Verbal Communication

Verbal CommunicationLECTURE

There were these three menThe first man walked into a bar

The second man walked into a barThe third man didn’t

He ducked!

Focus Questions

• What are the differences between grammatical language and talk in everyday use?

• What frames your understanding of talk and gives it meaning?

• What values are hidden in the speech you use?• How does everyday talk use relationships to frame

meanings?• How do different types of talk work, and how do they

connect to relationships?• What is talk style and how does it frame meaning?

Understanding Meanings

• Relationships frame the meaning of talk– Langue – formal, grammatically structured

language use– Parole – informal, everyday use of talk (includes

familiarity, context, and cultural assumptions)

Understanding Meanings

• What do we call what’s happening in this next clip?

Polysemy

• Multiple meanings for the same symbol• A feature of all communication• Meanings are constantly changing, creating

ambiguity and uncertainty• Frames give “clues” to meaning

Language Creates Frames

• Naming– Arbitrary– Natural– Makes crucial distinctions– Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis• We can only know what we can name.

Language Creates Frames

• Naming

Language Creates Frames

• Naming

• DEUTSCHER, G. (2010). Through the language glass: why the world looks different in other languages. New York, Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt and Co.

Types of Verbal Meanings

• Denotative – use of talk to identify or define objects

• Connotative – use of talk to establish and understand the implications and deeper meanings of words

Intentionality Frame

• Intentionality – the belief that messages indicate a sender’s purposeful intentions

• Relationships help us understand intentions based on our personal knowledge of others

Words and Values

• Words carry evaluations and present our values to others– God terms – powerful terms that are viewed

positively– Devil terms – powerful terms that are viewed

negatively

Functions of Talk in Relationships

• Instrumental – to make something happen; reveals a goal

• Indexical – to indicate something about the relationship; content and relational elements– Hypertext – coded messages

• Essential – to create the ‘reality’ of the relationship– immediacy– Politeness– Face wants

Ways of Speaking

• High-code and low-code• Speech style– Delivering content about the topic– Presenting yourself as a particular sort of person– Indexing a particular sort of relationship

• Accommodation– Convergence – moves toward others– Divergence – moves away from others

Narratives

• Organized story that has a plot, an argument or a theme

• Homo narrans – human as storyteller• Use elaborate frames to argue an identity of

the storyteller and the relationship between the teller and the listener

• Report events and offer justifications for “right action”

Burke’s Pentad