ESSENTIALS OF COMMUNICATION

Lecture 3
Essentials of communication comprise constitutive
elements and psychophysiological processes that
permit people :
 to become involved in information exchange;
 to identify their place in contact with others in a
certain situation;
 to be capable of satisfying one’s own and others’
needs.
 Constitutive elements of communication
are parts of human information exchange that make
communication possible and have their restricted
roles in it.
Participants (the speaker & Communication result (the
the addressee) feedback)

Stages of an idea (the source The obstacles interfering

idea, the code, the message) with it (the noise)

Medium & circumstances of

communication (the
channel, the context)
The speaker is a person speaking at a certain
moment of time in communication process to
transmit information.

The addressee is a person who listens to the

speaker.

The speaker as the information source is

connected with speech generation process, the
addressee as a receiver deals with speech
perception.
The speaker and the addressee are connected
with 2 language functions:
emotive & conative

Emotive function focuses on the speaker and

expresses his attitude to the content of the
message by means of emphatic speech and
interjections.

Conative function regulates addressee’s

behaviour and is expressed by vocatives and
direct address.
The source idea is an external stimulus for
the speaker to formulate any thought. It may
be influenced by different objects, phenomena,
people.

The message is a piece of information that

will be communicated. It is based on the
source idea and is bound to the poetic
language function .

Poetic (aesthetic) function shows

concentration of the speaker on the message
itself. Focusing on his words the speaker
wants to adorn them by tropes, make them
sound more attractive for the addressee.
The code is a message form. As the speaker
encodes the message (chooses a form for it)
the addressee decodes it (recognizes,
interprets it on the ground of his own
experience). Natural language is one of the
codes of communication.

The code is connected with metalinguistic

function that explains the way of using a
particular code in a communicative situation
or text.
The channel is the medium of communication
between the speaker and the addressee (a
paper note, email letter).
Types of
channels

Vocal Haptic
Visual
(water
(textual)
marks)
Occulasic
Gustato Kinetic
(eye
-ry (bodily
behaviour
) movement)
Olfactic
(perceived
by smell)
The channel is connected with phatic
language function that helps to establish
contact.

Phatic function grounds the idea of phatic

communion – the way of expressing sociability
and avoiding hostility.
Conversational formulas for phatic communion:
‘how are you?’, ‘good morning’, ‘would you like
some tea?’, etc.
The context is a setting of communicative
situation, including time and place, the
number of participants, the matter discussed,
official or unofficial style of communication.

The context is connected with referential

language function emphasising that
communication always refers to something in
the world.
The feedback is a signal that the message is
understood by the addressee. The addressee
makes up a reply, becoming the speaker.

The noise is a semantic, physical, or other

obstruction that distorts the message.

The noise causes communicative entropy –

difficulty in understanding. Entropy realises
as communicative failures (misfires) which are
classified in accordance with the noise.
 The speaker
 The addressee
 The source idea
 The message
 The code
 The channel
 The context
 The feedback
 The noise
Emotive function Conative function Poetic function
Metalinguistic func-n Phatic function Referential function
 Speech generation and perception
Speech generation is producing speech by a
person orally or in writing and characterised
by his purpose.
Speech generation process may be represented
as a sequence of language levels:
• denotation as the act of referring to world
objects and phenomena;
• designation as the act of their indication and
specification;
• verbalisation as the act of expressing
designated objects and phenomena by
language signs (words, sentences, texts, etc.)
 Speech perception is understanding what
others are saying.
The addressee should be a good listener to be
successful in interpretation. Listening is
concentration on hearing smth.
Types of listening:
 for pleasure (listening to music);

 thoughtful (to remember) (listening at a

lecture).
 critical (to verify, to see whether to accept)

 empathic (to feel the emotions and the

experience of the speaker).