Communication and Language

Introduction to language and communication

• What is communication?– transmission of information– evoking understanding, meaning– maintaining social contact

• What is language?– a system of human communication using words

A conversation

• A: ‘What’s your name boy?’

• B: ‘Dr. Poussaint. I’m a physician’

• A: ‘What’s your first name, boy’

• B: ‘Alvin’

Functions of communicationJacobson (1960)

Addresser Addressee

Context

Message

Contact

Code

Functions of communication (2)

AddresserEmotive

AddresseeConative

Context - Referential

Message - Poetic

Contact - Phatic

Code - Metalingual

Interviewing

Types of interview

• Advice bureaux• At the bank• Tourism and travel

services• Opinion polls• Telephone interviews

– Selling– Surveys

• Parent - teacher

• Mass media interviews• Job interviews• Counselling • Police• Welfare services• Clinical interviews• Research interviews

Class exercise - a short informal interview about “Being a good

communicator”• Divide into pairs

• Allocate role - interviewer / interviewee

• Plan the questions you will ask

• Conduct the interview and take note of answers

• Review conclusions

• Reverse roles and repeat

The interview as conversation

• Opening - Establishing rapport– Cognitive, social and emotional factors

• Topic• Development - maintaining attention• Closing• Attitudes - empathy, sympathy & judgement• Ethics

– Interviewer credentials– Anonymity and confidentiality– Records– Truth - content and purpose

‘True Conversation’

• A conversation is a process of two people understanding each other. ….each opens himself to the other person, truly accepts his point of view as worthy of consideration and gets inside the other to such an extent that he understands not a particular individual but what he says.

• (Gadamer, 1975)

Interview structure

• Define topic• Question formats

– Open-ended, multiple choice, ranking, probing– Bias, ambiguity, style of language

• Leading questions– Source of bias, or test the limits

• Question response sequence• Dealing with emotion• Prejudice

Qualitative research interviews

• Topic: Everyday lived life world

• Interpret meaning of central themes

• Qualitative

• Open nuanced description

• Specific situations and action sequences (not general opinions)

• Deliberate naivité

• Focused - neither structured nor non-directive

• Ambiguity

• Change and insight

• Interviewer sensitivity

• Interpersonal interaction

• Positive experience

Quality criteria for an interview

• Extent of spontaneous, rich specific and relevant answers

• The shorter the interviewer’s questions and longer the respondents answers the better

• Degree to which interviewer follows up, clarifies meanings of answers

• The ideal interview is to a large extent interpreted throughout the interview

• The interviewer attempts to verify his interpretations of S’s answers in the interview

• Interview is ‘self-communicating’ - story contained in itself not needing extra description and elaboration

Hamlet’s interview with PoloniusAct III Scene 2

H: Do you see yonder cloud that’s almost in shape of a camel?

P: By th’ mass, and ‘tis like a camel indeed

H: Methinks it is like a weasel

P: It is back’d like a weasel

H: Or like a whale?

P: Very like a whale

H: (aside) They fool me to the top of my bent

Interpretation• Unreliable technique? - leading questions, different

answers about clouds• Trustworthiness of Polonius - reliable, thrice checked

answers. Indirect interview. Speaks for itself before aside• Power relations at a royal court. Courtier can be made to

say anything, or ‘play up to’ the prince?• Part of a theme of the play - questioning reality, motives of

others, frail nature of reality, pervasive doubt about the appearance of the world

• Ethics - deception, no informed consent, but survival, life or death

Qualification criteria for the interviewer

• Knowledgeable• Structuring• Clear• Gentle / permissive• Sensitive

• Open• Steering• Critical• Remembering• Interpreting

Class exercise

• How far did your interview match up to these criteria?

• What were the problems?• How could you overcome these problems?• What were your findings?• What credibility do they have?• What can you say about this

communication sequence?

Contrasting Theories of Communication and Language

5 approaches to language and communication

• Language as a formal system of grammar

• Language as the processing of information

• Communication as understanding

• Language as use

• Communication as a social skill

Language as a formal system

• Structural complexity of language• Rules of grammar, esp. syntax• Universal competence underlies

performance• Acquisition through biological maturation

not learning• Key texts:

– Pinker

Language as the processing of information

• Empirical experimental approach

• Information processing system

• Generic cognitive processes

• Sophisticated computational models

• Increasing attention to neurophysiology

• Key texts– Harley, Forrester

Communication as understanding

• Founded on semiotics - theory of signs

• Role of reader/listener paramount in analysing signs

• Meaning is a cultural production

• Discourse and narrative

• Key texts:– Forrester, Fiske, Bignell, Barthes

Language as use

• Shared understanding - common ground

• Co-operation and joint action

• Intentionality of participants is central

• Roles, relationships and social action

• Key text:– Clark

Communication as a social skill

• Behavioural / ethnological approach• Includes non-verbal communication• Patterns of interaction (eg turntaking)• Ecological structure of discourse

– Interviews, lectures, chatrooms

• Key text:– Hargie, Saunders & Dickson