Communication Elements, Signs, Language Functions, and Study

Posted on Jan 23, 2025 in Language

Topic 1: Linguistics and Communication

Elements of Communication

  • Issuer: The person or persons who produce and broadcast the message with a specific intention.
  • Receiver: The receiver who receives the message and must understand and decipher it.
  • Message: The information that the sender sends the receiver and must be interpreted by the recipient in accordance with its meaning and communicative intent. Example: Pick up your room.
  • Referrer: The reality on which the message or concept is based that already has the speaker. Example: The idea of collecting and having the speaker’s room.
  • Canal: The physical medium for transmitting the message. Example: The air, in case of oral communication.
  • Code: The system of signs where the message is formulated and must be shared by sender and receiver for communication to occur. Examples: The Spanish language, Braille, Morse.
  • Communicative Situation: Circumstances are spatial, temporal, personal, and social in which communication occurs. Example: At school.

The Sign and its Types

  • Signifier: The part of the sign that the receiver perceives by his senses. Example: In a traffic signal, the image displayed on the panel.
  • Meaning: The concept or idea associated with the signifier, its semantic content. Example: Danger curve.
  • Referrer: The external reality to which the sign refers. Example: The danger referred to the signal.

Properties of Sign Language

  • Arbitrariness: Since there is no direct relationship between signifier and signified, linguistic levels must appear, which are created to target this indirect relationship.
  • Discontinuity: The linguistic sign is broken because it can target.
  • Linearity: Orderly succession of significant components.
  • Immutability and Mutability: The sign language is immutable because its shape and meaning are given to us but with time a series of changes alter the sign to an entire community and so the language evolves.

Language Functions

Function

Element

Communicative Intent

Referential or Representational

Reference

Convey information about reality. Example: Today is Thursday.

Expressive or Emotive

Emitter

Express feelings and opinions. Example: I feel terrible.

Appellate or Conative

Receiver

Recipient’s attention or influence their behavior. Example: Come here! Juan!

Poetic

Message

Create beauty and draw attention to the form of the message. Example: Autumn awaits me in the windows of this place.

Metalinguistic

Code

Treat language itself as a code. Example: The word book is a noun.

Phatic

Canal

Verify that the channel remains open. Establish, discontinue or terminate the communication. Example: Yes, yes, of course.

Levels of Language Study

Level

Under Study

Science

Phonic

Study the sounds, words or phonemes.

Phonetics

Morphologic

We study the internal structure of the word.

Morphology

Syntactic

It deals with the functions of words in the phrase.

Syntax

Semantic

The meaning of words and sentences.

Semantic

Types of Morphemes

Depending on the type of information they provide and the functions they perform, they are classified into two groups:

  • Lexical Morphemes or Lexemes: Have lexical meaning, the meaning comes in the dictionary that the speaker identifies with a mental reality. Examples: House, book, cat.
  • Grammatical Morphemes: Provide grammatical meaning, that is, referring to the language itself.
    • Free: Form a word by themselves. Examples: And, but, my, sunshine, man.
    • Locked: Attached to another morpheme appear as part of a word. Examples: Niñ-o, out-point-s.

Allomorph is called each of the variants of a morpheme.

Types of Grammatical Morphemes

In turn, grammatical morphemes are divided into:

  • Inflectional Morphemes: The units that report on gender and number, grade, time, manner, or appearance of lexemes. They are always located behind them. Example: Niñ-os (o indicating the masculine gender and s plural number).
  • Morphemes Derivatives: Are units, together with a lexeme, alter their meaning and generate new words into the dictionary.

Depending on their position within the word are distinguished:

  • Prefixes: Are placed in front of the stem. Examples: Super-market, pre-Flood.
  • Suffixes: Displayed behind the lexeme and can appear several. Examples: Cas-ucha, market-illo, girl, ote.
  • Interfixes: Are meaningless morphemes serving as a liaison between the lexeme and the suffix. Example: Pan-ec-illo.