TEMA 3

THE COMMUNICATIVE PROCESS

THE FUNCTIONS OF LANGUAGE
LANGUAGE IN USE
MEANING NEGOTIATION

1. INTRODUCTION

The concept of communication has become essential in second language teaching and learning. The new
teaching approaches are neglecting the traditional approaches on grammar and concentrating on
communication, using the language with specific purposes. For a broad introduction to the relationship of
language to the concept of communication, the study will survey the origins and emergence of language
within human biological and cultural evolution in order to understand the instrumental role of language for
humankind. Upon this basis, we will study the main characteristics involved in the communication process
and its elements, as well as the main models of communicative functions. In an effort to understand language
in use and the negotiation of meaning, we will offer a theoretical background which includes the most
important aspects involved in these processes. Finally, the presentation will conclude with the most relevant
aspects on present-day directions in the communication process.

2. THE COMMUNICATION PROCESS

There is more to communication than just one person speaking and another one listening. Human
communication processes are quite complex. We differentiate verbal and non-verbal, oral and written, formal
and informal, and intentional and unintentional. In addition, there is human and animal communication, and
nowadays, we may also refer to human-computer communication.

2.1. EARLIER APPROACHES

Since ancient times, the way of improving communication preoccupied human beings as they had a need to
express some basic structures of the world and human life. This development in the direction the study of
meaning was labelled during the last century under the term semantics, which had a liked sense with the
science related to the study of signs, semiotics (Peirce).

The first attempt to formulate a science of signs dates back from the late 19 th century, when a French linguist,
Michel Bréal, published Essai de sématique (1897), which was a philological study of language. Some years
later, Ferdinand de Saussure divided language into two components, symbols and syntax. He stated that every
sign, linguistic or non-linguistic, has two sides: significant (the phonic and graphic substance) and meaning.
The relation between both sides is arbitrary.

Peirce stated that signs are divided into three different groups:

 Icons: they have similarities with the object that they represent (a caricature, a portrait, maps,
onomatopoeias).
  Indications: they have some kind of relation with the object that they represent, although there are no
similarities (smoke  indication of fire/high temperature  indication of illness)
 Symbols: they have no similarities or relations (Spanish flag  symbol of Spain/emblems adopted by
political parties and sport teams).

The different signs form semiological systems. For instance, the three colours of the traffic lights form a
small system where each one has its meanings as an opposition to the other two colours.

2.2. CHARACTERISTICS OF COMMUNICATION

For most of its history, the concept of communication has always been approached from different disciplines,
such as anthropology, psychology or sociology, in order to provide an appropriate definition for the term.
Still, communication is traditionally understood as the exchange and negotiation of information between at
least two individuals through the use of verbal and non-verbal symbols, oral and written.

From this definition, we may conclude that the main features of the communication process are:

 It is always a way of social interaction.

 It always has a purpose (to communicate).
 It involves a high degree of unpredictability and creativity.
 It involves both verbal and non-verbal language, such as gestures or body language.

2.3. ELEMENTS IN THE COMMUNICATION PROCESS

One of the most productive schematic models of communication system emerged from the speculations of
Roman Jakobson. He states that all acts of communication are based on six constituent elements. In his model,
each element is associated with one of the six functions of language that he proposed (referential, emotive,
conative, phatic, metalingual and poetical), which will be broadly examined in the next section.

 Sender (addresser), who transmits the message

 Receiver (addressee), who interprets it
 Message: the information that is being transmitted.
o Unilateral: the encoder doesn’t have an immediate answer from the decoder (mass media
messages)
o Bilateral: the encoder and the decoder establish a reciprocal communication (conversations,
discussions)
 Communication channel: the way through which messages circulate
o Sonorous
o Visual
 Context: it contributes essentially to the understanding of the message.
 Code in which the message is formulated.

3. THE FUNCTIONS OF LANGUAGE

When we refer to the functions of language, we are talking about the properties of language and the purposes
it is used for by individuals. Several classifications of functions have been attempted by different scholars
through different disciplines, although we will focus on Jakobson’s Model of Communicative Function as it is
the most popular theory nowadays.

Jakobson extended other linguists’ models to his theory of communicative functions. For instance, he adapted
Bühler’s tripartite system of communicative functions (representative, expressive and appellative) adding
three more to his, and somehow his model reminds us of Moles’, except for one, namely context. Jakobson
allocates a communicative function to each of the components which may be active simultaneously in
utterances. They are as follows:

 Emotive: it focuses on the first person and reflects the speaker’s attitude to the topic. This is what
Bühler called the expressive function.
 Conative: it is centred on the second person and used to attract his/her attention (appellative).
 Referential: it refers to the context and emphasizes that communication is always dealing with
something contextual (representative).
 Phatic: it helps to establish contact between two speakers, and refers to the channel of
communication.
 Metalinguistic: it deals with the verbal code itself, that is, on language speaking of itself, as an
example of metalanguage.
 Poetic: it deals with the message as a signifier within a decorative or aesthetic function of language.

4. LANGUAGE IN USE

Among the most prominent scholars in this field, we may mention Hymes, Saussure, Chomsky and Rivers,
who, on challenging previous behaviourist assumptions about language structure and learning, shed light on a
theory of language use by taking the position that language is creative, rule governed and with a
communicative value.

Saussure first made a very important difference between langue (the language system, which is social) and
parole (the act of speaking, the individual side of the language including phonation). Both are reciprocally
joined: the language is necessary for the act of speaking to be understandable and the act of speaking is
necessary for the language to be established.

It was in the 1970s when the notion of communicative competence comes into force. Hymes was linked to this
sociolinguistic term that refers to the speaker’s underlying knowledge of the rules of grammar and their use in
socially appropriate circumstances. For him, the goal of language is to develop a communicative competence
which allows a learner to be communicatively competent in a speech community. This term differs from
Chomsky’s dichotomy between competence and performance, where competence is the knowledge of
grammar rules and performance how those rules are used. Hymes’s concept of communicative competence
brings about the nuance of situational contexts, where learners have to apply their knowledge and ability in a
foreign language to choose what levels of language they should use in different circumstances.

According to Rivers (1981), we may identify two levels of language use:

  The manipulation of language elements, combining and varying them in order to express our meaning
comprehensibly according to the demands of the language system.
 The expression of personal meaning by selecting appropriate means with infinite possibilities of
expression. The selection depends on the type and degree of the message, the situational context and
the relationship between the speaker and listener.

5. MEANING NEGOTIATION

Problems of communication affect us all in many aspects of day-to-day living, and can cause serious trouble.
It is incredibly easy to be unintentionally misunderstood, or to speak ambiguously, or vaguely. When
communicating, speakers often experience considerable difficulty when their resources in the foreign or native
language are limited. This effort to overcome communicative difficulties in order to secure a mutual
understanding are known as the negotiation of meaning.

5.1. STRATEGIES AND TACTICS IN THE NEGOTIATION OF MEANING

Since Selinker (1972) coined the term “communication strategy” there has been a steady increase of the
interest in the learner’s communication strategies since they are said to be responsible for the interaction in the
communication process.

The two main features that characterize strategies are to be potentially conscious and problem-oriented.

Strategies and tactics can help to expand resources as their main contribution is to keep the channel open,
facilitating the acquisition of new lexis and grammatical rules.

Among the main strategies that the speaker uses to avoid problems we may mention:

 Checking meaning
 Predicting
 Selecting a topic

Within tactics used to solve the problem, we mainly mention:

 Asking for clarification and repetition

 Topic switching

5.2. KEY CONCEPTS IN THE NEGOTIATION OF MEANING: REGISTER AND DISCOURSE

In an act of communication, we do not always use the appropriate level of language within a certain situation,
and we often have expectations towards the response of the person to whom we are addressing the message
because some of our expectations are culturally based. The cultural associations of the linguistic items, and
the accompanying prosodic, paralinguistic and kinetic elements such as intonation, stress, tone, facial
movements, gestures and so on, may be quite different for listener and speaker.

It is within this cultural embedding that key concepts such as register and discourse come into force. Both of
them claim for differences in grammar and lexis appropriate for a variety of situations.
The term register can be defined as a certain king of language which is acceptable in a community, for certain
situations and for special purposes. Registers then subclassify into:

 Field of discourse: subject matter

 Manner of discourse: the social relations between the participants
 Mode of discourse: the choice between speech and writing and the choice of format.

Therefore, the term discourse is to be defined as a subclassification of register which, in linguistics, refers to a
unit or piece of connected speech or writing that is longer than a conventional sentence. In general, it is a
formal term for institutionalized forms of talk, conversation, dialogue, lecture, sermons and communicative
events in general.

6. CONCLUSION

It is undeniable that language is the most powerful tool for communication that humans have, thus the steady
growth of the interest shown in its study for such purpose. The current educational system is based on the
communicative approach, and its aim is for students to acquire a communicative competence in the foreign
language.

Based on the previous discussion on a detailed account of the communication process, we can draw the
conclusion that in a communicative interaction, grammar and vocabulary resources are not enough to convey a
message successfully. Other elements, such as prosodic, kinesics and paralinguistic elements can help us in
order to convey our attitude to the basic message.