TEMA 3: El proceso de comunicación. La lengua en uso.

La negociación del significado

Contents:

1. INTRODUCTION
2. THE COMMUNICATION PROCESS
2.1. Definition
2.2. Signs
2.3. Factors that take part in the communication process
3. FUNCTIONS OF LANGUAGE
4. LANGUAGE IN USE
5. MEANING
5.1. Austin and Searle: Locutionary, Illocutionary and Perlocutionary acts
5.2. Felicity conditions
5.3. Displaced meanings
6. DIDACTIC APPLICATION
7. CONCLUSION
8. BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. INTRODUCTION

The concept of communication has become essential in the teaching and learning of second
languages. New teaching approaches neglect traditional methods based con memorising
grammar rules and translating texts. The focus now is on communication, namely, using the
language with specific purposes. This paper will try to fully explain what communication is.

2. THE COMMUCATION PROCESS

2.1. Definition

Communication is the act in which somebody establishes contact with somebody else or with a
group to transmit information. There is always a purpose and takes place in discourse and
socio-cultural contexts. It has a high degree of unpredictability and creativity and involves
authentic material. It is carried out under psychological and other conditions such as memory
fatigue, or distraction. An example of communication can be something as simple as a baby
crying for food.

However, communication can be judged as successful or not depending on the outcome, for
example the utterance “how go to train?” will be perceived as successful if the speaker finally
gets to the train station.

Above all, communication makes possible the good working of al societies, animal and human
ones.
 2.2. Signs

For communicating we need a code, or group of signs that follow certain rules to combine
among themselves. A sign is a material object that represents another object and is used to
give some information about the represented object. In the example: ‘your father is waiting for
you’, we get information about a person and what he is doing.

Saussure was the first linguist to talk about signs. Every sign, both linguistic and non-linguistic
has a significant and a meaning. For example, ‘table’ has a significant, the phonic and graphic
substance that forms the word; and a meaning: a piece of furniture consisting of top and legs
with a flat surface.

The relation between sign and meaning is arbitrary, there is no relation between them and
that is why we say ‘table’ differently in different languages (mesa, Tisch).

Pierce, a North-American linguist, called ‘Semiotics’ to the discipline that studies signs.
Linguistics is only a branch of Semiotics, since there are linguistic signs, tactile codes (language
for deaf), Braille system (for blind), kinesics (study of gestures and visual code) and smells (the
most important signs for animal communication).

According to Pierce, there are three different groups of signs:

Icons: similarities with the object they represent: a portrait, onomatopoeias, maps.
Indications: some relation with the object they represent: smoke  fire
Symbols: no similarities or relations: Spanish flag

Sometimes it is not easy to identify, for example, the cross is both an indication, (relation to
the death of Christ), but is also a symbol of Catholicism.

Languages consist of interrelated signs (morphemes, words) that are part of a semiological
system too.

2.3. Factors that take part in the communication process

There are six basic factors that take part in the communication process:

The first one is the code, which must be known by all the participants. These participants are
the encoder or transmitter (the one who sends the message) and the decoder or receiver (the
one who receives the message who can be a person, animal, machine, etc.)

The message or information transmitted. This information can be transmitted in a unilateral

way, with no immediate answer from the decoder or in a bilateral way through reciprocal
communication, das in a discussion, conversation, etc.

The communication channel changes if the message is sent by sound, image, touch, smell or
taste.

The last factor is the situation or context which contributes to the understanding of the
message, for example the ring of a bell can mean that a class is finished or that there is
someone at the door.
Malinowsky developed the concept of context and differentiated the context of culture from
the context of situation. The context of culture is the sociocultural situation a person in
involved whereas the context of situation is divided into three concepts:

Field: the total event (including the purpose)

Mode: Function of the text (including the channel)

Tenor: Participants (who they are, their relationship)

A context of situation would be, for example a classroom in which the field would be the
language they are studying (how to give personal information), the tenor would be the teacher
and students and the mode the language of narration, for example present simple, question
structure, vocabulary and the channel both oral and written.

To sum up, the factors that take part in the communicative process are:

Message

Encoder Channel Decoder

Code

Context

3. FUNCTIONS OF LANGUAGE

According to Jakobson there are six language functions.

-Emotive or expressive: it expresses the speaker’s feelings, for example swear words,
interjections, expressions of fear.

-Ideational or Referential: communicates objective facts: “Classes begin on Monday”.

-Conative function: attract the hearer’s attention “Give me a coin, please”.

-Phatic or social function: maintains rapport among people and usually do not have factual
content. Greetings, “Bless your”.

-Metalinguistic function: language inside language “Big is a frequently used adjective”.

-Poetic or aesthetic function: literary texts.

It is not always easy to identify the main function of an utterance: in the example ‘Be careful’
we find referential function, somebody is warning about a potential danger; expressive
function, there is fear on the speaker’s side; and conative, it is attracting the listener’s
attention.
However, there are more functions of language:

-Sense of identity: chanting of a crowd at a football match.

-Performative function: used to control a matter of the reality a matter represents, for example
the words in a religious ceremony.

-Recording the facts: used to display organisation and explicitness. It guarantees knowledge for
future generations, for example historical records.

-Thinking aloud: not trying to communicate, just, for example, making mathematical
calculations in a loud voice.

Halliday grouped all these functions in three:

-Ideational function: organises the encoder’s views of the world (expressive, thinking aloud)

-Interpersonal function: establishes social relationships (conative, phatic, performative)

-Textual function: creates texts with coherence and fits particular situations (sense of identity,
recording facts, metalinguistic).

4. LANGUAGE IN USE

To achieve communication we need a meaningful communicative behaviour, to know how

language works in real use. Saussure made a difference between langage, langue and parole,
identifying langage as the faculty of speech present in all human beings, langue as the
language system and parole as the act of speaking.

The language system studies language in a social context, the act of speaking studies the
individual side of the language, including phonation and both langue and parole reciprocally
joined.

Language is necessary for the act of speaking to be understandable and the act of speaking is
necessary to establish language. Historically the act of speaking comes first and makes
language develop.

Later Chomsky made a similar distinction. He divided competence and performance, being
competence the users’ knowledge of abstract rules and performance the users putting this
knowledge into effect. At present, more aspects have been added to explain the concept of
language in use as :

-Appropriacy: participants know what language they have to use in a given situation.

-Frequency: how often something is said, for example “ascend”=”climb”, but you would not
say ‘John ascended the hill’.

-Practicability: native speakers know when something is possible in a language, for example no
one would say 15 adjectives before a noun.
The Theory of Communicative Competence defends that it is necessary to know grammar,
discourse, strategic and socio-cultural competence in order to be able to use language
properly in communicative situations and it answers questions such as ‘Why do we use
language? Why and how do we communicate?’ Its answer is that some events act as stimuli for
the speech and communication happens as a response to the stimulus. For example a speaker
and listener are late, Hurry up!  The response can be either verbal or non-verbal.

The process of communication has taken place successfully as the two participants in the
process have used the system to communicate meaningfully and appropriately. Animals also
use stimulus-response sequence of communication, only without linguistic response.

5. MEANING
5.1. Austin and Searle:

One aspect of the language in use that we have not discussed yet is meaning. Austin and
Searle were two linguists who developed the theory of speech acts and their meaning. They
identified the differences between:

Locutionary act: words

Illocutionary act: what the words do (recommend, command, etc)

Perlocutionary act: response (if any)

According to them, there are five types of illocutionary acts:

1. Representative: the speaker is telling the truth trying to convince the listener: mean,
deny, describe...
2. Directive: the speaker wants the hearer to DO something: ask, request, command.
3. Comissive: the speaker says something about future and tries to fulfil it: promise, offer,
threaten.
4. Expressive: convey an attitude: thank, welcome, apologise
5. Declarative: the speaker asserts an external status (Institutions): excommunicate,
marry, baptise.

5.2. Felicity contidions

There must be Felicity Conditions so that the meaning of illocutionary act is correct:

-Words perform a concrete type of act. If it is declarative, then it is not comissive.

-The person who performs the act must be the right one “You are fired” only makes sense if
the speaker is the boss.

-The act must be done in a correct manner: ‘Nice to meet you!’ cannot be said in an
unpleasant mood.
-The procedure must be complete: I bet you that...the bet must be accepted.

5.3. Displaced meanings

However, there are some problems related with meaning. We usually paraphrase or
approximate when we try to express meaning. Sometimes it is easy but sometimes it is
complicated, especially with abstract concepts. In general we take felicity conditions for
granted but context is essential, especially taking connotative meaning into account.

We can find Displaced or Figurative meaning

A. Mrs Green is a very old mean lady.

B. Yes, the weather has been great recently  ‘Be careful. She’s just behind you’

Meaning depends on the situation in which the speaker utters or performs an act, and on the
response this act calls for. If the participants accept all these conditions, meaning will be clear
and communication will be successful.

6. DIDACTIC APPLICATION

The beginning of communicative Approach starts with Chomsky’s idea that speakers have a
subconscious knowledge of language. The theory of learning developed to design activities
that involve real communication through meaningful tasks. There were two types of activities:
functional communicative activities such as problem solving, or finding similarities in pictures;
and social interaction activities such as simulations, discussions or debates.

Jespersen developed a system based on notional functional categories which brought new
approaches: task- based learning and student centred learning, focused on the learner’s needs,
aims and motivations.

Any communicative activity has a desire to communicate with a specific purpose and an
emphasis on content is favoured, not con form. There is no control over materials or variety of
language and the teachers’ role is twofold. Teachers have to both facilitate communication
and present materials and be involved in the group dynamics.

The teacher is a linguist analyst, organiser of resources and a guide for students. On the other
hand, students have to interact with one another as well as with the teacher.

7. CONCLUSION

The process of language is a complicated one. Many linguists have studied it describing its
different factors to achieve the current concepts we have. In a nutshell, communication is
based on its actors, the signs they use and the agreements on meaning between them.

8. BIBLIOGRAPHY

Chomsky, N. Reflections on language, New York: Pantheon Books, 1975

Halliday, M.A.K. Spoken and Written Language, Geelong: Deaking University Press, 1976
Crystal, D. The Cambridge Enclyclopaedia of Language, Cambridge; CUP, 1987