Understanding Communication: Statement, Enunciation, and Language Functions
The Statement
In communication and the transmission of information between a sender and a receiver, data about the participants and the situation they are in is also included. The statement would be what is said, the communication message, while the statement presents the ways in which this can be said. According to Benveniste, the statement is the particular way we use the language we speak. The speaker is positioned in a place while positioning the receiver.
Thus, we must distinguish that the issuer must also tell the receiver.
The sender and recipient are discursive entities, and the sender and receiver are real.
The elements that connect the statement in its enunciation are deictic elements capable of showing the situation of enunciation of the sentence, such as personal pronouns.
Nouns and adjectives used to build the image in the utterance are constructed by the transmitter and receiver and, therefore, the relationship between them.
The modality of the utterance can be: Interrogation (a statement made to have one), the notice (orders or appeals), and assertion (communicating a certainty).
Reception can be:
- Direct: The reception that occurs when a message arrives unaltered from the sender to the receiver. No one has altered the discourse between instances of enunciation. For example, when reading a book or listening to a recording.
- Indirect: It is what occurs when the message has not arrived intact from the statement instance to the reception instance. Some human channel was involved in the final configuration of speech and modified it.
Besides, according to the time elapsed since the enunciation, the reception can be:
- Immediate: This is when the enunciation and reception coincide in time.
- Deferred: When you receive the statement and time has passed, the message may have been altered or not.
Space and Time
The information we perceive through our senses is organized in space and time. The perception of reality is in space; that is, we cannot think of things without also thinking they take up space, or we cannot establish spatial relationships among them.
- Organic Space: The space of the action, determined by immediate interests and practical needs.
- Symbolic Space: This is the result of a mental process of abstraction. For example, I am moving to a new house and want to show you my room, then I draw it on paper, and you will know that the footprint is not the same position as in the drawing. So, I make an abstraction of the actual space occupied by my room, and I represent it on paper.
As humans, we have a symbolic understanding of abstract time. For example, we calculate the time it will take a car to move from Cipolletti to Neuquén if it goes at 90km/h.
Functions of Language
Jakobson argues that the sender sends a message to the recipient. To do this, it needs a reference that the sender can pick up, a common code channel, and a physical and psychological connection between the sender and recipient.
He indicates that these six elements are present in all communicative verbal exchanges, and each of them determines a particular function of the message. These functions always coexist.
- Appellative Function: The statement focuses on the listener to change their attitude or to induce them to act in a certain direction indicated by the speaker. Imperative. It is dominant in advertising and propaganda. It focuses on the receiver. 2nd person.
- Referential Function: Directs attention to the contents of the message; its intent is to inform. It has a context, a time, and space. As an indication, in 3rd person.
- Aesthetic/Poetic Function: Characterized by reference to the message, it is intended to cause sensations, entertain, excite, and please, and is mainly used in literature and poetry. For this, it resorts to figurative language, one that is rich in descriptions, analogies, and synecdoche (where just a word is meant to represent all).
- Emotional/Expressive Function: Expresses feelings, sensations, emotions, doubts, and desires. 1st person predominates. It uses resources such as interjections (eh, ah!). It uses exclamation points or expresses wishes.
Examples:
- Appellative function: Get out now!
- Referential function: The sun rises in the east at about 8 am.
- Poetic function: Phoebus appears every morning.
- Aesthetic function: It’s beautiful to see the sunrise in the morning!