Human Language: Characteristics and Theories
Sounds: Set of Articulated Language to Express What Men Feel and Think
Characteristic: It is a human, not exclusively instinctive, means used to communicate ideas, thoughts, emotions, and desires. It is produced by the organs of speech.
Language
Combination of words or ways of speaking of a people or nation.
- Character: Language is the language of a people.
- It is a list of words.
- It is a system.
Joint call units consisting of words representing ideas and thoughts.
Speech
Joint faculty of speaking, uttering a word to make oneself understood.
Features: Individual is that we use language, speech, or language. Private, personal, and concrete.
Theories of Language Origin
Interfectional Theory
Language originated in expressions of joy or other strong emotions.
Onomatopoeia Theory
Language originated from the imitation of nature sounds, such as rain, wind, etc.
Mystical Theory
Language is God’s work, originating with the creation of man. This theory is impossible to prove scientifically.
Physical Theory
Sign language appeared because of the need that man had to name things (land, water, stone). Later, it evolved into structures of joint sounds.
Biological Theory
Initially raised by Democritus, it is similar to the interfectional theory.
Social Theory
Language surged from the social instinct of man, who managed to group and meet the demand of communicating with peers.
Communication Factors
- Sender: Who sends the message.
- Receiver: Who gets the message.
- Message: What it means. These are not words but the way that they are transported.
- Code: Set of conventional symbols (known to the sender and receiver).
- Channel: The medium through which the message is sent.
- Context: Circumstance, frame, situation in which communication occurs.
Distortion of the Message
Especially because of the distortion of the message:
- Lack of interest in the sender.
- Lack of accuracy of the sender or lack of attention/interest from the receiver.
- Difference of code.
- Message passing through many people.
- Poverty of words.
- Incorrect speech (bad diction, modulation, joint presence, jargon, pressured speech).
- Insufficient vocabulary.
- Poor handwriting.
- Spelling and writing errors.
- Failure of feedback.
- Environmental situation (distance, noise, movement).
Levels of Communication
Superficial Level
Communication that occurs among people who have no mutual knowledge. Conversation topics are about public attention given to public consultations, banks, street boxes, etc.
Known Level
Established between people who are known, among people who have not had any type of work or student relationship. Shared experiences about familiar experiences known about both parties. Always absent: teachers, managers, heads of fellow neighbors.
Ideas Level
Greater integration between sender and receiver. Thoughts regarding ideological, social, political, and religious talks. These normally end in heated discussions.
Deep Level
The sender and the receiver have enough confidence to get to this stage. It requires a higher degree of mutual knowledge. Both speakers no longer have a common contact.
Privacy Level
The bond between the receiver is comprehensive, and all kinds of feelings and emotions arise. This communication occurs between husband and wife.
Vices of Communication
- Discordant Communication
- Competitive Communication: The person pays more attention to overcoming the sender than to what they say.
- Accusatory Communication: The person launches allegations and reiterates problems instead of listening.
- Indirect Communication: The sender is expressed in the middle of specific vagueness, provoking the receiver.
- Chastened Communication: The person is dedicated to advising the interlocutor instead of listening and understanding.
- Interpersonal Communication
- Forked Communication