S7 - Language and communication

Language = who says what to whom by which channel and with what effect.


1. Language is central to human social interaction and children acquire it even without formal instruction.


2. Differences in speech style are used as markers of social status, as guides for forming impressions of others and as markers of group boundaries.

Language and gender: do women and men speak differently?

Because of the historical dominance of males in just about every society, characteristics of the male voice and typical male patterns of speaking are associated with power. We 'read' this power into messages virtually without awareness.


PS: both sexes tend to adapt their speech to the sex of the listener


5. Gender differences in speech, apart from pitch, largely reflect differences in social power rather than gender itself.

What is said: the words - the message

  • dysfunctional communication
  • phonemes
  • morphemes
  • funtions of language:
    • means of communication
    • helps us think, to plan and to transmit knowledge from generation to generation.

How it is said: paralanguage - the medium

  • spoken communications are double-coded (the meaning is conferred both by what is said and by how it is said.

Who said it: language and impressions of the speaker - the source

  • reflects our perception of our status relative to the listener

Paralanguage

10. Paralanguage is the non-verbal component of speech; the prosodic features of paralanguage (timing, pitch and loudness) appear to have a biological component in terms of their involvement in emotional reactions.

Prosodic features of language

  • timing
  • pitch
  • loudness
  • stress
  • pauses
  • non-linguistic sounds
    • throat-clearing
    • grunts
    • sighs

Differences in how people speak serve as markers

  • social status
  • membership in various social and cultural categories

Based on how people speak, we make inferences about:

  • age
  • gender
  • social class
  • ethnicity
  • education
  • personalities
  • competence
  • intelligence

Highlights:

  • accent
  • dialect
  • inherent value hypothesis: the standard dialect becomes the prestige form of the language because it is the aesthetically ideal form of that language (false)
  • imposed norm hypothesis: standard and non-standard dialects are equally aesthetically pleasing, but the non-standard form is viewed negatively because of social norms that are biased against it. (correct)

Speech registers: varieties of a language that are used in particular situations

  • function of the choice of speech registers:
    • reflects one's emotional state
    • reflects the relationship between the individuals who are conversing
    • reflects factors such as the speaker's perceived relative status - the speaker's power relative to the listener - and the speaker's judgement about the listener' own typical speech register.
    • our choice of register can tell people a great deal about how we view them.
  • Vary with the context

Baby talk (BT)

Secondary baby talk

  • direct speech: the meaning of the sentence is consistent with the speaker's meaning
  • indirect speech: lacks consistency

Women

  • higher pitch, softer volume, more variability and a more relaxing tone of voice

Social attributions:

  • lower social power
  • lower intellectual ability
  • greater interpersonal warmth to the speaker

Men

  • low pitch

Social attributions:

  • Associated with power

Language and Discrimination

Language - an important vehicle of prejudice and discrimination.
The language we speak and the way we speak it provide a powerful method for identifying group membership, making identification of a target group easier for those who wish to discriminate


9. Language often serves to bind groups together but it also provides a basis for discrimination towards members of minority groups by the majority group.

Derogatory labels (e.g. fag, nigger)

appear to elicit negative automatic associations. Fosters discrimination and prejudice

Category labels (e.g. gay, black/African-American)

Sexist bias - masculine generics

can foster discrimination

  • mankind -> humankind
  • fireman -> firefighter

Identity trap

assigning everyone to the categories of friend or foe; you are either with us or against us

  • Churchill's blood, sweat and tears
  • Martin Luther's I have a dream
  • Hitler's anti-Semitic tirades

Language accommodation and group boundaries

Whether we converge or diverge in a conversation depends on whether our goal is to facilitate communication, to try to 'fit in' with the listener, or to accentuate the differences between our group and that of the listener


3. The prestige or standard form of a language develops from the speech style of those who are in a position of power, rather than reflecting an aesthetically ideal form of the language.


4. Communication accommodation theory suggests that because people usually want to be liked and approved of by others, they modify their speech style to make it similar to the speech heard around them (convergence). However, if group identity is threatened, individuals may accentuate the distinctiveness of their speech style (divergence).

Convergence

  • upward convergence: trying to speak in the style of a speaker from a more prestigious group
  • downward convergence

Divergence

emphasizing the features of our speech style or register that accentuate that difference between 'us' and 'them'

  • defending group identity
  • implicitly rejecting any suggestion of inferiority

Communication accommodation theory

we modify our speech style to be more like the other person's in order to be liked or fit in.

Similarity-attraction theory

the more similar we are to others in terms of attitudes and beliefs, the more likely it is that we will be attractive to them.


Convergence = a way to increase our similarity to other people.

Social exchange theory

convergence may carry with it certain costs as well as rewards.
We must evaluate whether we will be perceived as having lost integrity or whether our group identity will be compromised

  • ex: too much convergence may appear as an attempt at ingratiation or even ridicule

Intergroup distinctiveness

Maintaining intergroup distinctiveness is an important motivation for groups who feel that their language and culture are threatened -> likely to seek divergence.

Attribution theory

whether or not we react positively to another's convergence would depend upon what we took to be the motives behind it - is it a friendly gesture or an attempt to manipulate us?

Ethnolinguistic vitality

the relative status and strength of a language in a particular social structure. Reflects a proportion of the population that belongs to the particular language group, their socioeconomic status and the extent of institutional support for the language (such as schools and newspapers)

Who becomes bilingual?

Bilingualism also involves sociolinguistic competence, the ability to use and understand social nuances. Success in learning a second language is facilitated by intelligence, specific aptitude for languages, motivation to be involved in that language community, and self-confidence.


6. Factors involved in successful second-language learning include intelligence, specific language learning ability, motivation and self-confidence. Motivation to master a second language is influenced by the relative status and ethnolinguistic vitality of the second language, compared with the learner's own language.


7. Becoming bilingual involves more than learning another language; we must also acquire relevant sociolinguistic skills.


8. Bilingualism is likely to be encouraged when it provides a socially useful skill without threatening the existence of the speaker's own language, but discouraged when it contributes to assimilation into the majority linguistic group.

Sociolinguistic competence / communicative competence

Skill at using language in a social context (requires mastering a new set of social norms as well)
Ex:

  • "merci" = no thank you. "thank you" = yes thank you
  • "would you mind running to the store for me?"

Social psychological consequences of bilingualism


Unexpected consequences

  • learner becomes aware of stereotypes held by members of a new linguistic group about his own group ->these new insights may undermine the learner's sense of identity
  • Psychological inconsistency: may become marginalized - no longer a typical member of his own group but never fully one of the new group.

Important consequences

  • engendering more positive attitudes towards the target language group

Factors that facilitate language learning

  • Intelligence

  • Specific aptitude for learning language

  • Motivation

  • Ethnolinguistic vitality

  • Additive and subtractive bilingualism

  • Anxiety and self-confidence

Non-verbal communication

Non-verbal behaviour is fundamentally tied to verbal communication; it serves to modify its meaning and to regulate conversation. It provides information about the speaker's emotional state and motives and can be used to establish and maintain social control.


13. Facial displays of emotion share some universal features, although social conditioning modifies whatever biological basis there is for this similarity. Eye contact, 'body language' and gestures, along with facial displays, provide powerful non-verbal channels of communication.

Functions of non-verbal behaviour

Obviously non-verbal signals assist the speaker when communicating verbally, but also:

  1. provide a superior means of communication in some situations (ex: pointing to something, describing a complex shape)
  2. indicators of emotion - more spontaneous and less easily controlled and therefore more likely to convey genuine information.
  3. can quickly establish dominance or promote social control (ex: threatening gestures or ingratiating smiles)
  4. provide a basis for judging qualities of the speaker (attractiveness, social identity, personality)
  5. conversation control. provide a second communication channel that allows us to coordinate the flow of verbal communication during a conversation (norms covering every aspect of verbal exchange, incl paralanguage). Ex - 'turn-yielding' signals.
    • attempt-suppressing signals: signals the speaker puts out to continue speaking while someone is trying to butt in.
    • back-channel communication: signals the listener puts out to show the speaker that he is paying attention. Functions:
      • telling the speaker we are listening
      • helps illustrate the story
      • affects the narrator's performance

11. Non-verbal behaviour is used to provide information about feelings and intentions, to regulate verbal and other interactions, to express intimacy, to promote social control and to facilitate goal attainment.

Non-verbal communication and culture

  • cultural display rules: rules about appropriate facial expressions, postures, gaze, how much distance to keep between oneself and others, how to orient one's body during interactions and when to engage in touch
  • while non-verbal behaviour does vary from culture to culture, there also seems to be some universality in the early development of gesturing

Categories of non-verbal behaviour

12. Non-verbal behaviours include kinesics, oculesics, haptics, proxemics, chronemics and artefacts.


  • Survival emotions: anger, disgust, fear, happiness and sadness
    • Best: Facial expressions
  • Social status emotions: embarrassment, guilt, pride, shame
    • Best: Body movements
  • Intimate emotions: love, sympathy.
    • Best: Touch

Kinesics

Gestures, mimicry and facial expressions provide powerful means of communication. Facial expressions often communicate emotion better than verbal communication.

  • Gestures
  • Mimicry
  • Facial expression

Oculesics

Gaze and eye contact are particularly important in establishing and maintaining dominance.

Haptics

Communication through touch reflects much about the relationship between two people. There are significant cross-cultural differences in the frequency of touching.

Proxemics

Personal space varies from culture to culture, and unwanted invasion of one's personal space typically leads to the arousal of anxiety.

Chronemics

The use of pauses and silences adds important information to a communication. The way in which chronemics are used varies from culture to culture.

Artefacts

The way we dress, the cars we drive and many other artefacts provide information about us, the groups we belong to, and the impressions that we want to communicate.

Facial expression

  • when words and expression are contradictory, the face is often taken to be a more accurate guide to the meaning of what was said.
  • provides an ongoing stream of information related to the person's emotional reactions during a conversation + the degree of attentiveness (as opposed to taking turns with verbal utterances)
  • Self-presentation - our faces allow us to present ourselves to the world
  • Gender effect: women more likely to smile than men in their photographs (PS: not for children)

Different neural pathways for deliberate expression vs spontaneous expression

  • Implication for research - might be some methodological problems

Reading faces

The individual who cannot make correct inferences about another person's emotional state is unlikely to develop sensitivity to other people's pain.

Emotion-expression model: facial displays, including smiles, are innately linked to emotion and are therefore universal.

  • dominant model for the social psychological understanding of the connection between emotion and facial display.

Motive-communication model: facial displays are deliberately used to communicate particular social motives to the individuals being addressed

  • facial displays do not relate directly to emotions, but instead to another factor correlated with the emotion: social motives.
  • Supportive findings: facial displays reflecting emotion are more consistent among members of the same subculture or group than between members coming from different cultures or groups.

Cultural differences p.223

  • Differences may be related to the extent to which a society is individualistic or collectivist:
    • For Americans emotion is viewed as something associated only with the individual, whereas for Japanese the individual's emotions are viewed as inseparable from those of the group (research: A looked at main characters, J at background characters)
    • Findings: participants from IC generally more prone to express their emotions (particularly +)
  • Differences may be related to differences in personality traits such as neuroticism and extroversion rather than to the individualistic or collectivist nature of the society
    • Suggestion:
      • in cultures where people are typically higher in neuroticism and lower in extroversion: individuals have less confidence that people's facial expressions are consistent with their emotions, whereas in cultures in which people are relatively
      • in cultures in which people are relatively higher in extroversion and lower in neuroticism: there is a more open expression of emotion and therefore individuals can rely more upon people's facial expressions as reflecting their feelings.

No strong link between specific facial patterns and specific emotions.

Yet, people believe there is one possibly due to cognitive schema formation:

  • As we grow up, we form schemata associated with various emotional states - children learn how to interpret facial presentations and what facial display correspond to which emotion. May observe various facial actions in association with anger in different instances. Gradually, a schema forms that is a composite of all these facial displays, which rarely appear all together.
  • When asked to mime anger, the composite image is presented. Suggestion: this is what mimes and (amateur actors) also do when presenting a given emotion. Observing these mimes and actors reinforces the child's erroneous schema.