C. Verbal Communication Ch.3

Verbal expressions

Language that helps us communicate our observations, thoughts, feelings, and needs.

Affective language

Language used to express a person's feelings and create similar feelings in another person.

Jargon

Specialized words used by a certain group or profession.

Annoyance Swearing

Swearing that provides a sense of relief as people use it to manage stress and tension, which can be a preferred alternative to physical aggression.

Social swearing

Swearing used conversationally to create social bonds or for impression management (to seem cool or attractive).

Personification

The attribution of human qualities or characteristics of other living things to nonhuman objects or abstract concepts.

Divergence

Using communication to emphasize the differences between you and your conversational partner.

Directives

Utterances that try to get another person to do something.

Common Types of Unsupportive Messages

1. Global Labels 2. Sarcasm 3. Dragging up the past 4. Negative comparisons 5. Judgemental "you" messages 6. Threats

Simile

A direct comparison of two things using the words like or as.

Inference-observation confusion

A frequent source of miscommunication that involves the misperception of an inference (conclusion based on limited information) as an observation (an observed or agreed-on fact).

Triangle of Meaning

A model of communication that indicates the relationship among a thought, symbol, and referent, and highlights the indirect relationship between the symbol and referent.

Cultural Bias

A skewed way of viewing or talking about a group that is typically negative.

Accents

Distinct styles of pronunciation.

Metaphor

An implicit comparison of two things that are not alike and/or are not typically associated.

Code-Switching

Changing accents, dialects, or languages

Facts

Conclusions based on direct observation or group consensus.

Inferences

Conclusions based on thoughts or speculation, but not direct observation.

Codes

Culturally agreed on and ever-changing systems of symbols that help us organize, understand, and generate meaning.

Denotation

Definition that is accepted by the language group as a whole, or the dictionary definition of a word.

Connotation

Definition that is based on emotion- or experience-based associations people have with a word.

Commissives

Language that commits the speaker to a certain course of action.

Judgements

Expressions of approval or disapproval that are subjective and not verifiable.

Supportive messages

Messages communicated in an open, honest, and nonconfrontational way.

Partial Messages

Messages that are missing a relevant type of expression and can lead to misunderstanding and conflict.

Unsupportive Messages

Messages that can make others respond defensively, which can lead to feelings of separation and actual separation or dissolution of a relationship.

Whole messages

Messages that include all the relevant types of expressions needed to most effectively communicate in a given situation, including what you see, what you think, what you feel, and what you need.

Contaminated messages

Messages that include mixed or misleading expressions.

Slang

New or adapted words that are specific to a group, context, and/or time period, regarded as less formal, and representative of people's creative play with language.

Neologisms

Newly coined or used words.

Adjacency pairs

Related communication structures that come one after the other (adjacent to each other) in an interaction.

Symbol

Something, like a word or gesture, that stands in for or represents something else.

Esperanto

The most well-known and widely used auxiliary language that was intended to serve as a common international language.

Language acquisition

The process by which we learn to understand, produce, and use words to communicate within a given language group.

Grammer

The rules that govern how words are used to make phrases and sentences.

Displacement

The unique human ability to talk about events that are removed in space or time from a speaker and situation.

Communication accommodation theory

Theory that explores why and how people modify their communication to fit situational, social, cultural, and relational contexts.

Convergence

Using communication similar to that of your communication partner.

Dialects

Versions of languages that have distinct words, grammar, and pronunciation.