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1. INTRODUCTION

Course presentation.

Overlaps: - Linguistics, Applied Linguistics- Pragmatics (the study of meaning in use)

- Discourse Analysis

- Conversation Analysis- Sociolinguistics

- Academic discourse practices (reflection on our own writing)

- Philosophy of language

What is communication?

Is there communication beyond language?

COMMUNICATION

Definition, Features, Forms

- Latin etymology: com = togethermunis = things

The etymology of the term suggests the very essence of the process: two people (sender and

receiver) put together send each other bits of information under the form of a message,

using a communication channel.

The component elements above make up the system of communication, whose effectiveness

is made possible due to the feedback. i.e. the way the information goes back from receiver to

sender, while the sender has the possibility to check the reception of the message by the

receiver.

Successful communication requires:

- understanding- at least 2 parties:

addresser addressee

sender - receiver

speaker - hearer (oral communication)

writer - reader (written communication)

Communication by means oflanguage = language used in meaningful contexts, making use

of correct grammar in a meaningful way to establish a natural communicative use of

language.

Communication among humans is more complex, as it is also expressed by means of

thoughts, feelings, intentions that get formulated explicitly in words or implicitly in gestures,

intonation etc.

The two participants in the process of communication change roles permanently. The

information flow functions both ways simultaneously, both participants using several

channels to transmit the messages.

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The message goes from sender to receiver, who, after perceiving the message, possibly sends

back an answer. The human communication system uses one or several common codes. The

sender encodes his message and expects the receiver to decode it. The receiver, in responding,

gives the initial sender a feedback according to which, the latter adjusts his following

messages so as to make himself understood and reach his purpose.

FORMS OF COMMUNICATION

The verbal communication uses the words of a language as code, which is the most elaborate

sign system used by the members of a society. The words (lexis) together with the operation

rules of a language (grammar) make up the verbal communication.

In verbal communication we talk about:

- linguistic competence = a persons ability to express his/her thoughts, intentions etc. inwords and to decode messages

- communicative competence = a persons ability to communicate efficiently by usinghis linguistic competence (e.g. a scientist with no communicative competence cannot

deliver his theory properly to the audience although he has linguistic competence)

The message in the verbal communication can be:

oral: dialogueconstructed with the receiver in mind written: - text = a stretch of language that holds together, has unity

of meaning and structure

- written dialogue

reciprocal: face-to-face conversationinteraction non-reciprocal: no interaction = communication is only one-way (e.g. a

novel by a dead author)

Usually speech is more reciprocal than writing, but not necessarily:

e.g. compare: a monarchs speech vs. a letter to a friend.

Task 1:Which discourses are reciprocal and which are rather non-reciprocal?

1. a TV news broadcast2. a church service3. a letter4. testimony in court5. Hamlet6. a chat with your neighbour7. a lecture8. an inaugural address by a Head of State

The messageat grammatical / structural levelcan be constructed in different ways:

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Look at the following sentences?

1. Mike repaired the TV-set.2. It was Mike who repaired the TV-set.3. What Mike did was repair the TV-set.4. The person who repaired the TV-set was Mike.5. The TV-set was repaired by Mike.6. Repairing the TV-set is what Mike did.

Is the information the same?

What is different?

Although the information in the above sentences is the same, the message in each sentence

has different communicative functions. Thats why different interpretations on the topic are

required.

This also takes into account the type of information:

Information structure (Halliday):

- given information = what the receiver knows- new information = what he doesnt know

The sender orders his message according to the hypothesis about what the receiver knows (his

given information).

e.g.

1. It is the CHILD who has broken the window. Given: X has broken the window

New: X = the child

2. It is the WINDOW that the child has broken. Given: the child has broken X

New: X = the window

3. The one who has broken the window

is the CHILD. Given: X has broken the window

New: X = the child

4. What the child has broken is the WINDOW. Given: the child has broken X

New: X = the window

5. The CHILD has broken the window. Given: X has broken the windowNew: X = the child

Task 2:Analyze the information structure in the example above (about Mike repairing the TV-set).

Conclusion: The information structurethis 2-part structure of clausesreveals the way the

sender has organized the information in his/her own mind to be received as he wishes to, for

the purpose of effective communication.

Note the senders wish to stress a certain part of the message, thus affecting

structural changes (grammarword-order).

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Task 3: Comment in terms of given vs. new information:

Archer, Jeffrey was born in 1940, and was educated at Wellington School and Oxford

University. In 1969 he became a Member of Parliament when he won the by-election. At 29,he was the youngest member of the House of Commons. He resigned from Parliament in 1974

because he had debts of over 427,000 pounds following the collapse of a Canadian company

in which he had invested.

In the same year he wrote his first novel, Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less,

which was based on his business experience. He has been writing ever since, and all six of his

novels have been best sellers. They have been translated into over 15 languages. His most

successful novel, Kane and Abel, has sold more than 4 million copies world-wide, and has

been made into television series.

After the success of his books, he decided to return to politics. From September 1985

to October 1986 he was Deputy Chairman of Conservative Party. He married his wife in

1966, and they live with their 2 children in Cambridge and London.

C.T.

2. Language in Communication

I Language Registers and Context

a) Language Registers

Definition: The name given to a variety of language distinguished according to its use

is called register.

Halliday: The concept of register is the concept of a variety of language, corresponding to a

variety of situations, i.e. a concept of the kind of variation in language that goes with variation

in the context of situation.

A register is a semantic concept.

Hallidays definition: a register is a configuration of meanings that are typically associated

with a particular situational configuration.

Since it is a configuration of meanings, a register must also include the expressions, the

lexico-grammatical and phonological features, that typically accompany or REALISE these

meanings. In this way we find that a particular register also has indexical features (= indices

in the form of particular words, particular grammatical signals, or even sometimes

phonological signals that have the function of indicating to the participants that this is the

register in question)

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E.g. Once upon a time - indexical feature that serves to signal the fact that we are now

embarking on a traditional tale

As language differs in different situations, it uses different registers in each particular

situation.

e.g.

a sports commentary

a church service

a school lesson

There are variations in the kinds of register, from something that is closed and limited to

something that is relatively free and open-ended. That is, there are certain registers in which

the total number of possible meanings is fixed and finite and may be quite small; whereas in

others, the range of the discourse is much less constrained.

Closed registers

e.g. those who were in the armed services during the Second World War were allowed to send

only a limited number of messages by cable. So there was no need for the message itself to be

transmitted; the only thing that was transmitted was a number. A particular message might betransmitted as 31, 67 meaning Happy birthday and please send DDT.

This kind of register is an extreme case, also referred to as restricted language (Firth). It is a

kind of register in which there is no scope for individuality, or for creativity. The range of

possible meanings is fixed. Even if most registers are no so restricted, some of themeven

familiar ones - are quite closed:

e.g.

the International Language of the Air (learned by pilots and navigators o international air

routes)

- many languages of games (bidding system in bridge)

More open registers

e.g. - the language of minor documents (tickets)- official forms (headlines, recipes, technical instructions, legal documents)

- the language of the classroom (when children pass from primary to secondary

school)

- the register of communication between doctor and patient

There are styles of meaning associated with these registers, which simply have to be learnt.

Medical students coming from overseas to English-speaking countries generally learn the

technical language easily; but when it comes to having to communicate with the patients, they

often have a great deal of difficulty, because this kind of register is not being taught in texts-

books.

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The most open-ended kind of register: the registers of informal narrative and spontaneous

conversationused in everyday interaction, when we are trying to persuade people or

entertain them or teach them etc.

Yet even these are never totally open-ended. Even the most informal spontaneous

conversation has its strategies and styles of meaning. We are never selecting with completefreedom from all the resources of our linguistic system. If we were, there would be no

communication; we understand each other only because we are able to make predictions,

subconscious guesses, about what the other person is going to say.

Hallidays distinction between Registers and dialects

They are two sorts of variety of language.

A dialect, or a dialectal variety, can be defined as a variety of language according to the user.

That is, a dialect is what you speak habitually, depending in principle on who you are; and

that means where you come from, either geographically in the case of regional dialects, or

socially in the case of social dialects. In the urban areas the dialect pattern is predominantly a

social one, so that dialect variation reflects the social order, in the particular sense of the

social structure.

A register we can define as a variety according to use. In other words, the register is what you

are speaking at the time, depending on what you are doing and the nature of the activity in

which the language is functioning.

Conclusions:

Whereas, in principle at least, any individual might go through life speaking only one dialect,

it is not possible to go through life using only one register.

Hence dialects are saying the same thing in different ways, whereas registers are saying

different things. So dialects tend to differ not in the meanings they express but in the

realizations of these meanings at other levelsin their grammar, in their vocabulary, in theirphonology, in their phonetics.

On the other hand, it is precisely in meaning that the registers are differentiated from each

other. Of course they must also differ in grammar and vocabulary (as they express the

meaning), but this is simply a consequence of the difference in semantic potential.

There are also differences between sentences bearing the same meaning:

Compare:

e.g. 1. apologies for absence were received2. was sorry he couldnt make it

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The 2 examples belong to different situations and are expressed in different contexts. Which?

The choice of items from the wrong register, and the mixing of items from different registers,

are among the most frequent mistakes made by non-native speakers of a language.

Crucial criteria for register identification are to be found in:

- its grammar

- its lexis (especially)

Some lexical items are enough by themselves to identify a certain register:

e.g. probe newspapers (esp. headlines)

tablespoon recipes, prescriptions

dentures dentistry

or scientific, technical terms (e.g. morphology can be from: - biology, or

- linguistics)

Task 1:Which inscription would be more suitable to be found on a toothpaste packet?

1. just right for cleaning false teeth2. ideal for cleansing artificial dentures

Conclusions:

- The language register is a matter of social integration as well (how people use language in

what context)

b) Context

Since communication is manifested in the presence of context, the literature offers various

context types, out of which we shall indicate the following ones:

1. The linguistic context or co-text as it is also called represents the determinacy of anutterance in relation with another. Look at the following example:

e.g. A: Has John bought sugar?

B:The box is full.

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The second utterance is determined by the first and acquires meaning only in relation to it.

Even if Bs reply is not an explicit answer to As question, A will infer that Bs answer means

Yes because B looked into the sugar box. Probably B also knows that John was supposed to

buy sugar.

2. The grammatical context is represented by the internal relations of language items

with each other at the level of form. That is we dont need to hear every sound distinctly

as the complex of sounds or words gathered together in a stretch of language will enable

some reasonable prediction on what a sound or a word is. The probability of words is

illustrated in this example:

e.g.I never met her before my life.

Mishearing the missing words above will not affect our understanding of the message.

This is because our grammatical competence easily allows for the recovery of the

auxiliary verb have in constructing the present perfect tense of the verb meet, as wellas the preposition in in the latter blank.

3. The physical context refers to the place, the setting where the act of communicationtakes place. Consider the following question asked by an addresser sitting next to his/ her

addressee in the last row in a large course room:

e.g. Can you see well?

The addressee will perfectly well understand that the question does not refer to his/ her

having ophthalmic problems, but to the environmental possibility of see the blackboard

from that place. At an ophthalmologists, the question would have been part of a me dical

examination.

4. The social context refers to the relationship between the persons involved in theact of communication. It is common sense that messages can be similar in content and

meaning but may differ very much in form according to who the interactants are to one

another. For instance, a dialogue about school assignments will be expressed in fairly

different manners if the participants in the dialogue are sister and brother or teacher and

student. That is why, for somebody only listening to such a conversation, it is quite useful

to know something about the relationship of the interlocutors to grasp the meaning of the

message.

5. The cognitive context has a twofold connotation. On the one hand it indicates thebackground knowledge of the participants in the act of communication, i.e. the

knowledge each of them relies on at the moment of communication. On the other hand,

there is the participants shared knowledge, referring to their common knowledge when

entering a conversation. It is obvious that people sharing a higher amount of knowledge

have better chance of communicating effectively.

6. The context of situation represents the situation which serves as a suitableenvironment for a given piece of language. More precisely, a communication act is

determined also by the situation in which it takes place.

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Tasks:

1. Discuss the advantages of context in the following circumstances:

- reading a badly transmitted fax- having a talk in a noisy place- a poor phone connection

2. Consider the following dialogue to comment on the different context types:

(from J.R. Firth in Widdowson, 1974, p. 100)

A: Do you think he will?

B: I dont know. He might.

A: I suppose he ought to, but perhaps he feels he cant.

C: Well, his brothers have. They perhaps think he neednt.

A: Perhaps eventually he may.B: I think he should, and I very much hope he will.

II. Correctness and Appropriacy

Correctness = a matter of effective communication = the process through which the hearer

(reader) understands precisely the speakers (writers) intention. So, both sender and receiver

should be able to handle language correctly, observe the conventions so that language should

be a means of social intercourse.

So, incorrectness = a matter of failure in communication of meaning, resulting from

ignorance or misuse of the conventions.

Conclusion: what is correct is not always appropriate (fitting in a certain context) and vice-

versa.

Because:

Constructing correct sentences = making a selection of lexical items recorded in a dictionary

combined with syntactic structures recorded in a grammar.

But the ability to develop correct sentences is unsatisfactory in communication, as there isalso need for a selection of (correct) sentences for the purpose of effective communication.

E.g. The rain destroyed the crops. - correct sentence, but

in context:

A: Could you tell me where the station is, please?

B: The rain destroyed the crops.

Bs sentence is correct but it doesnt serve for communication; B doesnt know English well,

so he is not able to communicate, because the answer is inappropriate.

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Or: e.g.

A: What did the rain do?

B: The crops were destroyed by the rain.

- better answer, proves understanding, but inappropriate because B gave a passive voiceanswer to an active voice question.

Appropriacy = a matter of selecting a sentence which will combine with the sentence used

for asking a question.

Newmark(1991): being appropriate is something different from being structurally correct

A student who has been taught only to be structurally competent in a foreign language cannot

communicate appropriately, so he does not know that the proper way to get his cigarette lit by

a stranger when he has no matches is to say one of the utterances:

Do you have a light? or

Got a match?and not one of the equally well-formed questions:

Do you have a fire? or

Do you have illumination? or

Are you a matchs owner?

Conclusions:

1. correctness appropriacy, but both are needed for effective communication;2. we should: - gain the ability of composing correct sentences (usage)

- acquire an understanding of which sentences, or parts of sentences

are appropriate in a particular context (use)

III. Usage (a) and use (b)

(a) involves the knowledge of the language system of Englishe.g. The rain destroyed the crops

- The cat sat on the mat.

- Poor John ran away.These are instances ofcorrectEnglish usage.

(b)This knowledge of a language system should be used to achieve some kind ofcommunicative purpose, i.e. to produce language use.

Chomsky called them:

(a) competence = the knowledge of abstract linguistic rules, which has to be put into

effect as behaviour, it has to be revealed through (b) performance.

Newmark (1991): There are rules of use without which the rules of grammar would be

useless.

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Hymes talks about communicative competence

In normal circumstances we need both usage and use (competence and performance).

IV. Aspects of meaning: signification and value

Look at the examples:

E.g. I.

- The rain.- The rain did.

Although the words alone have meaning, the sentences are meaningless.

But:

E.g. II.

- A: What destroyed the crops?- B: The rain. Or: B: The rain did.

Bs answers have meaning in relation to the sentence produced by A.

So, there are 2 kinds of meaning:

1) Sentences have meaning as instances of usage: they expresspropositions by combining words into structures in accordance with

grammatical rules

= SIGNIFICATION

2) The meaning that sentences and parts of sentences assume when theyare put to use for communication purposes

= VALUE

Conclusions:

- the e.g. I above have no signification as sentences, but they take on value when they occur in

the kind of context that was perceived for them earlier (e.g. II.)

- words and sentences meaningfully and grammatically combined and placed in a proper

context make communication possible.

Key terms in conclusion to II., III. And IV.:

The two components of effective communication:

(a) Structural: correctnessusagecompetencesignification

(structural competence)

(b)Communicational: appropriacyuseperformancevalue(communicative competence)

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