Instructor Wrap Up - Trenholm Chapter 4

Encoding Messages: Spoken Language 

Language gives us the power to affect and persuade others.  But language also exerts power over us.

Yesterday we looked at chapter 3 in the course text:  Decoding Messages:  Listening and Perception.  Today we are going to focus on the Spoken Language.  

The goals of this chapter are as follows:

1). Identify four important characteristics of language.

2). Explain what a symbol is.

3). Explain the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis and give examples of ways language affects thought.

4).  Identify and describe the four subsystems of language.

5). Explain the four levels of context described in CMM theory.

6). Describe how private discourses differ from one another.

7). Name the functions of conversational closings.

8). Identify differences between men's and women's communication.

9). Explain how ambiguity, abstraction, and metaphor use affects our interactions.

The chapter starts out by defining language.  According to your text, "language can be defined as a rule-governed symbol system that allows its users to generate meaning and, in the process, to define reality."

Page 68 covers the four important characteristics of language:

1). It is made up of symbols

2). It is a kind of knowledge

3). It is rule governed and productive

4). It affects the way we experience the world

Moving onto the second goal of the chapter - symbol..  The book states it best, so I'll skip over this area of the chapter in this post.  However, it's important that you understand the concepts within this section, so don't skip over it.   I'll wait while you go ahead and read that section.

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I'm waiting for you to finish.

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Good, are you done now?  Perfect, let's move on.  ;)

The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, or the linguistic relativity hypothesis, basically says that thoughts and behavior are determined by language. (Do a simple google search for either or both terms, and see what you find.  It's fascinating!!!).  

In short, the book describes it as two correlating ideas:  1). Linguistic determinism, and 2). Linguistic relativity.  Both are very interesting to read about, especially if you have done a 3 minute google search on the idea.  There are a lot of differing opinions surrounding this idea. 

Next we come to the four subsystems of language.  The four subsystems are:

1). Phonology

2). Semantics

3). Syntactics

4). Pragmatics

Table 4.2 on page 75 briefly describes these ideas.  The text, pages 74-78 has great explanation of these ideas.

The text then moves onto something called CMM theory.  CMM theory means Coordinated Management of Meaning Theory.  Basically, this theory "provides a framework for understanding how individuals use context to assign pragmatic meaning.  CMM theorists believe that to communicate successfully, we must take into account four levels of context: episode, relationship, life script, and cultural pattern."  While this theory is interesting, it's not where I want to camp for a few minutes. Between this theory and where I want to camp is the idea of discourse.

The next section covers different forms of discourse, and covers a number of different topics such as:
*Understanding conversation
*Describing classroom interaction
*Dimensions of discourse
*Interactive discourse
*Coordinating conversational moves
*Conversational closings
Very interesting stuff if you ask me.  But go ahead and read it for yourself.  You'll see.  :)


Where I want to camp for a little while is Language and Social Identity.  This section starts on page 85, and covers Gender and Language.  One of your dicsussion questions this week focuses on this area of the chapter.

The question I posed was this: "Do you agree that men and women use language in different ways?  In what areas?


I'm brilliant for posing that question, aren't I?  ;)  Honestly though, isn't this a fascinating idea?  This section covers an introduction to Gender and Language, then moves onto a discussion of The Development of Gender Differences, Research on Gender and Communication, Problems in Interpreting Gender Differences, and finally, Adapting to Gender Differences.  

Gender and Communication (or language and your book states), is fascinating.  Just look at Table 4.5 on page 89.  How cool is the information presented in this table? 


When you are sitting around with your friends, these are the types of things you can whip out in conversation at any moment. 


"Hey Mike, did you know that women tend to talk more about private matters than men do?"


"No Sabrina, I didn't know that.  I mean, I assumed that was the case, but I wasn't sure that was true."


"Yeah, it's true, and I've got the research to prove it.  Let's look at my Comm 105P book together so I can show you.  And by the way, isn't my Comm 10 instructor the coolest?"


Kidding about that last part, but you see where I'm going with this section.  Gender and language, such a cool idea to study.


I hope you liked this chapter as much as I did.  I'm kind of a geek about ideas like this. 


Until tomorrow......
The Blogging Prof.