance to human emotions.

 6.) The Metalingual/ Reflexive Function:
• Meta is defined as ‘self-awareness’/ ‘self-referential’.

• Metalingual function refers to the use of language to talk about the language itself.

• —its features, word definitions, clarifying ambiguity, and describing deliberate

wordplay.

• Characteristics include:

⮚ Use of definitions, explanations, and clarifications regarding linguistic terms.

⮚ Discussing the meaning or usage of words and expressions.

⮚ Analyzing language structure, syntax, or semantics within the conversation.

• For example: The words that rhyme are those in which last syllable has a similar

ending.

• The metalingual function is also relevant in translation if foreign words are used to

give special meaning or to bring emphasis.

• I couldn’t help but feel a touch of Schadenfreude when the other team lost by 50

points.

• /ˈʃɑːd(ə)nˌfrɔɪdə/ - from German- A sense of pleasure or joy from the failure of

others.
 RELATIONS BETWEEN FUNCTIONS
• When relations between functions are studied, most analyses are limited to establishing a

hierarchy.

• Two kinds of correlations can exist between two functions.

• The correlation is said to be inverse or indirect, if;

(1) An intensification of one is accompanied by a decline in the other, and vice versa.

• Example; The expressive and conative functions and the referential and poetic functions.

• 'It was and it was not’.

• The correlation is said to be converse, or direct, if;

(1) An intensification of one causes an intensification of the other, and

(2) A decline in one function causes a decline in the other.

• Generally, when one function is accentuated, it tends to diminish the importance of all the others,

and the opposite happens when the function is deemphasized or downplayed.

• Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana.

• Capitalism is a scam,

my grandma’s name is pam,

do you like chipped ham?

Topic.2.
Features of Professional Communication
• Watch this video and express your
views on this:

http://surl.li/vtzzcy
 Types of Communication

• Linguistic Communication
• Conveying information with the use of verbal / linguistic elements.

• Paralinguistic Communication
• Use of linguistic but non-verbal elements of communication (speech) to modify
meaning and convey emotion. Ex: pitch, tone, volume, speech rate, and pauses,
etc.

• Non-linguistic Communication
• Conveys information without the use of language . Ex: body language, gestures, etc.
Features of Professional Communication

● Accuracy (Vocabulary),
● Fluency (Speed),
● Effectiveness (Non-verbal Communication)