Oral and Written Language in Communication
The Text
A text is a unit of communication that conveys a complete message. It consists of elements connected by grammatical and syntactic relationships, forming a coherent whole. In spoken language, a text is a stretch of speech between two pauses, characterized by intonation. In written language, it appears between punctuation marks like periods.
A text is a set of coherent statements, representing the maximum unit of communication. It expresses the entirety of the content the sender wants to transmit. The statements within a text are related and unified through various mechanisms, ensuring the message is clear, concise, and can be easily understood.
Oral and Written Language
Writing
Writing is a vital vehicle for transmitting culture and holds immense importance in our professional lives.
Oral Language
Oral communication is how we interact with family and friends. Mastering oral language is crucial in academic settings, as a significant part of professional and personal development relies on effectively conveying our viewpoints. These skills are not innate and require practice.
Characteristics
Oral Language
- Acquired spontaneously during early childhood.
- Develops over time through interaction.
- Relies on sound and non-verbal cues.
- Often less structured than written language.
- Allows for immediate feedback.
Written Language
- Acquired through formal education.
- Develops through reading and writing practice.
- Uses written symbols and graphics.
- Emphasizes grammar and syntax.
- Allows for planning and revision.
Text Adequacy
Adequacy in a text means adhering to social, personal, and linguistic norms that govern communication. An adequate text adapts to the audience, the speaker, the context, the purpose, the level of formality, social standards, the language used, and common courtesy.
Text Coherence
Coherence is the property of a text that provides unity, meaning, and allows for interpretation. It stems from the internal relationships between its parts and its adequacy to the context.
A coherent text aligns with the real world or a possible world. Its messages don’t contradict common sense or logic. It maintains consistency in its message, avoids contradictions, presents information logically and hierarchically, and stays focused on the topic.
Classes of Coherence
- Local Coherence: Exists when words and statements within a sentence make sense and don’t contradict each other.
- Relational Coherence: Ensures each statement logically connects to the preceding and following ones, creating a flow of information.
- Global Coherence: Establishes a relationship between all parts of the text, providing a unified meaning. It ensures the text is well-organized, hierarchical, and highlights the importance of each part in relation to the whole.
Mechanisms of Unity
These are linguistic resources that help us perceive the unity and coherence of a text. They connect different parts and relate them to the overall message.
Connectors
Connectors are words or phrases that indicate the relationship and progression between statements.
- Semantic Connectors: Indicate relationships like addition, contrast, and consequence (e.g., and, however, therefore).
- Metadiscursive Connectors: Organize information, introduce comments, signal digressions, explain, rectify, summarize, or mark transitions (e.g., firstly, for example, in other words, in conclusion).
- Conversational Connectors: Used in spoken language to establish contact, provide evidence, or express agreement (e.g., right?, of course, okay).
Conceptismo and Culteranismo
These literary movements emerged during the Baroque period, characterized by skepticism and a departure from Renaissance balance. Both movements sought similar literary resources like artifice, stylistic difficulty, exaggeration, contrast, and surprise. Conceptismo writers used elements of Culteranismo and vice versa.
Culteranismo
Represented by Luis de Góngora, Culteranismo aimed to create a cultured and poetic language. It emphasized formal beauty, colorful imagery, and sensory experience. This brilliance was achieved through meticulous language use and a profusion of literary devices like hyperbaton and cultismos, already present in earlier literature. A prime example is Góngora’s poem “Polyphemus and Galatea.”
Prose
Besides the picaresque novel, other prose forms during this period included short stories, Byzantine novels, and allegorical works.
Short Stories
Initiated by Cervantes’s “Exemplary Novels,” short stories gained popularity. Collections covered various themes and were published for diverse audiences. Notable authors include María de Zayas y Sotomayor.
Byzantine Novels
These novels drew inspiration from earlier Byzantine works. A prominent example is Lope de Vega’s “The Pilgrim in his Homeland.”
Allegorical Novels
Baltasar Gracián stands out as a representative author with his allegorical novel “El Criticón.”