Read Aloud the Text Content

This audio was created by Woord's Text to Speech service by content creators from all around the world.

Text Content or SSML code:

LANGUAGE AND COMMUNICATION. SPOKEN LANGUAGE AND WRITTEN LANGUAGE. COMMUNICATIVE FACTORS: SENDER, RECEIVER, PURPOSE AND CONTEXT According to the Royal Decree 157/2022, 1st of march, one of the objectives for foreign language teaching at primary level is ‘to acquire basic communicative competence in at least one foreign language to enable students to express and understand simple messages and get by in everyday situations’. If we want to succeed in teaching ‘communicative competence’ we must have a deep knowledge of what communication is and the processes it entails. Needless to say, I consider this topic essential. In this essay I am going to bring to light some ideas about the concept of language or, more precisely, the notion of ‘language as communication’. I will divide the essay in three parts; the first one will define language as communication, the second part will analyse some differences between oral and written language to finally frame the communicative factors. At the end I will compile the main conclusions and the bibliography I used to develop the topic. I DEFINITION OF LANGUAGE AS COMMUNICATION 1.1. DEFINITION OF LANGUAGE First of all, if I want to define what language as communication is I will have to define what language is first. Dealing with the definition of language is quite a difficult task since it has prompted endless definitions. In general terms, language can be defined as the tool or artefact used for the purpose of communication. But then, I would not be establishing any difference between human language and other forms of signalling. Human language possesses some properties which differentiate it from other types of communication. The first property is that human language is communicative, which means that it is intentional and not simply informative like signals. The second property is displacement; human language can refer to past and future as well as to other locations. Animal communication lacks this property. Arbitrariness is the third characteristic of human language and it means that there is not any connection between a linguistic form and its meaning. Another characteristic is that called productivity; humans manipulate our linguistic resources and produce new expressions and sentences. Besides, language is passed on from one generation to the next (cultural transmission). Some others are discreteness, the use of a vocal-auditory channel, reciprocity or the double articulation, which means that language consists essentially of two basic units: the phoneme (sound unit) and the morpheme (the smallest meaningful unit of the language), which are combined to form longer structures like words, phrases and sentences. Bearing in mind these properties I will finally propose Hall’s definition of language: ‘language is the institution whereby humans communicate and interact with each other by means of habitually used oral-auditory arbitrary symbols’. 1.2. DEFINITION OF COMMUNICATION Once I have clarified what language is, a new question arises: what is communication? It can be defined as ‘the exchange of meanings between individuals through a common system of symbols’ or ‘the connection and interaction of an individual with the outer world’. In the 20th century, one of the most remarkable linguists, Ferdinand de Saussure, described the typical act of communication between two individuals in the following terms: ‘The starting point of the circuit is in the brain of one individual, for instance A, where facts of consciousness that we shall call concepts are associated with representations of linguistic signs or sound patterns by means of which they may be expressed. Let us suppose that a given concept triggers in the brain a corresponding sound pattern. This is an entirely psychological phenomenon, followed in turn by a physiological process: the brain transmits to the organs of phonation an impulse corresponding to the pattern. The sound waves are sent from A’s mouth to B’s ear, a purely physical process. Next, the circuit continues in B in the opposite order, form ear to brain’. Saussure’s transport circuit is one of the descriptions of what happens when two people converse. He also explained that what people say, the speech or ‘la parole’ in Saussure’s terminology is any single act of communication by means of the code, the language. There certainly is a difference between language and speech. Language is a set of signs; abstract, social and lasting while speech would be the real use people make of that system: concrete, personal and momentary. In short, we could say that language materialises through speech. In a speech act, language ‘becomes’ communication. Around fifty years after Saussure, Chomsky extended Saussure’s distinction between ‘language’ and ‘parole’, differentiating also between ‘competence’ and ‘performance’. He claimed that the proper object of study for the linguist is not language as it is produced in everyday situations –performance-, but the inner and ultimate innate knowledge of grammar that everyone has in their minds –competence-. Later on, Krashen and Terrell’s Natural approach and other methods which follow the Comprehension approach would be strongly influenced by this difference between competence and performance. Chomsky’s Generative Grammar also set the foundations for the later studies within the sphere of the Communicative approach and the most relevant present-day insights on teaching and learning a second language. Hymes studied the theory of Chomsky and added that being able to communicate requires more than linguistic competence, it requires communicative competence. In Hymes words, ‘knowing when and how to say what to whom’. Following this theory we need to consider four aspects: - Systematic potential: a native speaker possesses a system that has a potential for creating language. - Appropriacy: a native speaker knows what language is appropriate in a given situations. - Occurrence: a native speaker knows how often something is said in the language and acts accordingly. - Feasibility: a native speaker knows whether something is possible in the language. This approach is worth mentioning since it is the one we currently use in our classes. The methodology may differ; in bilingual schools, for instance, they use the content and language integrated learning (CLIL), in other schools they may follow the task-based learning, but the underlying theories of language and language learning follow the communicative approach. . DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ORAL AND WRITTEN LANGUAGE Now that I have explained the notion of ‘language as communication’ I am going to analyse some differences between oral and written language. Spoken and written language make somewhat different demands on language producers. Traditionally, written language has been considered to be superior to spoken language due to the fact that that writing marked the border between literacy and illiteracy, since it enables individuals to come into contact with culture and expand their communicative potential. Nowadays there is no point in considering writing superior than speech, they just have different purposes and somehow complement each other. Considering speech, for example, we can say that it is the universal material of human language, absolutely necessary in our daily lives. Phonetics studies the speech sounds of a language and how they are produced (articulatory phonetics), transmitted (acoustic phonetics) or perceived (auditory phonetics). With regards to written language, myths and legends have been established to explain its origin. One point, at least, is clear. Writing systems evolved independently of each other at different times in several parts of the world. There is nothing to support a theory of common origin, but we distinguish between two types of writing systems.  Non-phonological, which do not show a clear relationship between the symbols and the sounds of the language. They include Pictographic, Ideographic, Cuneiform and Egyptian.  Phonological, which show a clear relationship between the symbols and the sounds. Within the phonological systems, it can also be distinguished between syllabic and alphabetic systems, where a direct correspondence between graphemes and phonemes is established. Considering some other aspects about oral and written language, we can observe the different features following Holtgraves:  Grammatical features: in spoken language we can point out a certain tendency to ellipsis, as well as abbreviation of verbs. Sentences are also generally ungrammatical and incomplete. On the contrary, in written language sentences are carefully constructed, linked and organised to form a text, with long and complex clauses.  Lexical features: in spoken language we can observe a tendency for less abstract vocabulary, low lexical density, simple vocabulary and semantically empty prefabricated ‘fillers’. In written language there is high lexical density, with complex vocabulary including more abstract terms and a great variety of choice with lower levels of repetition and a higher incidence of Greek and Latin words.  Discourse features: in spoken language speaker and listener are in contact with each other so there is a specific person and immediate feedback is given verbal (in terms of questions, comments, murmurs) and non-verbal (facial expression and gestures). We also use devices such as intonation to convey meaning. In written language, however, the reader is not usually present and there is not any possible interaction, the reader is not necessarily known to the writer, no feedback is given and instead of intonation (stress, rhythm.) we use punctuation to make meaning clear.