Understanding Communication

September 11

U75100
Module tutor: Alon Lischinsky

Module overview
Goals of the module
To explore the different approaches to understanding communication (in contrast with a narrow vocational approach) To develop the skill to apply these approaches, but especially to learn to recognise what they are useful for, when they are appropriate, and what limitations they have Communication as social action in context Review and critique of more mechanical approaches Class participation exercise analytic and argumentative skills Sample analysis apply theories to describe an event Theoretical critique develop critical skills by explaining the limitations of an approach

Focus of the module

Assessment of the module

Session overview
Why bother with theory? Structure of the module
What you should learn What you should read What you should (and shouldn't) do

A first stab at defining communication A social history of the study of communication

Why bother with theory?

Because we cannot help it! The way we see the world and the way we act in it are always guided by our understanding of how it work that is, by our theories. We use words based on [] stories, theories, or models in our minds about what is normal or typical. [] They are simplified theories of the world that are meant to help people go on about the business of life when one is not allowed the time to think through and research everything before acting. (Gee 2011:69 70)

Why bother with theory? (cont'd)

Books and other resources that seek to be practical always have a theory behind, even if they do not spell it out or even have a clear idea of what it is. This makes it very difficult to assess whether they are right. Simple techniques and strategies for improving your communication skills are based on oversimplified theories that make many assumptions about the context in which you will use those skills. There is no single set of rules that will ensure effective communication in every case.

Why bother with theory? (cont'd)

Active verbs add more power and energy to your communication. State the doer of the action before the action is done. Add clarity to your sentence by using active verbs. Use passive voice only occasionally, for variety. Assign responsibility for action.

This advice is useless because there are many cases in which an active construction is less readable and clear:
The square root function is computed using the NewtonRaphson algorithm. Three extra bits of precision are used for intermediate calculations. The expenditures for shop machinery and tools increased 9,149,954.27, or 44.47%; this was caused by large additions of machinery. Imagine you met a woman and learned that she'd had a 35year-old brother who was lost at sea.

Why bother with theory? (cont'd)

Will these recommendations help you be a better communicator in all cases?

Why bother with theory? (cont'd)

Will these recommendations help you be a better communicator in all cases?

What you should learn

Goals of the module
To explore the different approaches to understanding communication (in contrast with a narrow vocational approach) To develop the skill to apply these approaches, but especially to learn to recognise what they are useful for, when they are appropriate, and what limitations they have Communication as social action in context Review and critique of more mechanical approaches Class participation exercise analytic and argumentative skills Sample analysis apply theories to describe an event Theoretical critique develop critical skills by explaining the limitations of an approach

Focus of the module

Assessment of the module

What you should read

The set text for the module is: DeVito, Joseph A. (2009). Human Communication: the Basic Course. 11Th ed. Boston: Pearson. The intention is not to follow a textbook, but to provide material for in-class discussion and critique. You are required to complete the assigned readings before every session. Additional readings will be assigned on a weekly basis.

What you should do

There are three elements to the assessment of this module
Participation in class, through discussion of the assigned readings and group exercises. A group mid-term assignment, in which you will make a systematic and rigorous description of the social context of a communicative event. A final essay, in which you will apply the critical skills learned in class to provide a reasoned evaluation of one section of DeVito (2009)

Plan your work well in advance; 12 weeks go by quickly, and you will need time to do research and write

Now it's your turn

Are you able to write a simple definition of communication? What does someone who works in communication (whether applied or research) actually do?

A social history of the study of communication

Communication is a very recent discipline.
The first departments of communication were established in the 20th century only; contrast with law or medicine, which have been formally studied since 1200!

For most of history, interest in the problems and questions that we now recognise as part of communications was spread out across many different fields of study.
Communication problems exist only when constructed as such, when human problems are understood as problems of communication or from a communication perspectivea perspective in which perspectives differ and human problems characteristically involve difficulties of understanding and cooperation, of mediation between different perspectives. (Craig 2003)

A social history of the study of communication

Communication was not salient as a topic for various reasons:
Low contact with different cultures: very few people travelled, and it was unusual to need to communicate with someone from a different background. Little social differentiation: most people rarely interacted with institutions having a distinct vocabulary and specific genres. Low literacy: most people never found themselves in the position of needing to understand texts written in a different context, let alone needing to discriminate between genres and text types.

A social history of the study of communication

Compare with the many different genres, speakers, audiences and settings you encounter in a modern city!

Peter Barr CC-BY-SA-2.0

A social history of the study of communication

Communication was studied by:
Rhetoricians and logicians, who were interested in techniques of persuasion and demonstration, especially in spoken debate. Grammarians, who were interested in the structural rules for composing sentences, especially in learned language. Literary theorists, who were interested in the structure of the poetic and dramatic genres. Theologians, who were interested in determining the correct interpretation of holy books and theological writings.

Pre-modern communication theory was motivated by interests that were fundamentally unlike our own.

A social history of the study of communication

This situation changed abruptly in the mid-19th century due to:
Developments in transport and the growth of cities, which increased the diversity of communicative situations with which people were faced. The rise of literacy and the development of compulsory education, which facilitated access to different genres and, indirectly, to different cultures. The appearance of affordable media, which led to the diversification of genres and to the mass consumption of news, music, film, etc. Developments in the natural and social sciences that allowed a more precise and nuanced analysis of the communication process.

It became evident that many important social issues involved communication, which led to the first attempts to synthesise what we know about it.

A social history of the study of communication

Issues raised by the appearance of the mass media:
The mass media could reach large numbers of people, and governments and corporations sought to exploit this by designing messages to influence them: propaganda, advertising, public relations, etc., but also awareness campaigns and public warnings. It became important to ascertain what the mass public thought about certain matters, and surveys and polling instruments were designed to make this possible. The mass media became the main source of information and entertainment for many people, which led to worries about their control by political or economic elites because of the influence they had gained.

A social history of the study of communication

Issues raised by the diversification of society and the rise of literacy:
It became necessary for people to learn to adapt to different social and institutional environments, and therefore develop a number of different communicative roles. The need to interact with people from different backgrounds made it necessary for people to learn to recognise different communicative styles, and to negotiate a shared understanding even in the face cultural differences. The widespread consumption to texts and media produced in different contexts led to a growing recognition that readers play an active role in making sense of communication.

A social history of the study of communication

Issues raised by the need for theoretical synthesis:
Ideas, theories and methods were adapted from very different disciplines: experimental methods from psychology, survey methods from sociology, analytic methods from rhetoric, linguistics, semiotics, hermeneutics. Most of these notions required significant adaptation and reevaluation, because they had been designed for very different contexts. The importance of communication for political and economic interests led to a proliferation of applied subdisciplines (public relations, journalism, marketing, etc.) that do not always keep in synch with theoretical developments, because their users operate under restrictive practical constraints.

Before our next session

Complement the summary given in class by reading Chapter 10 of Griffin (2006) Read Chapter 1 of DeVito (2009).
Can you identify this work with any of Griffin's traditions? Think of what we have discussed about theories and ideas being related to their social context. What kind of context does DeVito's book fit in? What interests, skills and prior knowledge does it assume in its reader?

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Study of Language Two persepcitves in linguistics: Formal approach / Functional approach LANGUAGE FORMs LANGUAGE in USE.
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Formal (focus on from) formal/ rule based

Designation of sentence as grammatical or ungrammatical central to the construction of a larger theory about the nature of language and human mind.

Functional:
Focus on meaning / language as a communicative resource. The rhetorical function as a mode of action

Bodleian Library
Trivium: Grammar, logic and rhetoric Quadrivium: arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy.

Formal Linguistics: Syntax

Cameron pledges action on economy Pledges economy action Cameron on* Economy Cameron action on pledges* Economy pledges action on Cameron (?) what is the finite rule system which generates all and only the grammatical sentences in a language? Focus on syntax not meaning (semantics) Colourless green ideas sleep furiously . Chomsky: Competence / Performance Competence: Idealisation of Language. ideal speaker-listener, ideal speech community, ideal knowledge of language Performance - language in use errors, mistakes

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Colourless green ideas sleep furiously

governs in the structure [] where, 1. =X 2. Where is a maximal projection, dominates iff dominates

Semiotic Perspective: Meaning, Realisations, Context

A text

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Questions we could ask

What is a text? What do we need to account for to understand the text? Where is the meaning situated? In the colour? The combination of colours? The way it is packaged? The context you see it in? the cultural context? the mind of the receiver?

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Meanings in Language: de Saussure

1. Langue / parole: idealised system .v. language in use
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1. Paradigms / Syntagms 1. Signs: signifier / signified 1. Meaning difference/ relationships

If language can be understood in this way - meaning arising from the difference between units - so can other cultural systems

A system of choices: Paradigms and Syntagms

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Paradigmatic choices : He is a terrorist/ freedom fighter Syntagmatic choices : John hit Jane; Jane hit John; John was hit by Jane
Collocation: heavy drinker, a handsome .

Signs: Signified and Signifier

TCA

CAT

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signifier

signified

Big Cats

How much is that cat?

They were really catty..

Icons and meaning

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Ferdinand de Saussure sign, signifier, signified

SOUND / IMAGE (signifier) Dog Horse Tree
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CONCEPT (signified) Four-legged, tail-wagging, animal that barks Four-legged, tail-swishing, animal that neighs Has a trunk, and branches

According to Saussure, the linguistic sign unites not a thing and a name but a sound/ image (signifier) and a concept (signified). Both psychological constructs.

Where is the sense?

Saussure: relational conception of meaning specifically differential language = a system of functional differences and oppositions.
Cold/ Hot Man/woman Skinny/ thin/ slim Body (legs, head, feet ..) Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday life/death

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Consider the complexity of coming to understand the concept of the weekend for a 4 year old. How might they deal with this? What other sets of constructs would they need to know in order to be able to distinguish weekend from say holiday.

System of functional differences

What we find, instead of ideas being given in advance, are values emanating from a linguistic system. If we say that these values correspond to certain concepts, it must be understood that the concepts in question are purely differential. That is to say they are concepts defined not positively, in terms of their content, but negatively by contrast with other items in the same system. What characterizes each most exactly is being whatever the others are not
(De Saussure, Course in General Linguistics)

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Arbitariness of significaiton
The arbitary nature of the signified and signifier Language is a socially agreed set of such pairings.
They are conventional - dependent on social and cultural conventions.
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The Saussurean model, with its emphasis on internal structures within a sign system, can be seen as supporting the notion that language does not 'reflect' reality but rather construes it.

Are the traffic signals used with their conventional meanings?

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What are the meanings in this case and what do you need to know to work out the meanings?

Language as a Social Semiotic - critique of Saussure Denotation and Connotation literal .v. associative meanings Langue / parole: idealised system .v. language in use
Focus on Langue: leads to a view of the sign as transparent and stable. Does not consider how signs are used for social purposes. BUT Sign systems have social histories they are produced and used by people at given times, in given places for certain purposes. They are not neutral.
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Social Semiotic: stresses how people design and interpret

meanings, the study of texts, and the study of how semiotic systems are shaped by social interests and ideologies, and how they are adapted as society changes (Hodge and Kress, 1988).

JABBERWOCKY
Lewis Carroll
(Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, 1872)
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`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe

Levels of Description
Lexis:
Morphemes: toves slithy Word knowledge / shape: brillig

Syntax: - (Syntagym and Paradigm) the . (+ noun group) Did . (+ verb) Genre and Register:
Fantasy poem Picture

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Cultural Context Knowledge of Lewis Caroll / nonsense poems

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Meanings - Realisations in Texts / Contexts

1. Are these labels individual texts or many texts? Identify the parts of the text 1. What is the communicative purpose of the text / parts of the text? 2. Who is the intended audience - one or many? 3. What in the language, the pictures, the layout allows you to answer questions 2 and 3? 4. Consider the language used and comment on the use of
Styles: technical, formal/ informal, legal, marketing Abbreviated text / symbols: Made in China, Brand names, Icons In the continuous text : Subjects of clauses (he went to london) Pronouns (I, you, it, we etc) Verbs - describe a process (play) or state (is)

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Language in Use: dialectic between context and text

Language has a magical property: when we speak or write, we design what we have to say to fit the situation in which we are communicating. But, at the same time, how we speak or write creates that very situation. It seems, then, that we fit our language to a situation that our language, in turn, helps to create in the first place.
(Gee 2005)

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Language as a Social Semiotic

Key site for the creation and communication of meanings is texts. These are created and understood in the wider social context.
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Language, Meaning and Context of Use are not separate. (Halliday

1994)

Studying language as a social semiotic asks:

How people use language to make meanings and how language itself is organized to enable those meanings to be made

References and Further reading

Follow up Reading Online Texts to read on Brookes Virtual (Week 1 folder) Graddol (1994) Chapter 1 The Nature of Language Web based Semiotics for beginners at: http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/sem02.html References Crystal, D. (2003). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press De Saussure, F. (1857-1913) (1983) Course in General Linguistics, Charles Bally & Albert Sechehaye (eds.), trans. Roy Harris. London: Duckworth Gee J.P. (2005) An Introduction to Discourse Analysis London: Routledg
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