Communication and Emotion
Communication is possible without words too. And this is largely thanks to the basic emotions every share.
When anthropologists first come onto contact with a previously isolated people, their only means of communication is via facial expressions and bodily gestures, many of which are specifically designed to express emotions.
The anthropologists may smile, an expression that will be recognized immediately by the isolated tribespeople.
The tribespeople may smile in return, showing that they share the same basic emotional repertoire.
Different cultures have elaborated on this repertoire, exalting different emotions, downgrading others and embellishing the common feelings with cultural nuances, but these differences are more like those between two interpretations of the same musical works, rather than those between different compositions.
Just as two orchestras will play the same symphony slightly differently, so two cultures will play out their emotional repertoire in different tones.
It will be clear to all however, that the score is the same.
Communication and Emotion
Monday, June 29, 2009
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Communicative Act Potential
Communicative Act Potential
Sentences also exhibit meaning properties and relations that words and phrases may lack.
One important property of a sentence is its communities act potential.
Sentences with different structures often have different communicative functions – they are conventionally used to perform different communicative acts in speaking.
Thus, a speaker who wants to assert or state that something is true will normally utter a declarative sentence such as Snow is white.
On the other hand, if the speaker wants to issue an order, request, or command, then an imperative sentence such as Leave the room! is appropriate.
Finally, if speaker wants to ask a question, then the obvious choice is an interrogative sentence such as What time is it? As a first approximation we could diagram these facts a s follows:
a. Declarative sentence – Used to constate (assert, state, claim, etc.)
b. Imperative sentence – Used to direct (order, request, command, etc.)
c. Interrogative sentence – Used to question.
It seems to be a part of the semantics of these structural types (declarative, imperative, interrogative) that they have the distinct communicative function as above.
In any event, we would not say someone understood sentences of these types unless that person understood the differences in communicative function.
That these different types of sentences had these different normal uses is an important semantic fact.
However, the field of semantics has traditionally concentrated on the assertive function of language, concerning itself mainly with the properties and relations that declarative sentences have regarding truth.
Communicative Act Potential
Monday, May 18, 2009
Early Years of Telegraph
Early Years of Telegraph
In early years of telegraphy, telegraph wires ran above the ground.
Then in 1847, the chemist, and physicist Michael Faraday suggested insulating them with gutta-percha so that they could be laid underground or on the seabed.
The first London to Paris cable was in use in 1851 and after several attempts, transatlantic telegraph cable was laid in 1865.
By this time the telegraph was firmly establish, at the end of the 1860s 111,000 miles (180,000 km) of telegraph wires crisscrossed continental Europe.
One of the great advantages of the telegraph was the speed with which news could now be collected and distributed.
London’s The Times likened the transatlantic cable to he arrival of Columbus in the new World, though at the same time the editor warned his reporter that ‘telegrams are for facts; background and comment must come by post’.
He telegraph service quickly revolutionized journalism.
By end of the 1850s, as many as 120 provincial newspapers in Great Britain received news by wired from parliament daily, and the London based news agency that Julius Reuter has first started in Germany sent foreign news to editors in every town in the country.
Another innovation that the telegraph brought was the foreign correspondent or war correspondent - the man on the spot at momentous events who could send news as soon as it happened, instead of weeks or months later.
Early Years of Telegraph
In early years of telegraphy, telegraph wires ran above the ground.
Then in 1847, the chemist, and physicist Michael Faraday suggested insulating them with gutta-percha so that they could be laid underground or on the seabed.
The first London to Paris cable was in use in 1851 and after several attempts, transatlantic telegraph cable was laid in 1865.
By this time the telegraph was firmly establish, at the end of the 1860s 111,000 miles (180,000 km) of telegraph wires crisscrossed continental Europe.
One of the great advantages of the telegraph was the speed with which news could now be collected and distributed.
London’s The Times likened the transatlantic cable to he arrival of Columbus in the new World, though at the same time the editor warned his reporter that ‘telegrams are for facts; background and comment must come by post’.
He telegraph service quickly revolutionized journalism.
By end of the 1850s, as many as 120 provincial newspapers in Great Britain received news by wired from parliament daily, and the London based news agency that Julius Reuter has first started in Germany sent foreign news to editors in every town in the country.
Another innovation that the telegraph brought was the foreign correspondent or war correspondent - the man on the spot at momentous events who could send news as soon as it happened, instead of weeks or months later.
Early Years of Telegraph
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Linguistics Form and Literary Form
Linguistics Form and Literary Form
Verbal behavior is the production of texts, products which have verbal form in the media of writing or speech.
Some of those texts are verbal art, also called ‘literature’: they are literary texts.
Literary texts have linguistics form because they are texts (the product of verbal behavior), and they also have literary form.
Consider for example the following fragment of a literary text by Shakespeare.
It has both linguistics form and literary form, and certain aspects of the literary form are adaptations of the linguistics form.
So long as men can breathe and eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Among this text’s elements of linguistics form are the words which it uses, and the ways in which those words are combined into the complex linguistics structures called ‘sentences’.
This elements of linguistic form are not specific to literature.
In contrast, it also has specifically literary form, which includes the organization of the words into constituents called ‘lines ‘ and the matching of sounds to create a rhyme between the final parts of each line.
Both of these elements of literary form are adaptations of elements of the linguistics form of the text.
Thus the division of the text into lines depends on the organization of the text into distinct words, which is an aspect of linguistics form: the literary line-division coincides with the linguistics word-division.
And the possibility of rhyme depends on the linguistics formal organization of sounds into syllables: rhyme always involves a specified sub-part of a syllable and must therefore be defined in terms of aspects of linguistics form.
The division of a text onto lines and the creation of rhyme are both characteristics of literary texts, and are not found in all kinds of verbal text: this is why we classify them as specifically literary form and not linguistics form more generally.
However, though these are specifically literary form they depend on linguistics form for their existence: they are adaptations of linguistics form to literary form.
Linguistics Form and Literary Form
Verbal behavior is the production of texts, products which have verbal form in the media of writing or speech.
Some of those texts are verbal art, also called ‘literature’: they are literary texts.
Literary texts have linguistics form because they are texts (the product of verbal behavior), and they also have literary form.
Consider for example the following fragment of a literary text by Shakespeare.
It has both linguistics form and literary form, and certain aspects of the literary form are adaptations of the linguistics form.
So long as men can breathe and eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Among this text’s elements of linguistics form are the words which it uses, and the ways in which those words are combined into the complex linguistics structures called ‘sentences’.
This elements of linguistic form are not specific to literature.
In contrast, it also has specifically literary form, which includes the organization of the words into constituents called ‘lines ‘ and the matching of sounds to create a rhyme between the final parts of each line.
Both of these elements of literary form are adaptations of elements of the linguistics form of the text.
Thus the division of the text into lines depends on the organization of the text into distinct words, which is an aspect of linguistics form: the literary line-division coincides with the linguistics word-division.
And the possibility of rhyme depends on the linguistics formal organization of sounds into syllables: rhyme always involves a specified sub-part of a syllable and must therefore be defined in terms of aspects of linguistics form.
The division of a text onto lines and the creation of rhyme are both characteristics of literary texts, and are not found in all kinds of verbal text: this is why we classify them as specifically literary form and not linguistics form more generally.
However, though these are specifically literary form they depend on linguistics form for their existence: they are adaptations of linguistics form to literary form.
Linguistics Form and Literary Form
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