Lesson 3 : Communication and Language Flashcards
Outlining communication and Language
- 3 Levels of language struture
- Applications to communication researh
- As usual apply ideas to case (Like Hyla domestic violence at the dermatologist case)
What is language?
- A system of communication made of signs
- It can be oral (conversational), visual sign language), or written (texts)
- Signs are conventional and arbirary
- The structure of language is varied: flexible, constitutive, enables complex thinking, self reflective
Functions of Language
3 levels of language: Semantic, Syntactic and Pragmatic
- Introducing order
- Conveying information
- Expressing emotion
- Making contact
- Asserting individual and social identities
- Exerting power
- Managing communication
Word meanings:
Denotative and connotative meaning, example given: ‘ She sat on the chair ‘: ‘The chair started the meeting by inviting agenda items’: CONTEXT MATTERS - 2 different meanings to chair
What connotations can ‘migrant’ and ‘refugee’ have in these headlines (common newspapers)
Migrant has negatively associated connotations, army shows the semantic domain of war and a need for protection by these ‘negative migrants’
Language and Power
We use language to reate social realities: Berger and Luckmann 1966/91
Sapir-Whorf hypothesis: language detrmines the ways in which we think (Whorf 1940)
Critical studies of communication: how meanings reflect and reproduce relationships of power (Fairlough, 1989)
Some groups can be silencedand disadvantaged through diminished ability to mainstream discourse
‘Terrorists are always Muslim’
- Corbin (2017) documents how the word terrorist is associated with Muslims in the media (could use content analysis), and political discourse in the USA - a link to religion is established
- White perpetrators of terror attacks are not labelled as terrorists - links to mental health (IE: AMERICAN SCHOOL SHOOTERS)
- Or the storming of the Capitol Building
Semantic Change and social struggle
- Oppressed groups can reappropriate a word that has previously been used against them in a derogatory way
- Cripple/ crip?
Social Identity and relationships:
Jackson (2016) studied a phone call between 2 friends (15y/o) and their conversation mentions explicitly kissing but only alludes to sexual relations- it is seen as a relationship as friends who are beginning to manage sexual relations (alone but talk about it together) / they also implicitly present themselves as morally respectable
’ And we kissed’ - ‘Aww was it good’ : and ‘I sort of did stuff to him’ - ‘tsch tsch Mary’ : showing disdain
