Module 1: Language and Communication

Cards (32)

  • Language
    A system of arbitrary, conventionalized oral, written, and gestured symbols used for communication
  • Language does not explain the relationship between the word and the word-image in our minds
  • 40% of languages are endangered
  • Nonverbal communication
    Includes carriers of meaning such as eye contact, facial expression, gestures, body orientation, touch, quality of voice, silence
  • Language as a system
    Consists of speech sounds, words, sentences used to convey meanings; governed by rules
  • According to Ethnologue, there are more than 7,000 languages in the world today
  • Edward Sapir: '“Language is purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions, and desires by means of a system of voluntarily produced symbols.”'
  • The Philippines is home to about 187 languages: 158 alive, 14 in trouble, 11 dying, and 4 extinct
  • Conventionalized language
    Emerges from agreement to associate a word to a word-image for majority understanding
  • Communication
    Creation and deployment of meanings through shared verbal and nonverbal systems
  • Language based on utility
    • Tool for communication, means to conduct business transactions, way to express ideas and emotions
  • Verbal communication
    Words used in oral and written exchanges
  • Nonverbals contribute more to the deployment and creation of meaning compared with verbal forms
  • Only about 23 languages are spoken by more than half of the world’s population
  • Language based on theoretical understanding

    • Linguistic concepts such as form, structure, phonology, morphology, syntax, discourse, Universal grammar
  • Arbitrary
    Based on random choice, rather than any reason or system
  • Animals can communicate interspecies, sometimes crossing the boundaries of their genetic design, however their method of communication is not called “language”
  • Nonverbals contribute more to the deployment and creation of meaning compared with verbal forms

    Experts believe
  • We use our senses to communicate, including eyes, speaking, hearing, feeling, smelling, and tasting
  • Ideation
    Refers to our capacity to create, assess, and send messages to other people
  • Without language, there would be no communication possible between or among people
  • Edward Sapir's theory fits at the end to modify the word communication in the definition of language
  • Ideation is cognitive and happens in our brains
  • There would be no use for language if there is no attempt to communicate
  • We send and receive messages through our senses
  • Edward Sapir: '“Language is purely human and non-instinctive method of communication.”'
  • Definition of language
    Language is a system of arbitrary, conventionalized oral, written, and gestured symbols used for human communication
  • Language manifests through our senses
    1. Tactile belongs to proxemics
    2. Visual belongs to kinesics
    3. Olfactory and gustatory belong to zoosemiotics
    4. Auditory and vocal belong to speech sciences
  • David Crystal (2011): '“Communication is the ideational definition of language.”'
  • Language is unique to humans and not shared with animals
  • David Crystal: '“We humans communicate using our senses.”'
  • Language manifests itself through communication