Understanding Communication: Key Elements, Text Types, and Speech
Understanding Communication
Communication: The act of transmitting information that must be understood.
Code: A set of signs and rules known by both the sender and receiver.
Message: Information transmitted.
Issuer: The one who transmits information.
Receiver: The one who receives information.
Channel: The means by which the message is transmitted.
Reference: The set of circumstances or context surrounding the communicative act.
Language: Human capacity to communicate with others through a system of signs.
Language: The system of signs inherent in a human community.
Speak: The particular use each language speaker makes.
Dialect: A language variant of a geographical area.
Language Functions
- Emotive: Expresses feelings and emotions of the sender.
- Appeals: Aims to influence or advise the receiver.
- Reference: Conveys factual content.
- Poetics: Focuses on making the message aesthetically attractive.
- Phatic: Ensures the communication channel is working.
- Metalinguistic: Explains and clarifies aspects of the code.
Text Elements
Extralinguistic Elements
- Partners: Those involved in the communicative act.
- Location: The context in which communication takes place.
- Intent: The ultimate purpose of the text.
Language Elements
- Adaptation: Fulfilling the communicative intention by using the appropriate linguistic register.
- Consistency: A property that gives the text full meaning.
- Cohesion: Caring for the external form of text or speech.
Text Structure
Computers: Show and organize the different parts of the text.
- Start: The initial part, introducing the topic.
- Development: The main body, elaborating on the topic.
- Closing: The conclusion, summarizing the main points.
Explanatory Connectors
Clarify or explain what has been stated previously (e.g., “in other words,” “that is to say”).
Cause and Effect Connectors
Express the result of ideas expressed earlier (e.g., “therefore,” “for this reason,” “hence,” “so much so that,” “in consequence”).
Contrast Connectors
Express opposition to ideas already expressed (e.g., “instead,” “in spite of everything,” “but,” “however”).
Types of Texts
- Informative: Intended to report something.
- Persuasive: Tries to convince someone of an idea.
- Prescriptive: Guides the action of the receiver.
- Literary: Tries to create an aesthetic impression on the receiver.
Speech Levels
Cult Level
- Care and respect in the use of vocabulary.
- Varied and rich grammar rules.
- Use of sophisticated phrases.
- Use of cultisms.
- Interpretative phrases are not used.
- Use of jargon.
Colloquial Level
- Spontaneous and natural character.
- Not intended to be careless expression.
- More limited vocabulary.
- Use of wildcard words.
- Frequent use of reduction and increase.
- Lack of connectors.
- Use of metaphors and colloquial hyperbole.
- Jargon and buzzwords.
Vulgar Level
- Confusing sounds.
- Metathesis.
- Loss of the consonant at the end of the word.
- Loss of a syllable.
- Use of short and unfinished sentences.
- Use of crutches (filler words).
- L alteration and R.
Speech Classification
- Narration: Telling facts that occur in time.
- Description: Showing the characteristics of things, feelings, or entities.
- Dialogue: Exchanging information between two partners.
- Exposure: Developing a topic or explaining a concept objectively.
- Argument: A reasoned defense of one’s opinions and judgmental about others’ ideas.
Poetry
- Verse: Minimal rhythmic unit in a poem.
- Stanza: A group of two or more lines whose premiums are distributed in a fixed pattern.
- Poem: Literary work written in verse.
Prose: Structure or form that takes natural language to express concepts and is not subject to size and timing constraints.
Verse: Form that uses language with features that create specific rhythms and musicality to convey a message.