Maureen McDonald
Professor Baldinger
COMM 410-01
Final Exam
In learning about the different aspects of traditions of communications, we have learned
about the following traditions: the rhetorical, the semiotic, the phenomenological, the cybernetic,
the socio-psychological, the sociocultural, and the critical. In this paper we will be focusing on
two of these traditions of communications: semiotic tradition and socio-psychological tradition.
Both of these traditions are very important and are present in our everyday lives but we are just
unaware of how much of an impact these traditions make on our daily lives.
Semiotic tradition, “focuses mainly on units of meaning and the generalizable conditions
for encoding across symbolic systems (linguistic, visual, auditory), and, in general, uses
language as the modeling system for other "second order" systems that function according to
systematic rules (e.g., visual art, music, literature, popular media, advertising, or any meaning
system) (Irvine).” Simplifying this definition, semiotic tradition means how signs and symbols
are study and interpreted. Ferdinand de Saussure, who was the “father of linguistics” and Charles
Sanders Peirce, was the founder of pragmatics (which is one of the three subdivisions); these two
individuals had very influential roles in the Semiotic tradition. Semiotics tradition goes even
deeper, and is broken down into three different subdivisions: semantics, syntactics, and
pragmatics.
The first subdivision is semantics, “ focuses on the relationship between the sign and the
referent. It seeks to find out what the sign represents and recognizes that the meaning of the sign
depends on the person and the situation in which the sign is used (Patrick).” An example of
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semantics is when we associate the color red with stop, the color green with go, and etc. The
second subdivision of the semiotic tradition is syntactics. Syntactics “is the study of the
relationship among signs and how people combine signs into complex systems of meaning.
Think of how “emoticons” stringed to together can create a sentence of meaning. (Patrick).” The
last subdivision of the semiotic tradition is pragmatics. Pragmatics, “is concerned with how the
practical use of signs relates to everyday life. This branch is very important to the field of
communication because many communication theorists are interested in how people use signs to
and sign systems to accomplish things in the world (Patrick).”
Sings and symbols are every where and even if they are not physically seen we signs and
symbols for brands on a daily basis, and we are able to interpret what the brand is based off of
from what we see. Another example in our everyday life is in transportation. We use symbols
and signs to determine: what lane to drive in, when to go and stop, turn, etc. Some additional
examples of semiotics in today’s world is right at our touch on our keyboard of our cellphone,
Emoji’s. Emoji’s are symbols and characters that can be sent in text messages and is how many
individuals today are communicating in.
The semiotic tradition really has helped with individuals being able to communicate
worldwide, but it has also hindered our communication in some terms. This is so because many
individuals are becoming lax in proper forms of communication. However on the other hand
semiotics does help us in our everyday lives because we are able to glance up at a symbol or sign
and interpret what it means in a matter of seconds.
Socio-psychological tradition, even though it is not closely related to the semiotic
tradition like some other traditions, it still plays a very crucial role in our world of
communications today. Socio-psychological tradition can be defined as “a focuses on the
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individual emotional. Cognitive and personality traits, and the traits influenced by others around
them. Additionally, how interactions impact the individuals (McCullough).” So to breaking
down this definition socio-psychological tradition is the influence that communication has on an
individual and how the information affects said individual. Carl Hovland, was a psychologist
from Yale who focused on “social communication and the effectiveness of persuasive
communication (McCullough).”
Socio-psychological tradition can be broken down into three subdivisions: behavioral,
cognitive theory, and biological. Behavior “examines on how people behave in communication
situations and considers the relationship between communication behavior and variables like the
individual’s personality, situational differences and learning (Patrick).” Behavior has a large
impact because it shows how individuals handle situations with their communication skills. The
second subdivision cognitive theory “concentrates on patterns of thought, how people acquire,
store and process information and how that may influence their behavior (Patrick).” The
cognitive theory is how we are able to see how individuals process their information that they
have retained. The final subdivision of socio-psychological tradition is biological. Biological
“identifies with the theory that a person’s personality traits, behavior and way of thinking is
actually the result of inborn neurobiological influences (Patrick).” Finally, biological is how we
were born and how it interacts with the way we express and behave in front of others.
Even though this paper focuses on two of the seven different traditions of communication
each tradition is very important to communication overall. These traditions are all used in our
daily lives even if we do not notice it initially. The semiotic tradition and socio-psychological
tradition have really shaped todays generations especially. Since most individuals today take for
granted that they are able to identify a symbol or sign, but this is because of impact of semiotics
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on our lives. Same with the socio-psychological tradition is also crucial today because it is based
upon how individuals are able to interact and individual emotions. With technology today, many
individuals communicate less face-to-face and more remotely (i.e. social media site, text
messaging, etc.). It would be really nice if individuals today could go back to interacting
personally and in person to help in building the key communication skills and personal
relationship goals. Overall, in today’s world communication is even more important today with
the evolving world and new forms of communication. Even with the evolving world the seven
traditions of communication is what helps us as individuals comprehend what is being said, seen,
and understood around the world.
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Bibliography
Constantino, Juan. "Semiotic Theory." PowerPoint. Web. 14 Dec. 2014.
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Dec. 2014.
<http://faculty.georgetown.edu/irvinem/theory/Semiotics_and_Communication.html>.
McCullough, Bridget. "Socio-psychological Tradition in Communication." PowerPoint. Web. 14
Dec. 2014.
Patrick, Tora-Joy. "Semiotic Tradition." Communication Theory Blog. Tora-Joy Patrick, 04 Oct.
2013. Web. 14 Dec. 2014. <http://torajoypatrick.wordpress.com/2013/10/05/semiotictradition/>.
Patrick, Tora-Joy. "Socio-psychological Tradition." Communication Theory Blog. Tora-Joy
Patrick, 25 Sept. 2013. Web. 14 Dec. 2014.
<http://torajoypatrick.wordpress.com/2013/09/25/socio-psychological-tradition/>.
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