Communication and Language. Introduction to language and communication What is communication?...
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Transcript of Communication and Language. Introduction to language and communication What is communication?...
Introduction to language and communication
• What is communication?– transmission of information– evoking understanding, meaning– maintaining social contact
• What is language?– a system of human communication using words
A conversation
• A: ‘What’s your name boy?’
• B: ‘Dr. Poussaint. I’m a physician’
• A: ‘What’s your first name, boy’
• B: ‘Alvin’
Functions of communication (2)
AddresserEmotive
AddresseeConative
Context - Referential
Message - Poetic
Contact - Phatic
Code - Metalingual
Types of interview
• Advice bureaux• At the bank• Tourism and travel
services• Opinion polls• Telephone interviews
– Selling– Surveys
• Parent - teacher
• Mass media interviews• Job interviews• Counselling • Police• Welfare services• Clinical interviews• Research interviews
Class exercise - a short informal interview about “Being a good
communicator”• Divide into pairs
• Allocate role - interviewer / interviewee
• Plan the questions you will ask
• Conduct the interview and take note of answers
• Review conclusions
• Reverse roles and repeat
The interview as conversation
• Opening - Establishing rapport– Cognitive, social and emotional factors
• Topic• Development - maintaining attention• Closing• Attitudes - empathy, sympathy & judgement• Ethics
– Interviewer credentials– Anonymity and confidentiality– Records– Truth - content and purpose
‘True Conversation’
• A conversation is a process of two people understanding each other. ….each opens himself to the other person, truly accepts his point of view as worthy of consideration and gets inside the other to such an extent that he understands not a particular individual but what he says.
• (Gadamer, 1975)
Interview structure
• Define topic• Question formats
– Open-ended, multiple choice, ranking, probing– Bias, ambiguity, style of language
• Leading questions– Source of bias, or test the limits
• Question response sequence• Dealing with emotion• Prejudice
Qualitative research interviews
• Topic: Everyday lived life world
• Interpret meaning of central themes
• Qualitative
• Open nuanced description
• Specific situations and action sequences (not general opinions)
• Deliberate naivité
• Focused - neither structured nor non-directive
• Ambiguity
• Change and insight
• Interviewer sensitivity
• Interpersonal interaction
• Positive experience
Quality criteria for an interview
• Extent of spontaneous, rich specific and relevant answers
• The shorter the interviewer’s questions and longer the respondents answers the better
• Degree to which interviewer follows up, clarifies meanings of answers
• The ideal interview is to a large extent interpreted throughout the interview
• The interviewer attempts to verify his interpretations of S’s answers in the interview
• Interview is ‘self-communicating’ - story contained in itself not needing extra description and elaboration
Hamlet’s interview with PoloniusAct III Scene 2
H: Do you see yonder cloud that’s almost in shape of a camel?
P: By th’ mass, and ‘tis like a camel indeed
H: Methinks it is like a weasel
P: It is back’d like a weasel
H: Or like a whale?
P: Very like a whale
H: (aside) They fool me to the top of my bent
Interpretation• Unreliable technique? - leading questions, different
answers about clouds• Trustworthiness of Polonius - reliable, thrice checked
answers. Indirect interview. Speaks for itself before aside• Power relations at a royal court. Courtier can be made to
say anything, or ‘play up to’ the prince?• Part of a theme of the play - questioning reality, motives of
others, frail nature of reality, pervasive doubt about the appearance of the world
• Ethics - deception, no informed consent, but survival, life or death
Qualification criteria for the interviewer
• Knowledgeable• Structuring• Clear• Gentle / permissive• Sensitive
• Open• Steering• Critical• Remembering• Interpreting
Class exercise
• How far did your interview match up to these criteria?
• What were the problems?• How could you overcome these problems?• What were your findings?• What credibility do they have?• What can you say about this
communication sequence?
5 approaches to language and communication
• Language as a formal system of grammar
• Language as the processing of information
• Communication as understanding
• Language as use
• Communication as a social skill
Language as a formal system
• Structural complexity of language• Rules of grammar, esp. syntax• Universal competence underlies
performance• Acquisition through biological maturation
not learning• Key texts:
– Pinker
Language as the processing of information
• Empirical experimental approach
• Information processing system
• Generic cognitive processes
• Sophisticated computational models
• Increasing attention to neurophysiology
• Key texts– Harley, Forrester
Communication as understanding
• Founded on semiotics - theory of signs
• Role of reader/listener paramount in analysing signs
• Meaning is a cultural production
• Discourse and narrative
• Key texts:– Forrester, Fiske, Bignell, Barthes
Language as use
• Shared understanding - common ground
• Co-operation and joint action
• Intentionality of participants is central
• Roles, relationships and social action
• Key text:– Clark