Language and Communication: A Comprehensive Overview
Introduction
Language is an essential and characteristic part of being human. Children all over the world begin to speak at the same age and follow the same learning pattern because all languages have a similar basic structure. Languages are what human beings mainly use for communication.
The new social demands of a world in continuous expansion where the relationships between individuals, countries, agencies, and corporations become more frequent and closer have produced a change in the conception of the teaching of any foreign language.
Traditional Foreign Language Teaching concentrated on getting students consciously to learn items of language in isolation. Following KRASHEN’s theory that people got to know about language (learning) but could not use it in a real context (acquisition).
However, since the 1970s, the belief that language is a means of communication inspired a new approach in English language teaching: the Communicative Approach. Our current educational system, which has been set by RD 157/2022 March the 1st and specifically the Decree 61/2022 July 13th, which establishes the Official Curriculum in Madrid, has incorporated this functional and communicative potential of language on its objectives and methodology as it is established in the Organic Law 2/2006 LOE May 3rd ‘the domain of a second language has become a priority in the global world we are living in’; law which has been recently modified by 3/ 2020 LOMLOE, December 29th.
Nowadays, we are not interested in learning about a language but being able to communicate in that language. This process will be reached through the acquisition of an adequate Communicative Competence, where receptive skills (listening and reading) will be outlined over the productive ones (speaking and writing). Along the topic, I will explain what communication and language are as well as their main characteristics,
then I will move to explain the differences between oral and written language, without forgetting the development of the concept of communicative competence. Finally, I will compile all the ideas in a brief conclusion and the bibliography I have used to elaborate the topic. After this brief introduction, I will start with the first part of the topic where I will talk about the concept of language. Moreover, I will pay special attention to the two main forms of language and communication: written and oral.
Language as communication: spoken and written language
2.a. Definition and properties of language.
The concept of language has many different definitions, and in this sense, we can mention authors such as TRAGER (1949) who defined language as a system of signs that are combined with conventional rules, to transmit a message. ; whereas SAPIR (1921) defined it as human and non-instrictive way of communication with produced symbols.
At this point, it can be stated that language is directly related to human communication. Human communication consists of expressing to someone what a person feels, knows, or wishes. Otherwise, human communication is not the only one; so we cannot forget the existence of a wide range of types of communication (among animals, computers language, etc.).
But, which elements have to be taken into account to distinguish human language from the rest? To answer this question, YULE (1985) pointed out the following properties of human language:
Communicative versus informative: communicative signals refer to the answers that human beings give with an intention (eg: you express you don´t feel well because you have a cold), while informative ones are related to the answers given unintentionally (someone realizes you have a cold when you sneeze). Displacement: speakers can talk about events remote in time and space.
Arbitrariness: There is no link between the signal and the nature of the reality to which it refers, there is no intrinsic connection.
Productivity: human language is essentially creative. Humans can understand and produce new sentences.
Cultural transmission: it is the process whereby a language is transmitted from generation to generation within a specific context.
Discreteness: the sounds in language are meaningfully different and opposite among them, which means that each sound in language is treated as discrete. This way, two words can have as the unique difference a unique phoneme and, as a result, two different meanings (eg: pack and back).
Structural duality: any language is organized into two different levels. On the one hand, a physical level formed by a limited number of elements, phonemes without intrinsic meaning. On the other hand, the second level where phonemes are combined in order to form words that transmit a meaning. This way, language is considered as an ‘economical system’ since, with a limited group of sounds, we can make a wide range of combinations (words or signs) with different meanings.
Language functions
At this point, another important question emerges: ‘what is language for?’ When we talk about functions of language, we may mean no more than the way people use their language.
There are a number of familiar classifications of linguistic function, however, one of the most widely known classifications of functions of language was proposed by the Swedish linguist ROMAN JAKOBSON in his article ‘Linguistics and Poetics’:
1. Referential function: language is usually used to communicate ideas. It is related to the CONTEXT of the message.
2. Expressive or emotive function aims a direct expression toward what he is speaking about. It tends to produce an impression of a certain emotion, attitude, or feeling. It focuses on the ADRESSER.
3. Phatic function: it is related to the communicative channel between the speaker and the receiver. Its aim is to start, finish a conversation or even to check if there is any contact between the speakers. It can be clearly seen in courtesy formulas, icebreakers…
4. Poetic function: It is centered on the MESSAGE and we want to call the attention to its form as it is used in advertisements with the use of rhetorical figures, pitch, or loudness are some aspects of this function.
5. Meta-linguistic function: it is centered on the language CODE and it is used to talk about the own language.
6. Appellative/conative function: it is centered on the RECEIVER. Within it, the sender wants to influence or attract the receiver’s attention. It is clearly seen in imperative and vocative formulas.
Taking these functions into account, the British linguist HALLIDAY (1979) grouped them into three meta-functions since he considered the relationship language/speech but influenced by the socio-cultural context. These meta functions are the following ones:
• Ideational function aims at organizing speaker/writer’s experience of the real or imaginary world.
• Interpersonal function is aimed at establishing or maintaining social relationships between people.
• Textual function allows us to use language as an instrument of communication with which we construct sentences cohesively and coherently in written and oral texts. Its role is to ease comprehension.
Characteristics and differences between writing and speech
However, it is also important to explain the differences and characteristics of the spoken and the written language.
Traditionally speaking, written was considered to be superior to spoken language. This consideration was mainly due to the fact that it was the medium of Literature, which was considered the main source of correctness. Moreover, written works provide language with permanence and authority. In contrast, oral language was considered as an unworthy element of study lacking in care and organization and without a fixed structure that allowed to study it scientifically.
In the 20th century, when the communicative approach appeared, oral language importance increased, as soon as it was acquired naturally by children and writing was just the transcription of the sounds of speech.
As Leonard BLOOMFIELD said, ‘Writing´s not a language but merely a way of recording language by means of visible marks’.
Nowadays, we cannot say which type of language is better since both are equally important and necessary. Writing cannot substitute speech and, speech cannot substitute writing. Moreover, their characteristics complement each other.
As far as speech is concerned, it is considered as the universal material of human language, and it is studied by phonetics. Within it, we can deal with three main branches of study:
a. Articulatory phonetics deals with the production of sounds.
b. Acoustic phonetics deals with the transmission of speech sounds.
c. Auditory phonetics deals with the reception of speech sounds.
Within speech, several important features can be mentioned. It is both time-bound and dynamic; it is part of interaction where both participants are usually present. The speaker has a particular addresser. Moreover, its complexity and speed of most speech acts make it difficult to engage in complex advance planning. The pressure to think at the same time we are speaking promotes the loss of construction, repetition and redundancies, fillers, hesitation, and rephrasing. As a consequence of this pressure, mistakes are commonly produced and sentences are simple. It also tends to be more expressive, and is normally supported by the use of gestures and body language.
In contrast, written language is the representation of a language by means of a system of signs. Its evolution has been much slower than that of speech. Two types of written systems can be distinguished:
a. Non-phonological systems, which do not show a clear relationship between the symbols and the sounds of the language. They include pictographic or Egyptian hieroglyphics.
b. Phonological systems show a clear relationship between the symbols and the sounds. Within them, we can deal with two different systems: on the one hand, SYLLABIC systems (each grapheme corresponds to a spoken syllable) and ALPHABETIC SYSTEMS (direct correspondence between graphemes and phonemes is established).
Furthermore, writing is static, permanent as the result of a situation where the producer is distant from the receiver and, often, they may not even know who the receiver is. When writing, sentence boundaries are clearly established (punctuation, spelling, capitalization…).
And it presented in a more structured expression because the writer is not under demanding pressure when producing it. Ambiguity should be minimized because participants are not present to clarify anything.
What´s more written language tends to be more formal and it usually provides a standard valued by society. However, it can be stated that written and spoken language have mutually interacted and that, written language tends to be used in order to improve a command. Therefore, they are mutually dependent.
Concept of Communicative Competence
After having dealt with the concept of language, its properties and the differences between spoken and written language, I will explain an important concept when teaching a foreign language: Communicative Competence, since it constitutes the aim to be reached at the end of the Primary Education Stage.
CHOMSKY (1957) defined language as a set of sentences, each finite in length and constructed out of a finite set of elements. Furthermore, he stated that an able speaker has a subconscious knowledge of the grammar rules of his/her language that allows him/her to make sentences in that language. He called this ability COMPETENCE. Nevertheless, HYMES argued that Chomsky had missed out the rules of use. Therefore, HYMES defined the communicative competence as an intuitive mastery that the native speaker possesses to use and interpret language appropriately. When a native speaker speaks he knows grammatical correct forms and where and when to use these sentences and to whom. HYMES, in some way replaced Chomsky’s definition of communicative competence with his own one.
HYMES distinguished four aspects of this Communicative Competence:
– Systematic potential: the native speaker possesses a system that has a potential for creating language.
– Appropriacy: the native speaker knows what language is appropriate in a given situation depending on the purpose, setting, participants, channel, and topic.
– Occurrence: the native speaker knows how often something is said in the language and he acts accordingly. This means that grammatically correct sentences such as “the apple is eaten by me” are not used, using “I eat an apple” instead.
– Feasibility: the native speaker knows whether something is possible or not in the language. For example, even there is not a rule to ban it, we know that a twenty-adjective prehead construction is not possible in language.
In addition to this, we must also consider the concept of communicative competence developed by CANALE AND SWAIN (1980). For these authors, Communicative Competence is consisting of grammatical competence plus sociolinguistic competence. According to CANALE AND SWAIN, Communicative Competence has four sub-competences:
– Grammar competence: the mastery of the language code, that is, be able to produce a structured comprehensible utterance.
– Discourse competence: the ability to produce written and spoken texts, which show coherence and cohesion.
– Sociolinguistic competence: the knowledge of the socio-cultural rules of use.
– Strategic competence: the ability to use verbal and non-verbal communication strategies to compensate for breakdowns in communication and to improve the effectiveness of communication.
Actually, it was SAVIGNON (1983) who stablished a description of how the components mentioned above interact “Communicative competence is a dynamic concept, it depends on the cooperation of all the participants involved. It can be defined as an interpersonal rather than an intrapersonal trait”.
Definition of communication
This concept leads us to another important concept: communication. Thus, first of all, let me define it and, later on, I will deal with the communication theory.
In general terms, it can be affirmed that most linguists agree on the concept of communication as a process that involves a sender who encodes and sends a message which is carried via the communication channel to the receiver who decodes the message, processes the information and sends an appropriate reply via the same communication channel.
To better understand the concept, we must know the main attributes of communication: • It is dynamic, not static.
• It is interactive, pro-active, not passive. It is more than a passive reaction to a stimulus. • It is contextual, that is, it always takes place within a context. • It can take place through different methods and channels. Therefore, there are different types of communication.
Moreover, in a communicative act, there is always a speaker and a hearer. AUSTIN was the author who drew that, words sometimes do not communicate information but are equivalent to actions. According to their behavior; the utterances can have different effects:
– Locutionary acts: saying something that is meaningful and that can be understood. It refers to the literal meaning (eg: It´s raining).
– Illocutionary acts: using a sentence in order to perform a function which happens when promising, arresting… ( eg: I promise I´ll cook tonight).
– Perlocutionary acts: it is the result or effect the utterance has on the hearer which happens when persuading, convincing…
Communication factors
3.a. Elements in communication acts.
After having dealt with the concepts of communication and language in a detailed form, I will move on to the second part of the topic, which will be devoted to the most important communication factors. JAKOBSON (1978) proposed a model of communication where he identified six main elements within communication, which have previously been related to the functions of the language at the beginning of the topic: 1. A context. 2. An addresser, that is, the sender. 3. An addressee or receiver. 4. A channel. 5. A common code. 6. A message.
But we cannot forget that JAKOBSON’s model gives special importance to the context analysis. This concept was developed later by HALLIDAY and HASAN (1985) who argued that communication cannot take place without a situation as the context, which allows the participants of a communicative act to interpret and understand a message. Within the concept of context, they distinguished 3 important elements:
• FIELD it refers to what is happening, the nature of social action that is taking place. • TENOR refers to who is taking part, the nature of participants (status, roles, etc.) and the relationship among the participants.
• MODE of discourse is related to the role that language plays.
3.b. Factors to be considered within a communicative act.
Finally, and in order to explain the last point in this essay, I will present the most important communication factors which are the following ones:
1. SENDER is the person who sends the message. 2. RECEIVER is the person who gets the message. 3. PURPOSE is the intention of the message. 4. CONTEXT is the physical or social situation where communication takes place. It affects the comprehension of the message.
5. CHANNEL is the means through which the message travels.
6. MEDIUM is often used to describe a means of communication. It should be applied to those media which include more than one form such as television.
7. MESSAGE is the content of information produced by the sender to the receiver. They work at two different levels: what the sender means and what he says unintentionally (use of non-verbal signs).
8. FEEDBACK is the response one gets from sending a message and the adjustments made according to the response.
9. ENCODING/DECODING implies both: the sender encodes the message and the receiver has to decode it.
10. CONVENTIONS are the unwritten rules that govern the use of the different forms of communication.
11. SIGNS are part of language. Consequently, they are also part of any communicative act.
12. CODE is a set of signs organized by rules. It has to be mastered by all the participants of a communicative act in order to get understanding among them.
13. REGISTER is the defined style of language and the degree of formality in the use of language.
To conclude, we can point out that the importance of language within a communicative act since it allows us to establish continuous relationship with those around us. Furthermore, as language can be oral or
written communication it can be established in a compensated way.
The Organic Law 3/2020 December 29th (LOMLOE) which modifies the Organic Law of Education 2/2006 (LOE) May 3rd, the Royal Decree 157/2022, 1st March, which establishes the organization and minimum teachings requirements of Primary Education indicate that, among the general objectives of Primary Education, is the acquisition of a ´basic communicative competence´ in a foreign language. Students will thus have to be able to understand and convey messages in a variety of daily-life communicative situations, both in oral and written language.
For that purpose, Royal Decree 157/2022 establishes the following blocks of basic knowledge for the area of foreign language in Primary Education: ´Communication´, ´Multilingualism´ and ´Interculturality´.
Madrid Autonomous Community has included a fourth block of contents called “Syntactic Discursive´ which includes the grammatical structures and communicative functions to be taught in each cycle of Primary Education.
Not only the development of oral and written skills is particularly important; but also, contents like reading comprehension, oral and written expression, audiovisual and digital communication, promotion of creativity or scientific and entrepreneurship spirit…play an essential role in our FL classrooms.
Following this curricular premise, it makes sense to connect this topic to the key competences. These competences appear in RD 157/2022 and D 61/2022. Below, I present the relationship of the topic with the competences of this royal decree: • Linguistic competence: Linguistic competence help our students to be a social agent, participate in different contexts and situations, and be aware about how language works (genre patterns, linguistic elements, registers…). • Multilingual/ Plurilingual competence: Linguistic competences have been developed by the Common European Framework of Reference for languages (CEFR, 2001) and the document comprises Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening skills.
At this point, the Curriculum establishes as our main goal the adequate development of the communicative competence. This way, our students will be able to use language with a purpose and in a meaningful way and, what is more important, they will be able to face real world in a successful way.
6. Bibliography. The main references used for the development of this topic are:
• AUSTIN, J.L: “How to do things with words”. Oxford (1962).
• CRYSTAL, D: “The Cambridge Encyclopaedia of Language”. CUP. Cambridge (1987).
• HALLIDAY, M.A.K: “Spoken and written language”. OUP. Language education series.
• HALLIDAY and HASAN, R: “Cohesion in English”. Longman. London (1976).