Communication

The focus here is on 'Communication.'

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Developments may in this way proceed through an appreciation of the arts and art works on a very general level . . . . or . . . . through engagement in materials, processes and methods . . . . through work with visual relationships . . . . . through consideration of aesthetic theory and practice . . . . through an interpretation of a specific discipline . . . . through reference to tradition . . . . . through a review of history or attention to cultural norms or through the development of specific topics, events, or issues . . . .

C  O  N  S  I  D  E  R  A  T  I  O  N  S

Impart

Make known

Make common

Give

Transmit

Share

Express

Partake of

Take part, participate

Administer

Interchange

Passage

Means

Routes

Connection

Language: As we have seen, thinking sometimes takes place without language. Everyone has had the experince of searching for a word to expresss an idea that exists as a vague image or feeling. Nevertheless, most thinking leans heavily on language, because it allows the world to be encoded into symbols that are easy to manipulate. [Coon, Dennis. Introduction to Psychology, Exploration and Application. St. Paul: West Publishing Company, 1989. Chapter: Learning & Cognition]

Semantics. The study of the meaning of words and language. It is here that the link between language and thought becomes most evident. For example, the subtle change in meaning caused by a reordering of words. Semantic problems often arise when a word has dual, or unclear, meaning: Does the sentence "Tom was seated by the waiter" mean that the waiter gave Tom a seat or that Tom was seated beside the waiter? Choice of words may directly influence thinking by shifting meaning: Has one country's army "invaded"another? Or "effected a protective incursion"? Is the city reservoir "half full" or "half empty"? Would you rather eat "prime beef" or "dead cow"?! [Coon, Dennis. Introduction to Psychology, Exploration and Application. St. Paul: West Publishing Company, 1989. Chapter: Learning & Cognition]

The Structure of Language. [Coon, Dennis. Introduction to Psychology, Exploration and Application. St. Paul: West Publishing Company, 1989. Chapter: Learning & Cognition]

1. Symbols. First, a language must provide symbols that can stand for objects and ideas. The symbols we call words are built out of:

Phoneme. Basic speech sounds.

Morpohemes. Speech sounds collected into meaningful units, such as syllables or words.

The sounds m, b, w, and a cannot form a syllable mbwa in English, but in Swahili they can. The units of speech can be arranged in countless ways. Consider the possibilities with just four morphemes reach, to, able, and un. From these, we can make able to, unable to, reach to, to reach, able to reach, unable to reach, reachable, unreachable, reachable to, unreachable to , unto, unto Able.

2. Grammar. Secondly, a language must have a grammar, or set of rules, for making sounds into words and words into sentences. One part of grammar, known as syntax, consists of rules for word order in sentences. Syntax is important because rearranging words almost alwyas changes the meaning of a sentence. Traditional grammar is concerned with "surface" language--the sentences we actually speak.

Linguist Noam Chomsky argues that we do not learn all athe sentences we might ever say. Rather, we actively create them by applying transformation rules (the child saying "I runned home"). For example, the core sentence "Dog bites man" can be trasformed to the following patterns (and others as well):

Past: The dog bit the man.

Passive: The man was bitten by the dog.

Negative: The dog did not bite the man.

Question: Did the dog bite the man?

3. Productive, meaningful arrangement. The third, perhaps most essential charactaeristic of language is that it is productive. The great strength of any true language is that it can produce new thoughts or ideas. Because words do not resemble the things they represent, words can be rearranged to produce an infinite variety of meaningful sentences. It is the productive quality of language that makes it such a powerful tool for thought. The cries, gestures, and mating calls of animals have broad meanings immediately understood by other animals of the same species, but for the most part natural animal communication is quite limited (no variations on a theme for instance). More importantly, animal communication seems to lack the productive quality of human language. Interchanges can be impressive, but communication and actual language use are two different things. [Coon, Dennis. Introduction to Psychology, Exploration and Application. St. Paul: West Publishing Company, 1989. Chapter: Learning & Cognition]

R  E  F  E  R  E  N  C  E  S 

Communicate 1. to impart knowledge of; make known. 2. to give to another; impart; transmit. 3. to administer the Eucharist to. 4. Archaic. to share in or partake of. -v.i. 5. to give or interchange thoughts, information, or the like, by writing, speaking., etc.: They communicate with each other every day. 6. to express one's true thoughts, feelings, and moods easily. 7. to have or form a connecting passage. 8. to partake of the Eucharist. 9. Obs. to take part or participate. [< L commœni‡t(us) (ptp. of commœnic‡re to impart, make common) = commœn(is) common + -ic(us) -IC + -‡tus -ATE1] -Syn. 1. divulge, announce, disclose, reveal.

Impart 1. to make known; tell; relate. 2. to give; bestow; transmit. 3. to grant a part or share of. [Late ME < L impart(’ere) (to) share] -Syn. 1. disclose, reveal, divulge. 2. grant, cede, confer. -Ant. 1. conceal.