Understanding the Communicative Act and Linguistic Variation
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Understanding the Communicative Act
The communicative act is a deliberate and complex process between a speaker (transmitter) and a listener (receiver). It involves establishing contact within a context of a communicative purpose, determined by space-time coordinates.
The Theme
The theme is the central idea within the text, the assumed topic of conversation.
The Intent
The intent is the purpose that gives rise to the communicative act. Purposes are many and varied, including informing, influencing, regulating social life, and congratulating someone. They are classified as subjective or objective. The speaker's distance or participation determines the degree of subjectivity or objectivity.
The Channel
The channel is the medium for transmitting the message. It is classified as oral or written. The active channel uses two very different ways of communicating (oral and written; see box on p. 127).
Deixis
Deixis is a communicative phenomenon mainly related to the oral channel. It is a set of linguistic marks present in a text that reveal the presence of three basic elements of the communicative act: people, time, and space of enunciation.
Deixis may represent:
- Physical context: All elements of the environment that are present when communication occurs.
- Context of usage: The place where communication occurs, according to the formality of the situation:
- Private sector: Communications between people in an informal, known area.
- Public sector: Communication in formal areas.
Transmitter and Receiver
The transmitter and receiver are the protagonists of the communicative act. They are characterized by personal characteristics (age, sex, etc.), degree of relationship (more or less knowledge and familiarity), and the role they play in communication (friend, student, teacher, etc.). Depending on the relationship between the sender and receiver, there can be high or low reliability.
The Figure of the Speaker
The speaking subject, who produces the text, is the author. The speaker is the one responsible for the message, the one who assumes it.
The Participation of the Speaker in the Text
The purpose, whether objective or subjective, is reflected in the text through a set of linguistic marks that reveal the presence or absence of the transmitter.
The Voice of the Speaker and Other Figures of Speech
These voices are speaker arrays. The functions they carry out are:
- To involve a different perspective.
- To appropriate someone's prestigious statement to support argumentation.
- To criticize and discredit someone.
- To be ironic.
- To deny a claim.
- To make a request directly.
Using Linguistic Variation
Variation is associated with two factors:
Human Groups
- Space: Areas of the territory. Geographical variations. Dialects.
- Time: Historical variations.
- Social: Generational, by gender, origin.
Situations
According to the communicative context (subject, purpose, channel, space, relationship), a different linguistic register is used. These are the social functions of language, ensuring the most useful communication resources in each situation.
Linguistic Registers
The concept of linguistic register refers to the use we make of language according to the situation in which we are communicating. The context decides the choice of one communication register or another.
Informal registers are typical of social interaction in everyday life, associated with general issues in which subjectivity, spontaneity, lack of planning, and attempts to elaborate prevail. Often, they do not follow standard grammar.
Formal registers are present in texts in which elaboration, planning, and organization prevail in advance, usually through the written channel.