7 levels of communication pdf download

It is a commonality among linguists — linguistics being after all the science of language — that one should distinguish between language itself, which is as device of some sort, with its own internal principles of organisation grammar, lexicon, semantics … and language use which is the use of language in order to achieve goals, the most obvious of these being communication.

Most communication researchers thus have to deal with issues of language use in their work. Yet among the rea- sons that sustain a differentiation between the study of language and that of lan- guage use is that, contrary to what is sometimes believed, linguistic messages are not transparent.

In other words, it is not enough to know some code, here the linguistic code, in order to understand a fully-fledged meaning. Inference plays a very central role, so that the study of the linguistic data has to be confronted with other, non-linguistic, data, when studying verbal communication.

At a theoretical, explanatory, level, it could be also argued that the use of lan- guage is also the most distinctive trait of human communication as opposed to ani- mal or, generally, non-human communication phenomena, introducing an evolu- tionary perspective on language and human communication. Moving to the disciplinary camp of linguistics, the idea that the scientific study of language has to do with explaining language as a tool for conveying meaning in verbal communication may seem almost a truism.

Verbal communication. Communication in an elaborated sense proper be- came a true concern for scholars in the language sciences only in the second half of the 20 th century with the emergence of pragmatics. It turns out, in fact, that neither on the side of communication research nor on the side of linguistics, things are so clear-cut, and on neither side is the centrality of verbal communication for the respective scientific endeavors considered an un- disputed truism.

This is somewhat surprising when keeping in mind that the usual purpose of language is to communicate and that communication among humans is typically achieved by means of language.

A volume on verbal communication within a Handbook of Communication Sciences could not be conceived without recognizing this counter-intuitive state of the art and without an ambition to contribute towards bridging some of the gaps left open by this intellectual background.

More generally, it could not be designed without taking into account the complex disciplinary and interdisciplinary land- scape that surrounds this very disputed topic.

The landscape in question is indeed particularly complex, since language lies at the intersection of many disciplines linguistics, communication sciences, philosophy, psychology, sociology, ethnolo- gy, anthropology, etc.

Indeed, language and communication make up for a scientific object of study in some sense relating both to natural sciences it is about how humans use their brains and their motor system to send structured signals and to interpret them, hence it is about cognitive psychology and neurology and to the humanities it is about how humans share thoughts, emotions and experiences that shape all as- pects of life in society, from basic communicative and representational needs to subtle and elaborated artistic and technological achievements.

Therefore it is of little surprise that the field is fiercely disputed by highly conflicting trends: natural- istic-cognitive and formal approaches, on one side, and psychosocial trends on the other.

Likewise, students of language have often been reluctant to integrate their theories of language structure with what is manifestly the paradigm function of language, that of communication. Jacobs Despite its pervasiveness and the role it plays in defining human communication as a whole, verbal communication does not currently define one cohesive and dis- tinct subfield within the discipline of communication.

Clearly, verbal communication does not fit in this kind of subdivision as it is clearly equally important for each of the above- mentioned contextual domains. This label clearly identifies a research community where the use of lan- guage in communication plays indeed a central role. The focus of the Language and Social Interaction community, however, is clearly narrower than the full extent of verbal communication phenomena.

Discussing discourse analysis in the com- munication discipline in America, Tracy observes that the use of dis- course analytic methods began among interpersonal communication scholars and remains best established in that specific contextual area. Their description, however, makes no specific mention of the study of discourse or speech. In fact, even rhetoric and argumentation are absent from the labeling of its interests groups. These absences may well be due to particular circumstances, but they surely seem to reflect certain fundamental differences between Europe and North America in the development in the field of communication.

These fundamental differences touch also the way in which the field of communication treats verbal communica- tion and relates or fails to relate to the language sciences proper. Let us start from what could be, prima facie, a plausible label to denote the matter of the present book as a relevant subfield of Communication: speech com- munication.

In a North American context, the speech label refers more to an intellectual tradition within the communication discipline than to any topical subfield having to do with verbal communication. In the early years of the 20 th Century teachers of public speaking in American universities broke away from English departments and founded de- partments of Speech, later to become departments of Speech Communication. Ac- cording to Craig — , these departments where often characterized by a tension between scholars of the Humanities rooted in the classical rhetorical tradi- tions and those scholars who saw Speech as a behavioral, social discipline.

In contrast with the North American situation, in Europe rhetoric was, until recently, not perceived as a living scholarly and pedagogical discipline and the educational endeavor of public speaking instruction did not have the same impor- tance. In some European countries, it is linguistics and semiotics, rather than rhe- toric, that have had an impact on the development of the field, after they had become very strong disciplines under the influence of structuralism.

If rhetoric deserves to be studied, it is merely as a historical subject — as history of rhetoric — to critically understand the roots of these phenomena with the help of newer sciences such as linguistics, semiotics, psycho-analysis and marxism cf. Barthes Nonetheless, Perelman and Ol- brechts-Tyteca and Barthes share an important presupposition: they both believed that, at the time of their writing, rhetoric as a discipline was dead.

What is then the place of verbal communi- cation in European communication sciences? The current configuration of communication education in France, as Krieg- Planque — observes, features curricula that mix language sciences and communication sciences and includes a certain number of discourse-related or semiotics-related courses also in more standard communication curricula.

The relationship of these courses with a broader, encompassing, approach to verbal communication is far from being straightforward, however.

Although the view of discourse analysis as method is also typical of the Ameri- can communication scene Tracy , its confusion with quantitative methods of mass communication research is impossible in an American context. In that con- 1 The shift in the denomination of the field is intentional. While in North America Communication is perceived as being one discipline and is usually not explicitly qualified as a science but rather listed among the arts, despite its strong social sciences component, in continental Europe the field is more often perceived as multi-disciplinary and its component disciplines are often qualified as sciences: hence Communication Sciences.

In contrast, French discourse analysis de- veloped from the study of political discourse, newspaper discourse and media dis- course in general and involved from the beginning computer supported methods for the quantitative analysis of extensive corpora cf. Within the language scien- ces, there was a time in which linguistics, in close alliance with semiotics, enjoyed wide currency within communication sciences, at least as far as Europe is con- cerned, and was regarded as a model for theorizing about communication.

The contribution of linguistic ideas to the field of communication remained however largely programmatic. That period is long past and linguistics and semiotics have since then taken different paths at least until very recently.

It has entered a series of interdisciplinary partnerships that have made it much more relevantly connected with the study of communication, while suffering of a lack of visibility in the field of communication. Two trends of research are particularly relevant here and have informed the architecture of the present volume.

They are basically related to the two major trends we mentioned at the beginning of this introduction: research mostly orient- ed towards social aspects, and research mostly oriented towards cognitive aspects.

Although currently the divide between these two trends tends to blur, at least for what concerns their central topics of interest, relevant oppositions in focus do exist at the epistemological level due to a preference for methods and concerns of the social sciences on one side and of the natural sciences on the other.

The trend that stems from the interaction of the Language Sciences and social sciences such as anthropology and sociology produced a plethora of approaches to the study of verbal meanings in socially situated communication events discourse analysis, conversation analysis, ethnography of communication, interactional so- ciolinguistics, critical discourse analysis, etc.

The other major trend, represented by cognitively oriented research on lan- guage and verbal communication, is mostly carried out within cognitive and ex- perimental pragmatics, cognitive linguistics, psycholinguistics, in close connection with research in cognitive psychology, cognitive anthropology, artificial intelli- gence and cognitive science in general.

This growing body of work addresses the cognitive processes underlying verbal communication seeking to factor out what is specific to strictly verbal aspects and dependent on a highly specialized language faculty, from what depends on more general cognitive processes, recruited in com- munication, that also underlie non-verbal behaviour.

On the one hand this kind of research is deeply intertwined with evolutionary research on language and com- munication tackling the question of what is uniquely and distinctively human in human communication and by contrast what we share with other living beings. On the other hand, it provides insight into how language interacts with the reasoning processes involved in inference, argumentation and persuasion as well as with cognitive processes connected with framing, metaphorical mapping and analogy.

The field known as Pragmatics, with its emphasis on intentional communica- tive behaviour, contextual processes of explicit and implicit message understand- ing, shared intentions and action coordination, provides a bridge between the cog- nitive and the social strands of research.

Cognitively oriented research on language use, although it is not systematically represented in the discipline of communica- tion as an autonomous concern, is nevertheless relevant or even central to a variety of areas ranging from research about procedures of message understanding to per- suasion research.

As expected from our understanding of the scientific landscape, we took seri- ously the double focus on cognitive and socio-cultural aspects in current research on language.

An introduction 11 ing complementarity rather than as a sterile divide, although acknowledging that on some issues the epistemological tension remains. Among the critical themes that a volume on language within communication sciences has to address, there are the few big issues of what language is, how studying it contributes crucially to the understanding of human communication in general, and what it tells us at a more philosophical and anthropological level about human nature.

It is also impor- tant to consider how language concerns intersect communication research at the level of methodology for the analysis of verbal data of different kinds. As it appears, verbal communication research pragmatics is typically relevant to broader issues of communication sciences; its applicability to the analysis of communication in various social contexts is always in focus throughout the volume.

The book follows these principles along six uneven sections: Verbal communi- cation: fundamentals; Explicit and implicit verbal communication; Conversation and dialogue; Types of discursive activities; Verbal communication across media and con- texts; Verbal communication quality.

The first section of the handbook Verbal communication: Fundamentals is devoted to liminal matters that are actually crucial to acquire a grasp of the speci- ficity of verbal communication and at the same time appreciate its pivotal nature in the human communication landscape at large.

For some children who have not learned to use abstract symbols, however, concrete symbols Level V may serve as a bridge to using abstract symbols Level VI. The child uses abstract symbols such as speech, manual signs, or Brailled or written words. These symbols are NOT physically similar to what they represent. They are used one at a time. The child understands that the meaning of word combinations may differ depending upon how the symbols are arranged.

The Communication Matrix. Printable Download. What is the Communication Matrix? The Communication Matrix is designed to show you exactly how a person is communicating now. Seven Levels of Communication The Matrix is further organized into seven levels of communicative behavior, represented by the seven rows on the Profile. These Levels are: I. Unconventional Communication The child uses pre-symbolic behaviors intentionally to express his needs and desires to other people.

Conventional Communication The child uses pre-symbolic behaviors intentionally to express her needs and desires to other people. Abstract Symbols The child uses abstract symbols such as speech, manual signs, or Brailled or written words.

Download Free PDF. Winfrida Makuru. Download PDF. A short summary of this paper. Unit introduction Organisations today need to plan their communication systems to ensure up-to- date information, knowledge and awareness are always available to all who need them.

A corporate communication strategy is the outcome of a strategic thinking process where senior communicators and managers take strategic decisions to identify and manage corporate communications and communicate them to stakeholders. With or without a formal communication strategy, every organisation communicates with its audience in one way or another. However, to ensure effective relationships with key stakeholders, every corporate organisation requires a dynamic plan that allows it to strategically relate with its customers as well as other key internal and external stakeholders.

Communication is crucial to organisational effectiveness as it is the basis for maintaining pace and of ensuring that change can happen at all levels. It is through the management of sound and coordinated systems of communication that an organisation can integrate its various parts to ensure workforce harmonisation and achieve awareness of its performance. Effective corporate communication is closely related to the success of the organisation.

When effective corporate communications strategies are incorporated into a business structure, regardless of the size of the organisation, the ability to achieve global communication will be strengthened.