Elements of Communication and Language

Posted on Oct 13, 2024 in Language

Communication Act: The process of conveying information between a sender and receiver, establishing contact. It involves the following elements:

• Issuer (Sender): The person who transmits the information. They perform the encoding process, selecting and combining signs to express their intended message.
• Receiver: The person to whom the message is addressed. They decode the message by interpreting the received signs.
• Message: The information content transmitted by the sender.
• Code: The system of signs and rules understood by both sender and receiver.
• Channel: The medium through which the connection between sender and receiver is established, enabling message transmission.
• Context: The linguistic and extralinguistic (situational, physical) environment surrounding the communication, which can aid comprehension.

Functions of Language:

• Expressive: Conveys the sender’s feelings and attitudes (e.g., “Oh, what pain I feel!”).
• Appellative (Conative): Aims to influence the receiver’s behavior (e.g., “Stop and listen”).
• Representative (Referential): Conveys information about the world (e.g., “Peter is my cousin”).
• Phatic: Maintains the communication channel open (e.g., small talk).
• Metalinguistic: Uses language to discuss language itself (e.g., “‘Key’ is a feminine noun”).
• Poetic (Aesthetic): Focuses on the message’s form and artistic qualities, often using literary devices.

Language vs. Speech vs. Dialect:

• Language: The human capacity for communication.
• Tongue/Language: A specific system of signs used by a linguistic community.
• Speech: An individual’s use of language to convey a message.
• Dialect: A regional or social variety of a language with distinct features (pronunciation, vocabulary) that don’t compromise mutual understanding.

Signs in Communication: Elements representing another reality.

• Evidence (Indices): Natural phenomena interpreted as signs (e.g., fever).
• Icons: Signs resembling the element they represent (e.g., restroom symbols).
• Symbols: Arbitrary signs with conventionally established meanings (e.g., national flags).

Linguistic Sign: The mental connection between a signifier and a signified.

• Signifier: The form of the sign (e.g., the sound or written form of a word).
• Signified: The concept or idea associated with the signifier.

Features of Linguistic Signs:

• Arbitrariness: The relationship between signifier and signified is conventional.
• Immovable for the Speaker: Speakers generally cannot change established linguistic signs.
• Mutable Over Time: Linguistic signs and their meanings can change over time.
• Linearity: Linguistic elements are arranged sequentially.
• Articulation: Linguistic signs are composed of smaller units (phonemes, morphemes).

Referent: The extralinguistic element (person, object, event) to which a linguistic sign refers.

Double Articulation:

• Monemes (Morphemes): Minimal units of meaning.
• Phonemes: Meaningless sound units that combine to form morphemes.

Word Formation:

• Simple Words: Consist of a single morpheme (e.g., “cat”).
• Compound Words: Formed by combining two or more morphemes (e.g., “blackbird”).
• Derivatives: Formed by adding affixes to a root word (e.g., “happiness”).
• Parasyntetic Words: Formed by simultaneous compounding and derivation (e.g., “embolden”).

Acronyms: Formed from the initial letters of words (e.g., UFO).

Denotation and Connotation:

• Denotation: The literal meaning of a word.
• Connotation: The associated meanings and nuances of a word.

Semantic Relations:

• Synonyms: Words with similar meanings (e.g., teacher/instructor).
• Polysemous Words: Words with multiple related meanings (e.g., “head”).
• Antonyms: Words with opposite meanings (e.g., expensive/cheap).

Semantic Field and Lexical Family:

• Semantic Field: A group of words related by meaning.
• Lexical Family: Words sharing the same root morpheme (e.g., “water,” “watery,” “underwater”).

Sentence: The smallest unit of meaningful communication.

Sentence Structure:

• Simple Sentence: Contains one independent clause (e.g., “Irene left early.”).
• Compound Sentence: Contains two or more independent clauses (e.g., “Irene arrived late, but she didn’t miss the meeting.”).

Types of Predicates:

• Copulative: Uses linking verbs (e.g., “be,” “seem”) to connect the subject to a predicate adjective or noun.
• Predicative: Sentences with copulative verbs.
• Transitive: Requires a direct object (e.g., “Roberto baked a cake.”).
• Intransitive: Does not require a direct object (e.g., “Marc walks.”).
• Active: The subject performs the action (e.g., “Beatrice changed the tire.”).
• Passive: The subject receives the action (e.g., “The tire was changed by Beatrice.”).
• Reflexive: The subject performs and receives the action (e.g., “She dressed herself.”).
• Reciprocal: Multiple subjects perform and receive the action mutually (e.g., “They hugged each other.”).

Subject-Verb Agreement: Subject and verb must agree in number and person.

Syntagma (Phrase): A group of words functioning as a syntactic unit. Types: noun phrase, verb phrase, adjective phrase, adverb phrase, prepositional phrase.

Noun Gender:

• Common Gender: Gender determined by articles or adjectives (e.g., “athlete”).
• Epicene: Single form for both genders (e.g., “eagle”).
• Ambiguous: Can be either gender without changing meaning (e.g., “sugar”).

Noun Classes (by Structure):

• Simple: Single morpheme (e.g., “glass”).
• Compound: Two or more morphemes (e.g., “midnight”).
• Derivatives: Formed with derivational morphemes (e.g., “sailor”).
• Parasyntetic: Compound and derived (e.g., “tinker”).
• Acronyms: Formed from initial letters (e.g., UFO).

Noun Classes (by Reality):

• Proper: Names specific individuals or entities (e.g., “Paris”).
• Common: Names general classes of things (e.g., “city”).

Adjectives:

• Specific: Provides essential information about the noun.
• Explanatory: Adds descriptive detail but is not essential.

Determiners: Specify the noun’s reference (e.g., articles, demonstratives, possessives, quantifiers).

Pronouns: Replace nouns.

• Deictic: Refer to something outside the discourse (e.g., “this,” “that”).
• Anaphoric: Refer to something previously mentioned.
• Cataphoric: Refer to something mentioned later.

Verb: Expresses actions, processes, or states.

Verbal Morphology:

• Person and Number: Indicate who is performing the action.
• Tense: Indicates when the action occurs.
• Mood: Indicates the speaker’s attitude towards the action.
• Aspect: Indicates the action’s completion or duration.
• Voice: Indicates whether the subject performs or receives the action.

Verb Types:

• Lexical (Main): Carry meaning.
• Auxiliary: Help form tenses and moods (e.g., “have,” “be”).
• Copulative: Link subject and attribute.
• Regular: Follow standard conjugation patterns.
• Irregular: Deviate from standard conjugation patterns.

Verbal Periphrasis: A construction with two verbs, one conjugated and one in a non-finite form (e.g., “going to eat”).