Week 6

• Verbal Communication


  An agreed-upon and rule-governed system of symbols used to share meaning
• Types of Verbal Communication


  • Oral Spoken Language
  • Non Oral Written Language/Sign Language
• Types of Nonverbal Communication


  • Laughing
  • Crying
  • Coughing
  • Gestures
  • Body Language
• Verbal Communication


  Communication about language, both written and spoken
• Nonverbal Communication


  Communication that occurs through means other than words, such as body language, gestures, and silence
• Both verbal and nonverbal communication can be spoken and written
• Symbols


  Arbitrary representations of thoughts, ideas, emotions, objects, or actions used to encode and decode meaning
• Symbols stand for, or represent, something else
• There is nothing inherent about calling a cat a cat
• Words


  Symbols whose components (letters) are used in a particular order each time, stand for both the actual object, as well as our interpretation of that object
• The word "cat" is not the actual cat, nor does it have any direct connection to an actual cat
• The word "cat" is a symbolic of our idea of a cat
• Phonology


  The study of speech sounds
• The pronunciation of the word cat comes from the rules governing how letters sound, especially in relation to one another
• The context in which words are spoken may provide answers for how they should be pronounced
• When we don't follow phonological rules, confusion results
• One way to understand and apply phonological rules is to use syntactic and pragmatic rules to clarify phonological rules
• Symbols


  Arbitrary, ambiguous, and abstract
• Symbols have several possible meanings
• The meanings of symbols change over time due to changes in social norms, values
• Without an agreed-upon system of symbols, we could share relatively little meaning with one another
• Symbols


  • Arbitrary - they have no direct relationship to the objects or ideas they represent
  • Ambiguous - they have several possible meanings
  • Abstract - they are not material or physical; they can only represent objects and ideas
• Semantic rules


  Help us understand the difference in meaning between words like "cat" and "dog"
• Meanings are not inherent in words themselves, we attach meanings to words
• While we can always look to a dictionary to find a standardized definition of a word, or its denotative meaning, meanings do not always follow standard, agreed upon definitions when used in various contexts
• The denotative and connotative definitions of "sick" are in total contrast of one another, which can cause confusion
• Syntactics


  The study of language structure and symbolic arrangement
• We speak and write according to agreed-upon syntactic rules to keep meaning coherent and understandable
• Pragmatics


  The study of how people actually use verbal communication
• People make different word choices when they speak to different audiences
• Even though we use agreed-upon symbolic systems and follow phonological, syntactic, and semantic rules, we apply these rules differently in different contexts
• Each communication context has different rules for "appropriate" communication
• We are trained from a young age to communicate "appropriately" in different social contexts
• Rule-governed system of symbols


  It is only through an agreed-upon and rule-governed system of symbols that we can exchange verbal communication in an effective manner
• Without agreement, rules, and symbols, verbal communication would not work
• After we learn language in school, we don't spend much time consciously thinking about all of these rules, we simply use them
• Rules keep our verbal communication structured in ways that make it useful for us to communicate more effectively