Chapter 4 Vocab

Question 1

Arbitrary

Answer 1

Random or not constrained by necessity. Symbols are arbitrary because there is no necessary reason for a particular symbol to stand for a particular referent.

Question 2

Ambiguous

Answer 2

Subject to multiple meanings. Symbols are ambiguous because their meanings vary from person to person and context to context.

Question 3

Communication rules

Answer 3

Shared understandings of what communication means and what behaviors are appropriate in various situations.

Question 4

Abstract

Answer 4

Removed from concrete reality. Symbols are abstract because they are inferences and generalizations abstracted from a total reality.

Question 5

Regulative rules

Answer 5

Communication rules that regulate interaction by specifying when, how, where, and with whom to talk about certain things.

Question 6

Constitutive rules

Answer 6

Rules that define what communication means by specifying how certain communicative acts are to be counted.

Question 7

Linguistic determinism

Answer 7

The theory that language determines what we can perceive and think. This theory has been largely discredited, although the less strong claim that language shapes thought is widely accepted.

Question 8

Punctuation

Answer 8

Defines the beginning and ending of interaction or interaction episodes. Punctuation is subjective.

Question 9

Totalizing

Answer 9

Responding to a person as if one aspect of his or her life were the totality of the person.

Question 10

Hate speech

Answer 10

Language that dehumanizes others and that reflects and often motivates hostility toward the target of the speech.

Question 11

Loaded language

Answer 11

An extreme form of evaluative language that relies on words that strongly slant perceptions and thus meanings.

Question 12

Speech community

Answer 12

A group of people who share norms, regulative rules, and constitutive rules for communicating and interpreting the communication of others.

Question 13

I language

Answer 13

Language in which one takes personal responsibility for feelings with words that own the feelings and do not project responsibility for the feelings onto others.

Question 14

You language

Answer 14

Language that projects responsibility for one’s own feelings or actions onto other people. Not recommended for interpersonal communication.

Question 15

Static evaluation

Answer 15

Assessments that suggest that something is unchanging. “Bob is impatient” is a static evaluation.

Question 16

Indexing

Answer 16

A technique of linking our evaluations of speech and events to specific times or circumstances, to remind ourselves that evaluations are not static or unchanging.