Basic Definitions Flashcards
Communication (theoretical perspective)
The process of sending and receiving messages that serve to transmit information between persons or groups. When someone successfully transmits a message that is understood by someone else, communication has occured.
Communication involves:
- Sender (encodes a message)
- Receiver (decodes the message)
- context
Communication (Linguistic perspective)
A rule-based mental system of language codes for expressing thoughts, feelings and ideas.
Code
A system of rules for arranging arbitrary symbols in an orderly, predictable manner that allows anyone who also knows the code to interpret the meaning.
Systematic (re: language code)
The regularities exhibited by speakers of a language that make occurrences in the language predictable. (Orderly and organised, predictable for users).
Conventional (re: language code)
Shared by the many senders and receivers in a cultural group (or the sender and receiver in an exchange).
Convention (re: language code) def-
The notion that language must be based on shared, customary, or implicitly agreed-on patterns of behaviour.
Symbol
Something (ie the word ‘chair’) which stands for (represents) something else without bearing physical resemblance to it.
Arbitrary (in communication)
Symbols bear no resemblance to their referents
What are the symbols of language used to stand for all the things talked about (objects, events, ideas, relationships..)
Words
When gestural signs used in sign languages and figures used in pictorial languages resemble the referent, they are said to be….?
Iconic
Onomatopoeia
Words that mimic the sounds associated with the objects or events they represent (ie zip, splash, buzz, sizzle)
communicative competence
The ability of speakers to adjust their messages to effectively influence their listeners
Which 2 requirements must communicative competence satisfy?
a) The speakers behaviour must relate to the topic or situation
b) the speaker’s behaviour must have a practical effect on the listener’s behaviour
As effective communicators, our language behaviour must be accepted and understood by the listener/s and have the desired effect on their subsequent behaviour. True or false?
True. (changed behaviour may only mean that the listeners indicate that they have understood our meaning, not that they agree with it).
{What if they understand our meaning but don’t indicate that to us?}
The essence of communicative competence is truly effective communication, incl. the ability to modify the grammatical forms, underlying meanings, intentional force, and the delivery style best suited to the intended message. All of these components as well as….
…facial expressions, gestures, and tone of voice, must be properly managed to achieve the speaker’s overall goal - to effect changes in the listener’s behaviour.
Agenda (re: communication)
The speaker’s overall goal, including the steps that proceed toward that goal.
Human communication can be broken down into which 2 broad levels?
- Verbal communication - use of words as symbols to exchange ideas. Considered linguistic because it usually involves use of language systems in arranging and ordering words.
- Nonverbal - Conveys ideas, thoughts or feelings through other behaviours
Verbal communication
The use of symbols (ie words), whether spoken, written or gestured by a speaker to express ideas
Nonverbal communication
Conveying attitudes or ideas through gesture, facial expression, proxemics, without the use of words (no spoken, written or gestured words)
Examples of nonverbal communication
*Facial expressions *Head movements (ie nodding) *Eye contact (averting, rolling) *Body language (crossed arms etc) *Gestures (beckoning etc) *Proxemics (up close, distant)
Examples of verbal communication (when words communicate ideas with or without other behaviours)
- Linguistic Aspects (when words are transmitted via
a) Oral-Auditory (Spoken language)
b) Visual-graphic - Written language (graphemes)
- Gestural language (Auslan, Signing Exact English)
- Pictographic language (ie Blissymbols, Rebus symbols)
Examples of extralinguistic aspects of verbal communication (when additional aspects influence meanings):
- Paralinguistic code
or suprasegmental features (when production features are superimposed to affect meaning)
ie a) in Spoken language - intonation, stress, rate, rhythm, prosody
b)in Written Language (size, bold, underlining, punctuation)
c)n Gestural language (speed, effort, dimensions of movements - Nonlinguistic Cues (when nonverbal behaviours provice clues to clarify meanings
+ Facial expressions + Eyecontact + Body language + Gestures + Proxemics
How many different spoken languages in the world?
Approximately 3,000
Oral contracts and written contracts are both verbal. True or false?
True. Verbal communication = Oral-Auditory (spoken) & Visual-Graphic (Written, Gestural, Pictographic)
Non-verbal features such as facial expression, force of gesture are examples of what in Auslan?
Nonverbal communication
Use of capitals, underlining or italics are examples of what, in written communication?
Nonverbal communication
re: Verbal communication. What are Linguistic Aspects?
The dimensions of grammar, semantics, and pragmatics relating to the structure, meaning and use of language.
What are the extralinguistic aspects of communication?
The nonlinguistic elements of communication (gestures, intonation, etc) that supplement or alter the message expressed by the words and phrases.
These are nonverbal features of communication that typically accompany the oral production of language and serve to modify, amplify, or fine-tune the actual meanings being expressed linguistically. They might convey attitudes, feelings or roles that accompany the actual words of a message.
Extralinguistic aspects of communication
Paralinguistic codes and nonlinguistic cues are types of what?
Nonverbal extralinguistic aspects of communication
Stress, rhythm and intonation are examples of what?
Paralinguistic codes
The melodic components of speech production that modify the meaning of the spoken message as it is produced are called what?
Paralinguistic codes
The melody of speech produced by stress, rate, rhythm and intonation is called, what?
Prosody
What is another term for prosodic features of speech, because they are superimposed on utterance segments (words and phrases)?
Suprasegmental devices
What can modify the overall meaning of an utterance, or signal the attitude or intention of the speaker. ie rising intonation means a question, sarcastic tone
Paralinguistic codes (or suprasegmental devices)
These are non speech behaviours that accompany the speakers words and transmit certain cues through facial expressions, eye contact, gestures, body language or proxemics.
Nonlinguistic cues
What is Proxemics?
The study of the use of proximity, closeness or interpersonal space in communication.
What are the 4 regions of proximity?
- Intimate
- Personal
- Social
- Public
Speech can be separated into 3 basic components. What are they?
- Articulation
- Voice
- Fluency (or rhythm)
What is Articulation?
The production of speech sounds through physical movement of the Jaw, tongue, lips and velum to change the size and shape of the vocal tract. The process of articulation produces the different sounds that we hear as the V and C of speech.
What is ‘voice’?
Includes:
- Phonation (vibration of vocal folds to produce sound. Carries the physical characteristics of Frequency and Intensity)
- Resonation (Modification of vocal tone in vocal tract. Incl. nasal {lowed velum} or non nasal {sealed off nasal cavity due to raised velum} resonance.
- Fluency (rhythm, rate and flow of speech)
List (broadly) parts of the vocal tract involved in resonance:
- Pharynx
- oral cavity
- nasal cavity
List moving parts involved in articulation:
- Jaw
- tongue
- lips
- velum
What is speech?
The dynamic production of sounds in the human vocal tract for verbal communication
Phonology
The study of sound systems of languages
Phone
Individual production of a speech sound in a word. Notated within square brackets [ ]
Phoneme
Groups or families of sounds that are related by their acoustic similarities. Notated within forward slashes / /
Transcribing phones we use IPA and diacritics to capture acoustic features of each sound. This is written in square brackets. What kind of transcription?
Narrow transcription
When listeners hear classes of acoustically similar sounds as one sound, because the difference are not significant in their language.
Categorical Perception
Allophone
Phones that exhibit some differences but that are heard as one phoneme speakers of the language.
Distinctive Feature
When a particular feature that changes in a phone, changes the phoneme understood by the listener, that feature is a
Distinctive Feature. ie +/- voice is a distinctive feature for /g/ /k/ but +/-
aspiration doesn’t change /k/ to a different phoneme.
The individual acoustic or articulatory characteristics that distinguish one class of phonemes from the other
Distinctive Feature
The system of arbitrary verbal symbols that speakers put in order according to a conventional code to communicate ideas and feelings or to influence the behaviour of others.
Language
