Cultural Codes: Essential Flashcards
Accent
A way of pronouncing words that indicates the place of origin or social
background of the speaker.
Appearance
The way somebody or something looks or seems to other people: an outward aspect of somebody or something that creates a particular impression.
Bodily Adornment
All the ways in which ‘furnish’ and decorate the body (clothing,
jewellery, make-up, tattooing etc).
Dialect
A type of language use specific to a particular area within a country.
Facial Expression
The use of the face as an expressive instrument of communication.
Feedback
The response received by the sender to a message.
Gesture
A movement made with a part of the body in order to express meaning, emotion or to communicate an instruction.
Group
A collection of individuals.
Group Cohesion
The tendency of a group to remain intact.
Groupthink
A feature of groups whereby individual performance is inhibited by the priorities of the group as a whole.
Ideal Self
The kind of person we would like to be.
Idiolect (idiosyncratic dialect)
An individual’s personal language register, it
encompasses all our experiences and knowledge of language. The idiolect consists
not only of vocabulary but also of the conventions of performance: all our words in all
the forms, contexts and with all the differing emphasis we have given to them.
Interaction
Communication between or joint activity involving two or more people.
Kinesics
Body movement such as gesture, facial expression, posture, head nodding, orientation (where you put your self in relation to others): the study of the way meanings are communicated by bodily movement.
Language
An abstract system of communication using words and sentences to convey meaning.
Non-verbal Communication
All communication other than that involving words and language.
Non-verbal Leakage
When messages ‘slip out’ in spite of our attempts to control them.
Paralanguage
Consists of the non-verbal elements that accompany speech. It
includes the way we speak (also known as prosodic features); volume; pitch;
intonation; speed of delivery; articulation; rhythm; the sounds we make other than
language; laughter; crying; lip smacking; yawning; sighing; screeching; coughing;
filled pauses such as ‘Mmmm’, ‘Ahhh’, Errr’, Ummm; unfilled pauses.
Persona
An adopted form of the self/identity.
Perception
The process of making sense of sensory data.
Personal Style
The specific features of our individual communication.
Posture
The way we sit, stand and hold our bodies.
Proxemics
The study of how we use space and distance including seating arrangements, queuing and territoriality.
Proximity
The ways in which the space around us creates meanings for ourselves and others.
Role
A part we play.
Role Model
A person whose behaviour, persona and/or appearance provide an influential model for others to follow.
School of Thought
A set of beliefs or ideas held by a group of academics; a shared way of thinking about a particular issue.
Self-concept
The idea we have of ourselves as individuals.
Self Disclosure
The act of revealing ourselves, consciously or otherwise.
Self Esteem
A measure of our own self worth.
Self-fulfilling Prophecy
Refers to how our belief that something is true can cause it
to be so. For example, if we believe we are confident, we act as if we are confident,
and so become confident.
Self Image
The view we have of ourselves.
Self Presentation
The conscious process through which self becomes text.
Verbal Communication
Communicating with words and language (as opposed to images, actions or behaviour).
