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
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A: ‘What’s your name boy?’
B: ‘Dr. Poussaint. I’m a physician’
A: ‘What’s your first name, boy’
B: ‘Alvin’
Functions of communication
Jacobson (1960)
Context
Message
Addresser
Addressee
Contact
Code
Functions of communication (2)
Context - Referential
Message - Poetic
Addresser
Emotive
Addressee
Conative
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
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Mass media interviews
Job interviews
Counselling
Police
Welfare services
Clinical interviews
Research interviews
Class exercise - a short informal
interview about “Being a good
communicator”
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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
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Topic
Development - maintaining attention
Closing
Attitudes - empathy, sympathy & judgement
Ethics
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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 ‘selfcommunicating’ - story
contained in itself not needing
extra description and
elaboration
Hamlet’s interview with Polonius
Act 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
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Knowledgeable
Structuring
Clear
Gentle / permissive
Sensitive
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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
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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
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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
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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
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Behavioural / ethnological approach
Includes non-verbal communication
Patterns of interaction (eg turntaking)
Ecological structure of discourse
– Interviews, lectures, chatrooms
• Key text:
– Hargie, Saunders & Dickson