UNIT 1: CONTEXT AND SHARED KNOWLEDGE IN SPOKEN AND WRITTEN LANGUAGE

This part of the lesson will focus on the contextual differences between spoken and written language.

The main difference is the mode. Mode describes the channel in which language is transmitted. Spoken language is transmitted with sound waves through the air. Written language is transmitted visually, by paper or screen, with a writing system. Written language can be anything from handwriting, typed writing, graffiti, virtual or printed. In English, we use the latin-based alphabet, but there are many different writing systems, like kanji for Japanese. For languages using the latin-based alphabet, every letter is a sign for a sound and together they make up words which then as a unit represent something.  For example, when you read the letter ‘b’, you know the sound that is meant is /be/. When you read the word ‘bee’,  which sounds the same as ‘b’, but consists of the letters ‘b’, ‘e’ and ‘e’, the meaning is a small black and yellow bug that produces honey. In other writing systems, some characters also represent a sound, but others represent whole words. So writing systems are like a code that have to be learned and then can be understood. Speech works the same way, but encodes meaning into sounds instead of symbols.

When you say something, the sound you produce can only be heard by people who are there and close by. Sound disappears. It only exists as long as it takes to produce it. Because both parties of the exchange have to be present for verbal communication, you can rely on context from your surroundings. You can refer to sounds or smells without explaining them extensively or you can point to things as opposed to describing them.

With writing, on the other hand, you can reach people across space and time. Because you produce something material, it can be passed around or saved and someone in the future or on a different continent can read it and receive the encoded information. Here, you can only  rely on context that is preserved in the communication. Unless you specify, the reader of a letter will not know when or where it was written. So words like ‘today’ or ‘here’ become unclear. We will talk more about words like this in the second lesson.

For speaking, you know for sure who your audience or communication partner is, because mostly they have to be present. This means you have an idea of their previous knowledge and can adapt. For example, you can change the difficulty of your explanations when talking to a child instead of your classmate.

This isn’t as certain with written communication. You can know your addressee, like if you are writing a letter to someone you know. But this isn’t always given, for example if you write an email with a job application. And you may not even know everybody who will read what you have written. The author of a textbook only knows what school level they are writing for, but not everybody who is going to read it or even for how long the textbook will be used. So that changes how they write: they may have to explain things better or they may choose examples which are timeless, instead of something that is only understandable at the present time.. Language also changes with time, so old books may use words that we no longer understand or use, like ‘tis from ‘‘tis the season’.

With writing, you can also change what you've written. For spoken language, that isn't possible. Once you've said something, you can't take it back or change it.

Because of these differences, different rules or conventions apply to spoken and written language. And therefore we can't just say that written language is the graphic representation of spoken language. It is its own form of language. 

Activity 1: Discussion

Pair Work

1. With a partner, assign the following terms to either spoken or written language, or both.

aural, visual, oral, produced in real time, understandable only same time and place, understandable tomorrow, spacial, temporal, can be planned, can be edited, real time interaction

​

2. Again with your partner, answer these two questions.

​

- Which kind of language do you think is considered more formal?

- What examples can you think of that blur the lines between the two kinds of language? Are there examples that don't fit in either category?

UNIT 2: REQUIREMENTS FOR DECODING MESSAGES

In communication, we talk about a speaker and a listener. The speaker is the one who encodes and sends the message. The message travels across a channel, such as paper, air, or a screen. The listener receives and decodes the message. We already touched on the channel in the previous part of the lesson. For this part of the lesson, we are going to focus on the encoding and decoding. Among other things, these processes are based on shared knowledge of the participants and always happen in a given context or situation. If the speaker and the listener don't have the basis of this shared knowledge, the listener will decode different meanings from the message than the speaker meant to encode. 

We distinguish four different areas of shared knowledge: cultural knowledge, knowledge from previous exchanges, language knowledge and knowledge of the world. They are joined by contextual knowledge. Let's look at them one by one.

The first one is cultural knowledge. These are the things we learn as kids that are specific to our region. That means they are socially constructed. We learn what is polite and what is not, or what certain gestures mean. The important thing here is that the same action may mean different things in different cultures. Let's take slurping as an example. Here in Europe and most western countries, slurping and smacking your lips (=schmatzen) while eating is considered impolite and shouldn't be done. But in Japan, slurping means that the food is delicious and is seen as giving the cook a compliment. A language example is raising your voice at the end of a sentence to indicate that you are asking a question. This is called a hanging phrase. In certain subcultures (sorority girls in the US), the hanging phrase indicates new information.

Secondly, we have knowledge from previous exchanges. This one is pretty simple: When you are talking to your maths teacher, you know they know who you are or that the homework is this specific worksheet. You don't have to introduce yourself every time at the beginning of a conversation.

Third on the list is language knowledge. This just means that both you and your teacher know how to form a sentence or conjugate verbs or use pronouns. This semantic and grammatical knowledge is also learned as kids and in school.

Fourthly, let's look at knowledge of the world. This is stuff considered general knowledge. This can be anything from politics, who barbie is, basic geography, the plot of Harry Potter or slang. Anything that a person living today probably knows or has heard of. And that means you don't have to explain it everytime. When talking to your maths teacher, you don't have to explain what multiplication is. You can assume that they know that.

Last but not least, let's talk about contextual knowledge. Communication always happens in context.  You will learn more about this in lesson two on conversation maxims. For now, the main point is that the situation in which you are communicating and your fellow participants matter regarding how you communicate. There are two categories: situational and social appropriateness. That means that you change your words and actions to match the situation, not the other way around.

Social appropriateness is determined by the relationship between the speaker and the listener. You speak differently to your teacher than to your classmates or your friends or your parents. Talking with your friends you may curse, with your grandmother not so much. You call your friends by a nickname or their first name, but call your teacher Mr. or Mrs. and their last name. You will learn more about politeness in lesson 4.

You also communicate differently in an emergency than when casually catching up with someone. In the first, you talk fast and only about things that are relevant, in the second you may go on tangents or make jokes and comments. That is situational appropriateness.

​

*If you still have time left, read the next extract. Otherwise, proceed to the exercises. You will need approximately 5-10 mins for the exercise.

To show how much context matters in communication, let's look at indexicals. These are words whose meaning depends on the context, such as tomorrow, this, that, there, here, now, later, soon. Imagine a shop with a sign in the window: I'll be back in one hour. Because there is no time stamp, the shop assistant could have left 5 mins or 50 mins ago. You don't know. The context in which the note was written, determines the exact meaning of the message.

The two major are time and place indexicals. Examples of time indexicals are tomorrow, now, later, soon; place indexicals depend on spatial relations, such as this, that, here and there.