Lecture
1. Since human communication (verbal and
non-verbal) is sign-based in nature, then in the process of
communication people use various sign
systems (codes).
Communicative code (French cod ‒ conventional
notations) ‒ is a sign system (or systems),
used in the process of transmitting or receiving
information.
In conditions of real communication, understanding language
is not at all ensured by knowledge and command of the language, but
requires knowledge of the cases in which one or another
utterance will signify different communicative
actions. Code and language relate as generic and specific
concepts, where code ‒ is generic, and language ‒ is specific.
In linguistic communication verbal
(properly linguistic) and non-verbal means are used.
Language (as a means of encoding) ‒ is a system of laws
and rules, by means of which the encoding and
decoding of information occurs; it is an ordered system
of signs and rules for their use. Language (or any other
sign system) ‒ is a set of speech acts,
actions, which is regarded as a means of
conveying the referent from the speaker to the addressee.
The non-verbal means of transmitting information
include:
1) body language;
2) paralinguistic means;
3) clothing and adornments.
Body language includes 5 components:
1. Gestures ‒ these are various kinds of movements of the body, arms or
hands, which accompany a person's speech in the process of communication
and express a person's attitude
directly toward the interlocutor. Gestures can be
voluntary and involuntary, culturally
determined and physiological. Among them are distinguished:
1) illustrators;
2) conventional gestures, which can be directly
translated into words, they are used consciously and
are conventional movements. They are often used
instead of words that are awkward to say aloud;
3) modal gestures, expressing a person's emotional
state, their assessment of the surrounding world,
attitude toward objects and people, signaling
changes in the subject's activity during communication;
4) gestures that are used in various rituals.
2. Facial expression represents all the changes
in a person's facial expression that can be observed in the
process of communication. It is the most important element of
non-verbal communication. Oculesics ‒ the use of
eye movement or eye contact in the process of communication. With
the help of the eyes one can express a rich range of human
feelings and emotions. For example, visual contact can
signify the beginning of a conversation, in the process of conversation it is a
sign of attention, support, and the like.
3. Body position ‒ the way of holding oneself (our body).
4. Proxemics ‒ the way of using space.
5. Tactile communication: touching,
patting and the like. The use of tactile
elements of communication indicates mutual relationships,
status, degree of friendship between communicants.
2. In the course of speech communication there occurs
encoding and decoding of information. To facilitate
these processes, in any language there exist stereotypes,
whose purpose consists not in distinguishing
information, but in recognizing it.
Speech stereotypes ‒ these are reproducible, and therefore
recognizable, speech formulas signaling
certain information or a communication situation. They
facilitate the expression and reception of information, since on
their basis continuity is achieved in a certain
sphere of linguistic culture. These include:
‒ clichés (linguistic images that have lost their
imagery: to give a green light, to run like a red thread through
etc.);
‒ clichés (bureaucratic phrases: with the aim of further
improvement, to consider the matter);
‒ commonplaces (regularly reproduced
«philosophical» banalities, of the type one must settle well
in life);
‒ tautological definitions (definition through
repetition – life is life);
‒ formulas of politeness (allow me to wholeheartedly
congratulate you) and pragmatic clichés – linguistic
formulas whose use is possible only in
a certain communicative act;
‒ banal quoting (referring to well-known
classical and contemporary texts);
‒ uncritically used fashionable words, in
particular, taken from the speech of «idols» (fateful and the
like);
‒ stereotyped borrowings (paradigm,
mentality, tolerant, etc.).
3. Related to the linguistic code is the problem of direct and
indirect speech acts, problems which were first
studied by the American scholar J. Searle.
A direct speech act ‒ is an act in which the illocutionary
goal of the addresser is directly expressed by means of
linguistic markers specially intended for this ‒
illocutionary indicators.
An indirect speech act ‒ is an act in which the illocution
of the addresser is expressed not by literal means of the message,
but must be «read out» by the addressee relying on
implicatures. Indirect acts are studied not only by communication theory,
but also, in particular, by stylistics, which studies
such phenomena as allusion and hint, allegory, wordplay
and the like. These linguistic means were regarded as
stylistic devices and only after the development of speech act theory
received a new interpretation.
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