22 posts from 2008

After reading the article about Japanese silences in conversation it got me thinking about nonverbal communication. Nonverbal communication is important because it happens continuously and many times people do not realize that they are doing it. It is important to know what each nonverbal act means. It is also important to understand that like spoken language nonverbal language has different meanings from culture to culture. One thing that differs from one culture to another is how close one person gets to another when communicating. People in the eastern cultures might stay further away than those in western culture

I am going to discuss what we learned in class today about responses.

Request:

Could you please tutor me?

Accept: Yes

Reject: I have a lot of work to do so I do not think I would have time

Assesment:

It is really pretty out today

Agree: Yes it was

Disagree: I thought it was a little warm at times

Blame:

You forgot to take out the trash:

Denial: No I did not forget I just have not been back to the house yet

Blame: You were suppose to do it

Offer/Invitation:

Would you like to go to dinner tonight?

Accept: That would be great.

Reject: No thank you. I have to work tonight.

Question:

How are you?

Expected: I am fine you?

Unexpected: Not good at all I have been having a really bad day.

Are all of these correct?

I am going to see if I understand the explicatures that we went over in class

1) Disambiguation

Example: Mary sat down on the side of the bank last night.

    bank could either be a place where money is kept or a bank of a river

2) Reference Assignment

Example: Mary told Sarah the she would give her back her book tomorrow.

  Could be: Mary told Sarah the Sarah would give Mary back her book tomorrow

                 Mary told Sarah the Mary would give Sarah back her book tomorrow

3) Enrichment

Example: It was cold out

     either this morning or yesterday or when I was outside last it was cold out

Are these correct?

I am going to use the tree that was drawn on the board in class to see if I know the different types of politeness

Wanting someone to turn down the radio

1) You can either Say something or Say nothing (either point to your ear and make and face or you could use your hand to make the motion of turning down the volume

2) If you say something it is either on the record or a hint (Wow you really like to listen to your music loudly)

3) If you say something on the record it can either be bald ( I am not quite sure what this means) or it can be face-saving

4) If it is face-saving it can either be positive politeness (turn down the music I can concentrate) or it can be negative politness (could you please turn down your music a little bit?)

Did I do these correctly? Could you help me with a bald statement?

I am still confused about Maxims so I am going to use this post as some practice.

1) Maxim of quality- regards truth telling

Example: I am a communications major.

2)Maxim of Quantity- the amount of information that a statement tells

Example:

What classes are you taking?

A) Ones I need to graduate

B) LIN 318, COM 462, COM 525, SOC 335, SOC 339

C) On Mondays I have COM 462, SOC 335, and COM 525. One Tuesday I have LIN 318 and SOC 339. On Wednesday I have COM 462 and SOC 335. And on Thursday I have LIN 318 and SOC 339.

A would be not enough information to answer the question, B would be enough, and C would be giving more information than was asked for.

3) Maxim of Relation- the relevance

What is it like outside?

I haven't had class today

~This does not seem relevant because the weather does not depend on if someone has class or not. However, it may be relevant if by "I haven't had class today" they mean that they have not been outside today to know what it is like outside.

4)Maxim of Manner- This avoids obscurity, ambiguity, and unnecessary prolixity but it is orderly

I got out of bed, got dressed and then went to class.

In class we learned that an implicature is "any meaning that a sentence may have that goes beyond an account of its meaning in terms of truth conditions" We also learned that there are two types of implictures, generalized and particularized. I am going to give some examples of both to make sure I understand them.

It starts to get warm in April- Generalized

It was very warm last year in March- Particularize

She loves to read- generalized

His loves the Harry Potter series- Particularize

I have enjoyed most of my classes at UK- Generalized

I have a favorite class at UK- Particularize

For my second blog I am going to continue concentrating on chapter 17. Before class I was completely confused about perlocutionary and illocutionary. Perlocutionary acts are external while illocutionary acts are internal. Perlocutionary someone else must be involved to have it true (the books uses the example of persuade because even though one person is doing the persuading they must have another person who are they trying to persuade do what they are trying to make them do). Illocutionary would be more while I person is saying it happens (the book uses the example of promise because once a person says it a promise is made).

I heard the song today- illocutionary

She complained about her grade to her teacher- Perlocutionary

I ran into my next door neighbor at the store- illocutionary

Can I borrow your book? – perlocutionary

I need to convince her to cover my shift- perlocutionary.   

Are these correct?

While doing the homework Wednesday night I was completely confused on chapter 17 so for my blog work this week I am going to make sure I understand the parts that I that I had the most trouble with.

Performative Verbs:

He ran over the bridge.

This would not be a performative verb because you can not say I herby ran, it would have to be run and it would only work if while the person was saying this phrase they would have to be actually running. This also is not a performative verb because of the tense and the fact that it is not in first person.

I forgive you.

This would be a performative verb because it has all three qualifications of being a performative verb. One can say “I herby forgive you”. Forgive is in the present tense. The sentence is in first person.

I talked on the phone with her.

This is not a performative verb because even though it is in the right person it is not in the right tense. If it was “I talk on the phone” it would work because it would be in the correct tense and one could say “I herby talk”.

On the test yesterday I don't know if I was right when I was doing the test for homonyms and polysemy.

"She was at the head of her class"        "She was born with a full head of hair"

Does X Mean Y in some context and Z in others? Yes head in the first case means "top" of class and in the second sentence it means "body part"

Does X only mean Y? NO

Are Y Z related? NO- this means that they are homonyms

Does X mean YZ? No

Both of these heads are homonyms

I think I finally understand how you can tell the difference between metaphors and idioms.

Idioms can't be translated over from one language to another because they lose there meaning so saying "They are going out and painting the town red" can't be translated because saying "They are going out and coloring the town ruby" does not make sense.

Metaphors can be translated from one language to another and subsituting synonyms it still does not loose all it's literal meaning. You can say "She put her money where her mouth is" and subsititute cash for money and people will still get what is trying to be said "She put her cash where her mouth is".