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Сommunicative linguistics is the youngest branch in the prosody science about language. It was born because of the anthropological revolution. It means that the scholars study not how the language is organized, but how it acts according to its main function, that is the mean of communication.
It started to develop in the second half of the 20th century. Being a scientific discipline, it is closely linked to other branches of science, such as psychology, pragmatics, semiotics, rhetoric, ethnography, sociology, and politics. The methods used by these sciences are deeply involved in the study of the communicative processes.
KYIV INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY
Methods of communicative linguistics
Discipline: Problems of communicative linguistics
Written by: Chekulaeva Maria
Institute of Linguistics
Kyiv 2013
Сommunicative linguistics is the youngest branch in the prosody science about language. It was born because of the anthropological revolution. It means that the scholars study not how the language is organized, but how it acts according to its main function, that is the mean of communication.
It started to develop in the second half of the 20th century. Being a scientific discipline, it is closely linked to other branches of science, such as psychology, pragmatics, semiotics, rhetoric, ethnography, sociology, and politics. The methods used by these sciences are deeply involved in the study of the communicative processes.
According to Batsevych, the methods of communicative linguistics are semiotic analysis, pragmatic analysis, structural analysis, propagandistic analysis, discourse-analysis, content analysis and transactional analysis. These methods will be divided into two chapters: first chapter will include semiotic, pragmatic structural and propagandistic, and the second one – discourse-analysis, content analysis and transactional analysis.
What is the reason for this division? The reason is the following: discourse-analysis, content analysis and transactional analysis were formed by communicative linguistics with the help of the four previous methods.
Semiotic analysis consists in studying different kinds of communication with reliance on the symbolic (semiotic) nature of the components of communication. Among the constituents of semiotics, linguistic semiotics is the most important for the communicative linguistics. It studies the human language from the standpoint of the general properties of the signs and sign systems.
The particularity of the semiotic analysis consists in the attempt to find the unit of code – signs and to understand the ways of their combination into units of the higher level, and to study the ways that people use them (Бацевич, Ф.С., Основи комуникативної лінгівістики, с. 19)
Semiotics, also called semiotic studies and including (in the Saussurean tradition) semiology, is the study of signs and sign processes (semiosis), indication, designation, likeness, analogy, metaphor, symbolism, signification, and communication. Semiotics is closely related to the field of linguistics, which, for its part, studies the structure and meaning of language more specifically. However, as different from linguistics, semiotics studies also non-linguistic sign systems.
Semiotics is often divided into three branches:
Semantics: Relation between signs and the things to which they refer; their denotata, or meaning
Syntactics: Relations among signs in formal structures
Pragmatics: Relation between signs and the effects they have on the people who use them.
Syntactics is the branch of semiotics that deals with the formal properties of signs and symbols. More precisely, syntactics deals with the "rules that govern how words are combined to form phrases and sentences." Charles Morris adds that semantics deals with the relation of signs to their designata and the objects which they may or do denote; and, pragmatics deals with the biotic aspects of semiosis, that is, with all the psychological, biological, and sociological phenomena which occur in the functioning of signs.
Semioticians classify signs or sign systems in relation to the way they are transmitted (see modality). This process of carrying meaning depends on the use of codes that may be the individual sounds or letters that humans use to form words, the body movements they make to show attitude or emotion, or even something as general as the clothes they wear. To coin a word to refer to a thing (see lexical words), the community must agree on a simple meaning (a denotative meaning) within their language. However, that word can transmit that meaning only within the language's grammatical structures and codes (see syntax and semantics). Codes also represent the values of the culture, and are able to add new shades of connotation to every aspect of life.
To explain the relationship between semiotics and
communication studies, communication is defined as the process of transferring
data from a source to a receiver. Hence, communication theorists construct
models based on codes, media, and contexts to explain the biology, psychology,
and mechanics involved. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Pragmatic analysis consists in the study of the human dimensions of communication and their connection with linguistic structures. What does it take into account? It takes into account psychological type of the person, his or her mood, worldviews, and the attitude to the interlocutor. In the center of attention of the pragmatic analysis, there are such important notions of communication as strategies and tactics of conversation, evaluative aspects of the human interaction, as well as laws, rules and conventions of the conversation. (Бацевич, Ф.С., Основи комуникативної лінгівістики, с.19)
The ideas of pragmatics were formulated in the 1960s – 1970s by such famous scholars as John Austin (1911 – 1960), John Searle (born in 1932) and Paul Grice (1913 – 1988).
Pragmatics is a subfield of linguistics which studies the ways in which context
contributes to meaning. Pragmatics includes speech act theory, conversational
implicature, talk in interaction and other approaches to language behavior
in philosophy, sociology, and linguistics and anthropology. Pragmatics
studies how the transmission of meaning depends not only on structural
and linguistic knowledge (e.g., grammar, lexicon, etc.) of the speaker
and listener, but also on the context of the utterance, any preexisting
knowledge about those involved, the inferred intent of the speaker,
and other factors. In this respect, pragmatics explains how language
users are able to overcome apparent ambiguity, since meaning relies
on the manner, place, time etc. of an utterance. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Structural analysis consists in the study of the elements of each phenomena and their structure. Its goal is to study the language as an integral functional system, elements and parts of which are correlated and closely connected with each other. It is the consistent, objective and economical description of the facts. (Бацевич, Ф.С., Основи комуникативної лінгівістики, c.20).
Structural analysis is from the structuralism. What does structuralism mean? Structuralism is a theoretical paradigm emphasizing that elements of culture must be understood in terms of their relationship to a larger, overarching system or structure. Alternately, as summarized by philosopher Simon Blackburn, Structuralism is "the belief that phenomena of human life are not intelligible except through their interrelations. These relations constitute a structure, and behind local variations in the surface phenomena there are constant laws of abstract culture".
The structuralist mode of
reasoning has been applied in a diverse range of fields, including anthropology,
sociology, psychology, literary criticism, economics and architecture.
The most prominent thinkers associated with structuralism include Lévi-Strauss, linguist Roman Jakobson,
and psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
In Ferdinand de Saussure's Course in General Linguistics (written by Saussure's colleagues after his death and based on student notes), the analysis focuses not on the use of language (called "parole", or speech), but rather on the underlying system of language (called "langue"). This approach examines how the elements of language relate to each other in the present, synchronically rather than diachronically. Saussure argued that linguistic signs were composed of two parts:
a "signifier" (the "sound pattern" of a word, either in mental projection—as when one silently recites lines from a poem to one's self—or in actual, physical realization as part of a speech act)
a "signified" (the concept or meaning of the word)
This was quite different from previous approaches that focused on the relationship between words and the things in the world that they designate. Other key notions in structural linguistics include paradigm, syntagm, and value (though these notions were not fully developed in Saussure's thought). A structural "idealism" is a class of linguistic units (lexemes, morphemes or even constructions) that are possible in a certain position in a given linguistic environment (such as a given sentence), which is called the "syntagm". The different functional role of each of these members of the paradigm is called "value".
Russian philologist Vladimir
Propp (29 April [O.S. 17 April] 1895 – 22 August 1970)
used structural analysis to analyze the basic plot components of Russian
folk tales to identify their simplest irreducible narrative elements.
The idea of Propp was developed by Lévi-Strauss, who identified myths
as a type of speech through which a language could be discovered. This
theory attempted to explain how seemingly fantastical and arbitrary
tales, could be so similar across cultures. Because he believed there
was not one "authentic" version of a myth, rather that they
were all manifestations of the same language, he sought to find the
fundamental units of myth, namely, the mytheme. Lévi-Strauss broke
each of the versions of a myth down into a series of sentences, consisting
of a relation between a function and a subject. Sentences with the same
function were given the same number and bundled together. These are
mythemes. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
This analysis is used in the study of the mass media (newspapers, radio, television, publicity). The most common scheme of the propagandistic analysis is the scheme proposed by British scholars Jowett and O’Donnell (“Propaganda and Persuasion”), which is as follows:
1. The ideology and purpose of the propaganda campaign
2. The context in which the propaganda occurs
3. Identification of the propagandist
4. The structure of the propaganda organization
5. The target audience
6. Media utilization techniques
7. Special techniques to maximize effect
8. Audience reaction to various techniques
9. Counterpropaganda, if present
10. Effects and evaluation
According to these scholars, these 10 divisions take into account the following questions: To what ends, in the context of the times, does a propaganda agent, working through an organization, reach an audience through the media while using special symbols to get a desired reaction? Furthermore, if there is opposition to the propaganda, what form does it take? Finally, how successful is the propaganda in achieving its purpose?
Propagandistic analysis accentuates on what, when and how to present the negative information to the consumers (readers, viewers), how to combine these types of information. Methods of the propagandistic analysis are aimed at the study of the group norms, because a single person can do the same things the group does even it is contrary to his or her views (Бацевич, Ф.С., Основи комуникативної лінгівістики, c.21).
Using these methods and approaches, communicative linguistics elaborated its own several methods of the study of the conversation: discourse-analysis, content-analysis and transactional analysis.
The goal of this study method is the revealing of the social context, which stands for oral and written language, study of the interconnection between linguistic code in communication and social, psychic, psychological and cultural processes. (Бацевич, Ф.С., Основи комуникативної лінгівістики, c.21)
Discourse analysis (DA), or discourse studies, is a general term for a number of approaches to analyzing written, vocal, or sign language use or any significant semiotic event.
The objects of discourse analysis—discourse, writing, conversation, communicative event—are variously defined in terms of coherent sequences of sentences, propositions, speech acts, or turns-at-talk. Contrary to much of traditional linguistics, discourse analysts not only study language use 'beyond the sentence boundary', but also prefer to analyze 'naturally occurring' language use, and not invented examples. Text linguistics is related. The essential difference between discourse analysis and text linguistics is that it aims at revealing socio-psychological characteristics of a person/persons rather than text structure.
Discourse analysis has been taken up in a variety of social science disciplines, including linguistics, sociology, anthropology, social work, cognitive psychology, social psychology, international relations, human geography, communication studies, and translation studies, each of which is subject to its own assumptions, dimensions of analysis, and methodologies.
Topics of discourse analysis include:
The various levels or dimensions of discourse, such as sounds
(intonation, etc.), gestures, syntax, the lexicon, style, rhetoric,
meanings, speech acts, moves, strategies, turns, and other aspects of
interaction. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Theory of speech acts, elaborated by John Austin and John Searle, had a big impact on the formation of the discourse analysis. What is a speech act? Speech act is a technical term in linguistics and the philosophy of language. The contemporary use of the term goes back to J. L. Austin's development of performative utterances and his theory of locutionary, illocutionary, and perlocutionary acts. Speech acts are commonly taken to include such acts as promising, ordering, greeting, warning, inviting and congratulating.
Speech acts can be analyzed on three levels:
Searle has introduced the
notion of an 'indirect speech act', which in his account
is meant to be, more particularly, an indirect 'illocutionary' act.
Applying a conception of such illocutionary acts according to which
they are (roughly) acts of saying something with the intention of communicating
with an audience, he describes indirect speech acts as follows: "In
indirect speech acts the speaker communicates to the hearer more than
he actually says by way of relying on their mutually shared background
information, both linguistic and nonlinguistic, together with the general
powers of rationality and inference on the part of the hearer."
An account of such act, it follows, will require such things as an analysis
of mutually shared background information about the conversation, as
well as of rationality and linguistic conventions. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Therefore, discourse-analysis is above all the study of language aspects of the communication, and the study of the organization of linguistic code in the communication of the personalities. (Бацевич, Ф.С., Основи комуникативної лінгівістики, c.21)
Content-analysis is a set of methods and techniques of objective and quantitative description of the content and the rules of the communication. (Бацевич, Ф.С., Основи комуникативної лінгівістики, c.22)
Content analysis or textual analysis is a methodology in the social sciences for studying the content of communication. Earl Babbie defines it as "the study of recorded human communications, such as books, websites, paintings and laws."
According to Dr. Farooq Joubish, content analysis is considered a scholarly methodology in the humanities by which texts are studied as to authorship, authenticity, or meaning. This latter subject include philology, hermeneutics, and semiotics.
"Content analysis is a summarizing, quantitative analysis of messages that relies on the scientific method (including attention to objectivity, intersubjectivity, a priori design, reliability, validity, generalizability, replicability, and hypothesis testing) and is not limited as to the types of variables that may be measured or the context in which the messages are created or presented."
Qualitatively, content analysis
can involve any kind of analysis where communication content (speech,
written text, interviews, images ...) is categorized and classified.
In its beginnings, using the first newspapers at the end of 19th century,
analysis was done manually by measuring the number of lines and amount
of space given a subject. With the rise of common computing facilities
like PCs, computer-based methods of analysis are growing in popularity.
Answers to open ended questions, newspaper articles, political party
manifestoes, medical records or systematic observations in experiments
can all be subject to systematic analysis of textual data. By having
contents of communication available in form of machine readable texts,
the input is analyzed for frequencies and coded into categories for
building up inferences. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
After the publication of the works of American psychoanalyst Eric Berne (1910 – 1970) “Games People Play: The Psychology of Human Destiny” and “Games People Play: The Psychology of Human Relationships”, the communicative linguistics enriched itself with ideas of transactional analysis. (Бацевич, Ф.С., Основи комуникативної лінгівістики, c.23).
Transactional analysis - is an integrative approach to the theory of psychology and psychotherapy. It is described as integrative because it has elements of psychoanalytic, humanist and cognitive approaches.
According to the International Transactional Analysis Association, TA 'is a theory of personality and a systematic psychotherapy for personal growth and personal change'.
Philosophy
The aim of change under TA
is to move toward autonomy (freedom from childhood script), spontaneity,
intimacy, problem solving as opposed to avoidance or passivity, cure
as an ideal rather than merely making progress and learning
new choices. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Hence, interdisciplinary connections of the communicative linguistics, its methods and methodologies show a substantial increase of its role in the study of problems of the society. These methods help us understand the richness of the communication, its structured and what an important role the communication plays in our everyday life.