COMM 2303 Lecture Notes - Lecture 12: Code-Switching, Communication Theory, Nominalism

• School: Northeastern University
• Department: Communication Studies
• Course: COMM 2303
• Professor: Margaret Williams

Document Summary

Social science perspective on language: emphasis on individual aspects of language use, linguistics scientific study of language and its structure. Phonetics sound: language and perception. Language has some part in shaping our reality, but it is not the only factor: metaphor figure of speech that makes a comparison between two unlike things. Example in english: love is madness (cid:862)i(cid:859)(cid:373) (cid:272)raz(cid:455) a(cid:271)out her(cid:863: cultural variations in communication style. High context communication means that two people who have shared experience can communicate non-verbally thanks to context. Low context communication requires direct verbal communication because there is less shared experience between the subjects. Direct communication is explicit and addresses an issue outright. Elaborate language is rich and expressive, almost poetic. Slang and humour varies across culture, so common jokes and sayings in one language do not translate. Interpretive perspective on language: emphasis on understanding communication in context and variations across culture, variations in contextual rules for different speech communities.