TEMA 1

LA LENGUA COMO COMUNICACIN: LENGUAJE ORAL Y LENGUAJE

ESCRITO.
FACTORES QUE DEFINEN UNA SITUACIN COMUNICATIVA: EMISOR,
RECEPTOR FUNCIONALIDAD Y CONTEXTO.
0. INTRODUCTION.
1. LANGUAGE AS COMMUNICATION.
1.1.

Language definitions.

1.2.

Language functions.

1.3.

Communicative competence.

2. SPOKEN AND WRITTEN LANGUAGE.

2.1.

Spoken language.

2.2.

Written language.

2.3.

Historical Attitudes.

2.4.

Differences between writing and speech.

3. COMMUNICATION THEORY.
3.1.

Communication definition.

3.2.

Main Models.

3.3.

Key factors.

4. BIBLIOGRAPHY.

0. INTRODUCTION.
Traditional foreign language teaching concentrated on getting students consciously
to learn items of language in insolation. These bits of information would be mainly used to
read texts and only occasionally for oral communication. The focus was not on
communication but on a piece of language. Following Krashens distinction between
acquisition and learning we can say that people got to know about the language (learning)
but could not use it in a real context (acquisition).
The British applied linguist Allwright tried to bridge this dichotomy when he
theorised that if de language teachers management activities were directed exclusively at
involving the learners in solving communication problems in the target language, then
language learning wil take care of itlself. We may or may not agree with this extreme
rendering of the Communicative approach, but we all agree nowadays on the importance of
letting ous pupils use English for real communication during at least, the production stage.
In this unit we are going to study language and its functions to see that
communication is one of thes functions. We wil then posit that learning a language is not
only a grammatical and lexical process but also a social process. We also analyze the
differences between writing and speech; and finally we will discuss the most important
communication theory models, defining their key factors.
1.

LANGUAGE AS COMMUNICATION.

1.1. Language Definitions.

The word language has prompted innumerable definitions. Some focus on the general
concept of language (what we call lengua or lenguaje) and some focus on the more specific
notion of a language (what we call lengua or idioma).
SAPIR (1921) said that language is a purely human non-instinctive method of
communicating ideas, emotions and desires by means of voluntarily produced symbols.
HALL (1964) defined language as the institution whereby humans communicate and
interact whith each other by means of habitually used oral-auditory arbitrary symbols. As
we can see in these two definitions it is diffi cult to make a precise and comprehensive
statement about formal adn functional universal properties of language so some linguists
have trien to indentify the various properties that are thought to be its essential defining
characteristics.
The most widely acknowledged comparative approach has been the one proposed by
Charles HOCKETT. His set of 13 design features of communication using spoken language
were as follows:
-

Auditory-vocal channel: sound is used between mouth and ear.

Broadcast transmission and directional reception: a signal can be heard by any

auditory system within earshot, and the source can be located using the ears directionfinding ability.

Rapid fading: auditory signals are transitory.

Interchangeability: speakers of a language can reproduce any linguistic message they

can understand.

Total feedback: speakers hear and can reflect upon everything that they say.

Specitalization: the sound waves of speech have no other function than to signal
meaning.

Semanticity: the elemens of the signal convey meaning through their stable association
with real-world situations.

Arbitrariness: there is no dependence of the element of the signal on the nature of the
reality to which it refers.

Discreteness: speech uses a small set of sound elements tha clearly contrast whith each
other.

Displacement: it is possible to talk about events remote in space or time from the
situation of the speaker.

Productivity: ther is an infinite capacity to express and understand meaning, by using

old setence elements to produce new sentences.

Traditional transmissin: language is transmitted from one generation to the next

primarily by a process of teaching and learning.

Duality of pottering: the sound of language have no intrinsic meaning, but combine in
diferents ways to form elements, such as words, than do convey meaning.

After having studied thje main properties of language (what is language?) we will now
see its function (whats language for?).
1.2. Language Functions.
The most usual answer to the question why do we use language? is to
communicate our ideas and this ability to communicate or communicative competence is
studied in the next part. But it would be wrong to think of communicating our ideas as the
only way in which we use language (referential, ideational or propositional function).
Several other functions may be indentified where the communication of ideas is a marginal
or irrelevant consideration.

One of the commonest uses of languages, the expressive or emotional one, is a

means of getting rid of our nervous energy when we are under stress. We do not try to
communicate ideas because we can use language in this way whether we are alone or not.
Swear words and obscenities are problably the most usual signals to be used in this way,
especially when we are angry. But there are also many emotive utterances of positive kind,
such as expressions of fear, affection, astonishment...
MALINOWSKY (1844-1942) termed the third use of language we are studying
phatic communication. He used it to refere to the social function of language, which
arises out of the basic human need to signal friendship, or, at least, lack of enmity. If
someone does not say hello to you when hi is supposed to, you may think hi is hostile. In
these cases the sole function of language is to maintain a comfortable relationship between
people, to provide a means of avoiding an embarrassing situation. Phatic communication,
however, is far from universal, some cultures prefer silence, eg, the Aritama of Colombia.
The fourth function we may find is based on phonetic properties. The rhythmical
litanies of religious groups, the presuasive cadences of political speechmaking, the dialogue
chants used by prisoner or soldiers have only one apparent reason: people take delight in
them. They can only be explained by a universal desire to exploit the sonic potential of
language.
The fith function is the performative one. A performative sentence ins an utterance
that performs an act. This use occurs in the naming of a ship at a launching ceremony, or
when a priest baptizes a child.
We may also finde other functions such as:
-

recording facts.
Instrument of thought
Expression of regional, social, educational, sexual or occupational identity.

The British linguist HALLIDAY grouped all these functions into three metafunctions,
shich are the manifestation in the linguistic system of the two veryu general purposes shich
underlie all uses of language combine whith the rhird component (textual) shich brethes
relevance into the other two.
1.- The ideational function is to organize the speakers or writers experience of the real
or imaginary world, i.e. language refers to real or imagined persons, things, actions, events,
states,etc.
2.- The interpersonal function is to indicate, establish or mantain social relationships
between people. It includes forms of address, speech function, modality ...
3.- The third component is the textual function which serves to create written or spoken
texts which cohere within themselves and which fit the particular situation in which they are
used.

1.3. Communicative competence

CHOMSKY (1957) defined language as `a set of sentences, each finite in length and
constructed out of a finite set of elements. A capable speaker has a subconscious knowledge
of the grammar rules of his language which allows him to make sentences in that language.
However, Dell HYMES thought that Chomsky had missed out some very important
information: the rules of the use. When a native speaker speaks, he does not onlu utter
grammatically correct forms, he also knows where and when to use these sentences and to
whom. Hymes, then, said that competence by itself is not enough to explain a native
speakers knowledge, and he replaced it with his own concept of communicative
competence.
HYMES distinguishes 4 aspects of this competence:
- systematic potential
- appropriacy
- occurrence
- feasibility
Systematic potential means that the native speaker possesses a system that has a potential
for creating a lot of language. This is similar to Comskys competence.
Appropriacy means that the native speaker knows what language is appropriate in a given
situation. His choice is based on the following variables, among others:
Setting
Participants
Purpose
Channel
Topic
Occurrence means that the native speaker knows how often something is said in the
language and acts accordingly.
Feasibility means that the native speaker knows whether something is possible in the
language. Even if there is no grammatical rule to ban 20-adjective prehead construction, we
know that these constructions are not possible in the language.
These 4 categories have been adapted for teaching purposes. Thus, the Royal Decree
1006/1991 of 14 June (BOE 25 June), which establishes the teaching requirements for
Primary Education nationwide, sees communicative competence as comprising five
subcompetences:
-

Grammar competence (competencia gramatical, o capacidad de poner en prctica las

unidades y reglas de funcionamiento del sistema de la lengua).
Discourse competence (competencia discursiva o capacidad de utilizar diferentes tipos
de discurso y organizarlos en funcin de la situacin comunicativa y de los
inetrlocutores).

Sociolinguistic competence ( competencia sociolingstica o capacidad de adecuar los

enunciados a un contexto concreto, atendiendo a los usos aceptados en una comunidad
lingstica determinada).
Strategic competence ( competencia estratgica o capacidad para definir, corregir,
matizar o en general, realizar ajustes en el curso de la situacin comunicativa).
Sociocultural competence ( competencia sociocultural, entendida como un cierto grado
de familiaridad con el contexto social y cultural en el que se utiliza una determinada
lengua).

The terms grammar, sociolinguistic and sociocultural competence are quite self
explanatory so we will only analyze discourse and strategic competence.
CANALE (1980) defined discourse competence as an aspect of communicative competence
which describes the ability to produce unified written or spoken discourse that shows
coherence and cohesion and which conforms to the norms of different genres. Our pupils
must be able to produce discourse in which successive utterances are linked through ruoles
of discourse competence.
Strategic competence may be defined as an aspect of communicative competence
which describes the ability of speakers to use verbal and non-verbal communication
strategies to compensate for breakdowns in communication or to improve the effectiveness
of communication.
2. SPOKEN AND WRITTEN LANGUAGE
It is traditionl in language study to distinguish between spoken and written language.
Before summarizing their main differences we will outline their main features
independently.
2.1.

Spoken Language

The most obvious aspect of language is speech. Speech is not essential to the definition
of an infinitely productive communication system, such as it is constituted by language. But,
in fact, speech is the universal material of human language. Man has been a speaking animal
from early in the emergence of Homo Sapiens as a recognizable distinct species. The earliest
known systems of writing go back perhaps 5.000 years. This means that for many hundreds
of thousands of years human language were transmitted and developed entirely as spoken
means of communication.
The description and clasification of sounds is the main aim of phonetics. Sounds may be
identified with reference to their production, transmission and reception. These three
activities occur at a physiological level, which implies the action of nerves and muscles. The
motor nerves that link the speakers brain with his speech mechanism activate the
corresponding muscle. The movements of the tongue, lips, vocal folds, etc. Constitute the
articulatory stage of the speech chain, and the area of phonetics that deals with it is

articulatory phonetics.The movement of the articulators produces disturbances in the air

pressure called sound waves, which are physical manifestations. This is the acoustic stage of
the chain, during which the sound waves travel towards the listeners ear-drum. The study of
speech sound waves correspons to acoustic phonetics. The hearing process is the domain of
auditory phonetics. This can be seen in the following table:

SPEECH
CHAIN
Activity
stage
Phonetics

BRAIN

psychological
linguistic

SPEECH
MECHANISM
physiological
production
articulatory
phonetics

SOUND
WAVES

EAR

physical
physiological
transmission perception
acoustic
phonetics

BRAIN

psychologicals
linguistic

auditory
phonetics

In this table we can see how phonetics is the study of all possible speech sounds.
This is not the most important task for linguist, however. A linguist must study the way in
which a languages speakers systematically use a selection of theses sounds in order to
express meaning. In this activity he is helped by phonology. Phonology is continually loking
beneath th surface of speech to determine its underlying regularities. It is not interested in
sounds but in phonemes, ie. Smallest contrastive phonological units which can produce a
difference in meaning. The study of speech is therefore, the field of both Phonetics and
Phonology.
2.2.

Written language.

Myths and legends of the supernatural shroud the early history of writing. One point,
at least, is fairly clear. It now seems most likely that writing systems evolved independently
of each other at different times in several parts of the world in Mesopotamia, China... There
is nothing to support a theory of common origin.
-

We can classify writting systems into two types:

Non-phonological.
Phonological.

Non-phonological systems do not show a clear relationship between the symbols and
the sounds of the language. They include the pictographic, ideographic, cuneiform and
egyptian hieroglyphic and logographic.
In the pictographic system, the graphemes or pictographs or pictograms provide a
recognizable picture of entities as they exist in the world.

Ideograms or ideographs have an abstract or conventional meaning, no longer

displaying a clear pictorial link whith external reality.
The cuneiform method of writing dates from the 4 th. Millennium BC, and was used to
express both non-phonological and phonological writing systems. The name derives from
the Latin, meaning wedge-shaped and refers to the technique used to make the symbols.
Egyptian hieroglyphic developed about 3000 BC. It is a mixture of ideograms,
phonograms and determinative symbols. It was called hieroglyphic because of its prominent
use in temples ad tombs (Greek, sacred carving).
Logographic writing systems are those where the graphemes represent words. The
best known case is Chinese and Japanese kanji. The symbols are variously referred to as
logographs, logograms or characters.
Phonological systems do show a clear relationship between the symbols and the
sounds of language. We can distinguish syllabic and alphabetic systems.
In a system of syllabic writing, each grapheme corresponds to a spoken syllable,
usually a consonant-vowel pair. This system can be seen in Japanese Kataka.
Alphabetic writing establishes a direct correspondence between graphemes and
morphemes. This makes it the most economic and adaptable of all the writing systems. In a
perfectly regular sustem there is one grapheme for each morpheme. However, most
alphabets in present day use fail to meet this criterion. At one extreme we find such
languages as Spanish, which has a very regular system; at the other, we find such cases as
English and Gaelic, where there is a marked tendency to irregularity.
2.3.

Historical attitudes.

Historically speaking, written language was considered tobe superior to spoken

language for many centuries. It was the medium of literature, and literature was considered a
source of standards of linguistic excellence. Witten records provide language with
permanence and authority and so the rules of grammar were illustrated exclusively from
written texts.
On the other hand, spoken language was ignored as an object unworthy of study.
Spoken language demostrates such a lack of care and organization that cannot be studied
scientifically; it was said to have no rules, and speakers have thought that, in order to speak
properly, it was necessary to follow the correct norm. As this norm was based on written
standards, it is clear that the prescriptive tradition rested supremacy of writing over speech.
This viewpiont became widely criticized at the turn of our century. Leonard
Bloomfield insisted that "writing is not language but merely a way of recording language by
means of visible marks". This approach pointed out several factors, some of which we have
already mentioned:

Speech is many centuries older than writing

It developes naturally in children
Writing systems are mostly derivative, ie, they are based on the sounds of speech.

If speech is the primary medium of communication, it was also argued that it should
be the main object of linguistic study. Actually, the majority of the world's cultures'
languages have never been written down and this has nothing to do with their evolutionary
degree. It is a fallacy to suppose that the languages of illiterate or so-called primitive peoples
are less structured, less rich in vocabulary, and less efficient than the languages of literate
civilization. E. Sapir was one of the first linguistics to attack the myth that primitive peoples
spoke primitive languages. In one study he compared the grammatical equivalents of the
sentence "he will give it to you" in six Amerindian languages. Among many fascinating
features of these complex grammatical forms, note the level of abstraction introduced by the
following example:
Southern Paiute
Maya-vaania-aka-anga-'mi= guve will visible-thing visible-creature thee
Many linguistics and ethnographerstherefore stressed the urgency of providing
techniques for the analysis of spoken language and because of this emphasis on the spoken
language, it was now the turn of writing to fall into disrepute. Many linguistics came to
think of written language as a tool of secundary inportance. Writing came to be excluded
from the primary subject matter of linguistic science. Many grammarians presented an
account of speech alone.
Nowadays, there is no sense in the view that one medium of communication is
untrinsically better. Writing cannot substitute for speech, nor speech for writing. The
functions of speech and writing are usually said to complement each other.
On the other hand, there are many functional para llels which seem to be increase in
modern society. We cannot use recording devices to keep facts and communicate ideas. On
the other hand writing is also taken the social of phatic function typically associated with the
immediacy of speech.
Despite these parallels we can obviously find striking differences.
2.4.

Differences between writing and speech

Research has begun to investigate the nature and extent of the differences between
them. Most obviously, they contrast in physical form:
-

Specch uses phonic substance typically in the form of air-pressure movements

Writing uses graphic substance typically in the form of marks on a surface.

Differences of structure and use are the product of radically different communicative
situations. Crystal (1987) pointed that `speech is tme-bound, dynamic, transient, part of an
interaction in which, typically, both participants are present, and the speaker has a specific
addressee in mind. Writing is space-bound, static, permanent, the result of a situation in
which, typically, the producer is distant from the recipient and, often, may not even know

who the recipient is. As writing can only occasionally be thought of as an interaction it is
just normal that we can establish the following points of contrast:
1.- The permanence of writing allows repeated reading and close analysis. The
spontaneity and rapidity of speech minimizes the chance of complex preplanning, and
promotes features that assist to think standing up.
2.- The participants in written interaction cannot usually see each other, and they thus
cannot rely on the context to help make clear what they mean as they would when speaking.
As a consequence, deictic expressions are normally avoided. On the other hand, feedback is
available in most speech interactions.
3.- The majority of graphic features present a system of contrast that has no speech
equivalent. Many genres of written language, such as tables, graphs, and complex formulae,
cannot be conveyed by reading aloud.
4.- Some constructions may be found onluy in writing, such as the French simple
past, and others only occur in speech, such as `whatchamacallit, or slang expressions.
5.- Finally we can say that written language tends to be more formal and so it is more
likely to provide the standard that society values.
Despite these differences, there are many respects in which the written and the
spoken language have mutually interacted. We normally use the written language in order to
improve our command of vocabulary, active or passive, spoken or written. Loan words may
come into a country in a written form, and sometimes, everything we know about language
is its writing.
3. COMMUNICATION THEORY.
3.1. Definition
Communication, the exchange of meanings between individuals through a common
system of symbols, concerned scholars since the time of ancient Greece. In 1928 the English
literary critic and author Ivor Armtrong Richards offered one of the first definitions of
communication.
Since about 1920 the growth and apparent influence of communication technology
have attracted the attention of many specialists who have attempted to isolate
communication as a specific facet of their particular interest.
In the1960s, Marshall McLuhan, drew the threads of interest in the field of
communication into a view that associated many contemporary psychological and
sociological phenomena with the media employed in modern culture. McLuhan's idea, `the
medium is the message, stimulated numerous filmmakers, photographers, and others, who
adopted McLuhans view that contemporary society had moved from a print culture to a
visual one.

By the late 20th century the main focus of interest in communication seemed to be
drifting away from McLuhanism and to be centring upon:
1.- The mass communication industries
2.- Persuasive communication and the use of technology to influence dispositions
3.- Processes of interpersonal communication as mediators of information
4.- Dynamics of verbal and non-verbal (and perhaps extrasensory) communication
5.- Perception of different kinds of communication
6.- Uses of communication technology for social and artistic purposes, including
education
7.- Development of relevant critism for artistic endeavours employing modern
communication technology.
In short, a communication expert may be oriented to any number of disciplines in a
field of inquiry that has, as yet, neither drawn for itself a conclusive roster of subject matter
nor agreed upon specific methodologies of analysis.
3.2. Models
Fragmentation and problems of interdisciplinarity outlook have generated a wide
range of discussion concerning the ways in which communication occurs and the processes
it entails. Most communication theorists admit that their main task is to answer the query
originally posed by the U.S political scientist H. D. Lasswell, `Who says what to whom with
what effect?. Obviously all of the factors in this question may be interpreted differently by
scholars and writers in different disciplines. Scientists may make use of dynamic or linear
models.
3.2.1. Dynamic models.
Dynamic models are used in describe cognitive, emotional, and artistic aspects of
communication as they occur in sociocultural contexts. These models do not try to be
quantitative as linear ones. They often centre attention upon different modes of
communication and theorize that the messages they contain including messages of emotional
quality and artistic content, are communicated in various manners to and from different sorts
of people.
Many analysts of communication such as McLuhan assert that the channel actually
dictates, or severely influences, the message, both as sent and received. For them, the
stability and function of channel or medium are more variable and less mechanistically
related to the process than they are for followers of Shannon and Weaver.
3.2.2. Linear models: Shannon and Weaver's.
Claude Shannon and Warren Weaver's Mathematical Model of Communication is one
of the most productive schematic models of a communication systems that has ever been
proposed. The simplicity, clarity, and surface generally of their model proved attractive to
many students of communication in a number of disciplines. As originally conceived, the
model contained five elements arranged in linear order:

An information source
A transmiter
A channel of transmission
A receiver
A destination

This model was originally intended for electronic messages so, in time, the five
elements of the model were renamed so as to specify components for other types of
communication transmitted in various manners. The information source was split into its
components to provide a wider range of applicability:
-

a source
an encoder
a message
a channel
a decoder
a receiver

Another concept, first called a `noise source but later associated with the notion of
entropy was imposed upon the communication model. Entropy diminishes the integrity of
the message and distorts the message for the receiver. Negative entropy may also occur in
instances where incomplete or blurred messages are nevertheless received intact, either
because of the ability of the receiver to fill in missing details or to recognize, despite
distortion or paucity of information, both the intent and the content of the communication.
But not only negative entropy counteracts entropy. Redundancy, the repetition of
elements within a message that prevents the failure of communication of information, is the
greatest antidote to entropy. Redundancy is apparently involved in most human activities,
and, because it helps to overcome the various forms of entropy that tends to turn intelligible
messages into unintelligible ones, it is an indispensable element for effective
communication.
We can see that the model, despite the introduction of entropy and redundancy, is
conceptually static. To correct this flaw, Norbert Wiener, the father of cybernetics, added the
principle of feedback, ie, sources tend to be responsive to their own behaviour and to the
context of communication. Interaction between human beings in conversation cannot
function without the ability of the message sender to weigh and calculate the apparent effect
of this words on his listener.
We will now analyze each of these key factors.
3.3. Key factors
This unit title mentions some of the key factors affecting any communicative
interaction such as the sender and the receiver. After putting them in the broader framework
of the Mathematical Model of Communication we will analyze the intended effects of our
communicative interactions (speech acts) and the environment in which they are exchanged
(social context).

The information source selects a desired message out of a possible set of messages.
The transmitter changes the message into a signal which is sent over the communication
channel where it is received by the receiver and changed back into a message which is sent
to the destination. In the process of transmission certain unwanted additions to the signal
may occur which are not part of the message and these are referred to as noise or entropy;
negative entropy and redundancy counteract entropy. For somo communication systems the
components are simple to specify as, for instance:
-

information source: a man on the telephone

transmitter: the mouthpiece
message and signal: the words the man speaks
channel: the electrical wires
receiver: the earpiece
destination: the listener

In face-to-face communication, the speaker can be both information source and

transmitter, while the listener can be both receiver and destination.
3.3.1. Speech acts.
J.L. Austin (1911-1960) was the first to draw attention to the many functions
performed by utterances as part of interpersonal communication. He distinguishes two main
types of functional potential:
-

performative
contative

A performative is an utterance that perform an act: to say is to act, as we have already

seen when studying language functions. Performatives may be explicit and implicit
performatives, which do not contain a performative verb.
Constatives are utterances which assert something that is either true or false.
In speech act analysis the effect of utterances on the behaviour of speaker and hearer
is studies using a threefold distinction:
A locutionary act is the saying of something which is meaningful and can be
understood. For example, saying the sentence `shoot the snake is a locutionary act if hearers
understand the words `shoot, `theand `snake and can identify the particular snake referred
to.
An illocutionary act is using a sentence to perform a function. For example `shoot the
snakemay be intended as an order or a piece of advice.
A perlocutionary act is the result or effect that is produced by means of saying
something. For example, shooting the snake would be a perlocutionary act.
Austins three-part distinction is less frequently used than a two part distinction
between the propositional content of a sentence and the illocutionary force or intended

effects of speech acts. There are thousands of possible illocutionary acts, and several
attempts have been made to classify them into a small number of types:
-

representatives
directives
commisives
expressives
declarations

In declaratives the speaker is committed in varying degrees, to the truth of a

proposition.
In directives the speaker tries to get the hearer to do something.
In commissives the speaker is committed, in varying degrees, to a certain course of
action.
In expressives the speaker expresses an attitude about a state of affairs.
In declarations the speaker alters the external status or conditions of an object or
situation solely by making the utterance.
As we can infer from the examples there are some fuzzy areas and overlappings
between different types of illocutionary force. But an utterance may lose its illocutionary
force if does not satisfy several criteria, known as felicity conditions. For example the
preparatory conditions have to be right: the person performing the speech act has to have the
authority to do so.
Ordinary people automatically accept these conditions when they communicate. If
any of these conditions does not obtain, then a special interpretation of the speech act has to
apply. Both normal and special interpretations of utterances have much to do with the
context in which they are made.
3.3.2. Context.
Context is defined by the Collins English Dictionary as:
1. The parts of a piece of writing, speech, etc, that precede and follow a word or
passage and contribute to its full meaning.
2. The conditions and circumstances that are relevant to an event, fact, etc.
The first definition covers what we may call linguistic context, but as we can infer
from the second definition, linguistic context may not be enough to fully understand an
utterance understood as a speech act. In fact, linguistic elements in a text may refer not only
to other parts of the text but also to the outside world, to the context of situation.
The concept of context of situation was formulated by Malinowski in 1923. It has
been worked over and extended by a number of linguistics, specially Hymes and Halliday.
Hymes categorizes the communicative situation in terms of eight components while
Halliday offers three headings for the analysis:

CONTEXT OF SITUATION

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.

HYMES
Form and content of text
Setting
Participants
Ends
Key
Medium
Genre
Interactional norms

HALLIDAY
1. field
2. mode
3. tenor

We will now analyze Hallidays more abstract interpretation as it practically

subsumes Hymess one.
The field is the total event, in which the text is functioning, together with the
purpose activity of the speaker or writer; it thus includes the suject matter as one element in
it.
The mode is the function of the text in the event, including therefore both the channel
taken by the language, and its genre or rethorical mode, as narrative, didactic, persuasive and
so on.
The tenor refers to to the participants who are taking part in this communicative
exchange, who they are and what kind of relationship thay have to one another. It is clear
that role relationships, ie, the relationship which people have to each other in a act of
communication, influences the way they speak to each other. One of the speakers may have,
for instance, a role which has a higher status than that of the other speaker or speakers.
4. BIBLIOGRAPHY.
-

Collins English Dictionary. Collins. Glasgow, 1992.

Crystal, D. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language. CUP. Cambridge, 1987.

Encyclopaedia Britannica. Enc. Brit. Inc. Chicago, 1990.

Halliday, M. A. K. Spoken and written Language. Geelong, Vic. Deakin University

Press, 1976.

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