COM 219 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Communication Theory

• School: West Chester University
• Department: Communication Studies
• Course: COM 219
• Professor: David Levasseur

Document Summary

Communication: is the process through which humans intentionally use symbols to convey messages to one another. Sign: anything that stands for something else (a=b) (smoke=fire) Symbols: the word dog is a symbol: arbitrary signs: subset of signs, non-symbolic signs hold true across cultures. Sign vs symbol: punch is a sign of anger but it is not a symbol, it is just used because it hurts. Sign vs symbol: sign is a pictures (a=b) symbol is a word. Theory: is an explanation for some phenomenon we don"t understand.