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Lecture notes from Language and Communication SOW-PSB2SP25E. There was no book used in this course, there were only lectures and workgroups.
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Language and Communication B2Lecture 1 - Introduction
Communication
Shannon-weaver sender-receiver model of communication
o Sender encodes message into a way that can be understood
o Signal is transmitted
o Receiver decodes message
Channels
o Hearing (words, voice quality, language)
o Sight (body posture, gesture, face expression)
o Touch (handshake)
o Smell (perfume, body odour)
Language
Two key properties:
Discrete symbols/signs (sounds, movements, words) that are arbitrary, sound-meaning
pairing are conventional gestures are not language because they are not arbitrary (they
have clear meaning)
Endless number of combinations according to certain rules (grammar), infinite number of
ideas (productivity)
Functions of Language
Exchange information and ideas
Expressing of emotions
Social interactions (“bless you”, “have a nice weekend”)
Entertainment: make use of sounds of language
Rituals and beliefs (praying), control of reality
Keep record (writing diaries)
Instrument of thought (talking to myself)
Identity expression (chanting of football songs)
Levels of language: sentence (semantics/meaning) - phrase (grammar/syntax) – word
(lexicon/vocabulary) – morpheme (morphology) – phoneme (phonology)
Sound of Language
Volume (dB)
o Risk of damage around 90 dB, concert usually at 120 dB
o Inner hair cells get damaged with extended overstimulation
o High in vowels
Frequency (Language: between 200 for low sounds like m and 5000 Hz for fricatives), high in
consonants
Vowels: periodic pattern in amplitude and frequency
Tense vowels: sheep, lax vowels: ship
Circled vowels: rounded
, Diphthongs: vowels that change from one to another (“boat”)
Consonants: no typical pattern in frequency and amplitude
Place and manner of articulation
Written language
Logography: based on pictographic, each character represents a semantic unit, several thousand
characters (e.g. Chinese)
Syllabary: each character corresponds to one syllable, several hundred characters
Alphabet: each character corresponds to one basic sound (phoneme), less than 100 characters,
abjad: only consonants are written (Hebrew), abugida: vowel and consonant written together
(Arabic)
Lecture 2 – Animal Language
Human language …
Emergentist viewpoint
o Many properties that other communication systems have as well (like animals)
o Is about meaning and communication
o Is an aspect or by-product of our cognitive abilities (memory, learning, …)
Nativist viewpoint
o Has unique properties
o Is about structure
o Independent of our cognitive abilities
o Noam Chomsky: genetic makeup dependent
Hockett’s features (developed in 60s - outdated)
1. Vocal-auditory channel: outdated sign language
2. Broadcast transmission and directional reception: sender and receiver do not need to see each
other to understand outdated because of sign language
3. Rapid fading: does not last, once sound waves travel to ear the signal is gone outdated because
of written language and recordings
4. Interchangeability: once language is understood it can be produced (some birds can’t females
can hear males but cannot produce sound, humans babies/toddlers? Deaf people?)
5. Total feedback: speakers can hear themselves and make corrections
6. Specialization: human language sounds are specialised for communication (not a by-product like
dogs panting out of exhaustion)
7. Semanticity: language refers to something in the real world (“Pass the salt”)
8. Arbitrariness: label of word does not match actual thing (whale short word but big animal)
9. Discreteness: categories language made up of independent moveable units (“b”, “p”), non-
discrete signal is loudness (continuum)
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