Communication functions
Have you ever met at least one person who could do without communicating with others?
That’s right, there are either almost no such people, or none at all, and all because it is communication that is responsible for the possibility of realizing one’s abilities. So communication is an important part of the lives of each of us, but at the same time we know ridiculously little about its functions and mechanisms. Such gaps urgently need to be filled, and we are ready to help you with this. Scientists dealing with communication problems agree that three functions of communication
:
- Information and communication.
- Regulatory and communicative.
- Effectively communicative.
Communication function #3: Effective communication
It lies in the perception and understanding of the person with whom communication occurs.
This function is closely connected with the emotional sphere of a person, because communication clearly dominates in it. Emotions and feelings are manifested precisely in the process of communication, which in the future either helps to bring people closer together, or pushes them to maintain, or even increase, their distance. Undoubtedly, in our society the role of communication not only does not become less noticeable, but also increases its influence. It is now clear that communication is a complex and multifaceted process that leads to the establishment of connections between people. It is the establishment of communication that makes it possible to implement joint activities, which allows us to achieve significant success.
However, it is worth remembering that any rapprochement has its own certain boundaries, which are not recommended to be crossed. After all, even the closest people are still separate individuals with their own thoughts and aspirations.
It is because of this that any contact between one person and another often encounters difficulties, and this applies to communication between just two people and large groups. But the whole secret is that all these problems can be solved exclusively through communication.
Term and its definition
The term “culture” itself comes from the Latin colere and arose about 2000 years ago. At first, this word meant tillage and all kinds of agricultural work. The concepts of “agriculture”, “horticultural culture”, “agricultural culture” and others still echo the past.
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In the first century BC, Cicero first used this term in relation to a person, denoting with it the upbringing, education and values of a citizen and an individual. Since then, this cultural concept has begun to develop in a new direction.
Since upbringing and education are unthinkable without separating the human world from the environment, very soon culture began to mean this circle of special values and activities that transform a simple person into a reasonable person, and over time into a privileged person - having access to knowledge, books, theater or science.
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Over time, the term acquired new meanings. With the development of science, the word “culture” began to be referred to various time milestones - “the culture of ancient Rome.” It was used to highlight certain social groups - “hippie culture” or areas of life - “urban culture”.
In everyday life, this cultural term began to designate a certain hypothetically ideal moral character of a person as a synonym for “good manners.”
Today, there are about 1000 definitions of the concept “culture”, more or less overlapping with each other.
What other functions of communication are there?
We have identified three basic functions, but many experts note that this is a somewhat simplified version and in fact there are many more functions, and their characteristics are more detailed:
- Contact
. Establishing how ready people are to transmit and perceive information. - Incentive
. Encouraging the interlocutor to communicate. - Coordination
. Comes into force if it is necessary to agree on certain actions. - Emotive
. Intentionally arousing certain emotions in a partner. - Impacting
. Changes under the influence of the interlocutor’s personal attitudes and opinions.
Functions of culture
Based on the above, we can conclude that culture plays a vital role in the life of each individual society and all humanity as a whole. It is a unique means of collecting, storing and transmitting all human experience to future generations.
The cognitive, adaptive, educational, normative, entertaining, symbolic and communicative functions of culture are studied by cultural science. All these functions follow from each other or serve as the basis for one another.
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One thing is indisputable: culture is the basis, the foundation of humanity, and accumulates all the experience and knowledge ever gained into a system that regulates the life of society at all its levels.
Any individual exists in a certain cultural space. A person is inseparable from culture and throughout life they interact, changing and complementing each other.
Initially, a child's attitudes, values, views and interests are formed under the influence of the environment in which he is placed and in which he is forced to function. A person grows, and over time, on the basis of formed ideas, he, in turn, changes and shapes the environment in which new future individuals grow.
The implementation of this interaction is impossible without the communicative function of culture.
Side
What does the communicative side of communication involve?
Communication is not just the movement of information, but a mutual exchange.
General meaning is developed when information is not only accepted, but also comprehended.
Accordingly, communication becomes possible when the source of information and its recipient have a similar encoding and decoding system . In other words, they must communicate in “the same language.”
Communication barriers often hinder the building of interaction. For example, an adult cannot explain to a two-year-old a question that is beyond the child’s understanding.
This is explained by the presence of an age barrier, due to which the subject and object of interaction have significantly different levels of intellectual development.
Also, a scientist will not be able to clearly convey information on a scientific issue to an athlete, since they have different levels of knowledge about the subject of discussion.
Code switching in linguistic culture
What is code switching? This is a concept that appeared at the intersection of linguistics and cultural studies. It became widespread among immigrants. This is a spontaneous switching from one language to another and back.
There is internal (insertion of one word) and external (insertion of a phrase or sentence) switching. Almost always, a similar phenomenon occurs at the site of a linguistic lacuna.
Let's consider the effect of code switching using the example of Russian Germans. In German there is a rather capacious word Termin, meaning a certain appointed time, a meeting. This includes an appointment with a doctor or hairdresser, or a planned meeting with friends. There is definitely no exact equivalent of this word in the Russian language, so most immigrants, after just a few months of living in Germany, stop looking for a Russian word suitable for each specific case, replacing it with a German one.
Facilities
Communication tools in psychology are divided into two main groups:
- Verbal. The sign system through which information is transmitted is speech. This is a universal means of communication. During verbal communication, the meaning of information transmitted from subject to object is best learned. With the help of speech, the communicator (speaker) encodes information, and the recipient (listener) decodes it.
- Nonverbal . Often the meaning of words spoken by a speaker varies depending on his non-verbal signals (gestures, facial expressions, tone of voice, gaze, posture, pauses, etc.). That is, it is not what a person says that matters, but also how he says it.
Accumulation and augmentation of information as the starting point of the function of culture
As we have already found out above, one of the most important functions of culture is the accumulation and transmission of experience, knowledge and information to future generations. Without knowledge of your past, without awareness of mistakes and their adequate assessment, it is impossible to form a full-fledged personality that is able to adequately predict the future.
To convey this experience, sign systems were invented - languages, codes, art. People used all the ways available to them to preserve knowledge about the past for children. In this way, the information and communication function of culture is realized.
Until the last moment, the means of storing this data were the natural individual and collective memory of the people, speech, material means - books, photographs, albums. Currently, an increasing part of collective culture is stored on electronic media.
Source
Phrasebook-style
We've sorted out the connection between functions and structures. Now another question for filling. Maybe then, well, this vocabulary and grammar, as well as listening, reading, writing and what else is included in teaching English? Since they themselves are not very helpful in surviving in the language jungle, then what good are they? Maybe then it’s enough to just focus on functions and learn everyday phrasebook-style phrases?
I’ll answer the question very soon, but I’ll start with the background. I once had an idea to conduct an experiment: every time I go to a new country, I will buy a phrase book and try to use phrases from there already in the area. It’s very good that I started my experiment with a thought experiment. I just imagined how all this would happen.
So I go, say, to Hungary and buy a Russian-Hungarian phrasebook. On the left is a phrase in Russian, on the right is a phrase in Hungarian, in the middle is the pronunciation, probably in Russian letters.
Walking around Budapest, I suddenly want to go to the library and catch a local on the street to ask how to get there.
Even if I can quickly find the right phrase... Or okay, I can prepare and find the right phrase in advance! In any case, most likely, I will pronounce it in such a way that no native speaker will understand his native language in such a monstrous performance. But it can only be monstrous when you don’t know or take into account your native pronunciation at all. How can I know it if I have a style phrasebook and pronunciation in Russian letters?
Okay, let’s say I pronounced the phrase more or less clearly (or the speaker couldn’t bear it and just looked at how the phrase looked in printed form). What happens next? Then the carrier will answer my question “How to get to the library?” and... I won't understand ANYTHING. Well, how can I understand if I haven’t studied the language for a day, haven’t listened to audio, haven’t studied vocabulary? No way.
That is, even if I get smart and somehow SAY the right phrase, I won’t UNDERSTAND what they will answer me. And if by some miracle I still understand (maybe the host will explain it with gestures or dance to me about it) and I have a new or clarifying question, where should I look for it? All over the phrasebook? Nooo, this is no longer communication, but a complete profanation.
So my little thought experiment saved me from a big epic fail. And so it will be with everyone who learns only functional phrases in the style of a phrasebook))
Communication process
We have already found out that the communicative function of culture is to ensure unhindered communication between individual individuals, as well as between society and the individual.
People use all kinds of languages to communicate. This includes not only natural, historically formed adverbs, but also all kinds of artificial languages - codes, mathematical and physical formulas, signs and symbols.
All artificial languages can be divided into two large groups. The first includes those created to replace natural language, and the most striking example is Esperanto, composed of words of Latin and Greek origin. This also includes Morse code and all kinds of gesture systems.
The second group includes languages created to solve various problems. This primarily includes the language of mathematics and physics, computer coding language and various algorithms.
The communication process can be divided into three parts:
- information coding;
- transfer of information;
- decoding the message.
At all three stages, information may be lost or distorted. Why is this happening? It is quite obvious that the communicative function of culture is implemented unevenly throughout the globe.
Different natural conditions, historical background, and cultural processes form completely different human societies. Each of them develops a completely individual language, which is almost impossible to translate into other languages without losing any part of the information.
This is facilitated by the presence of so-called linguistic lacunae - the absence in the lexical system of one language of a concept to designate any phenomenon or object.
This is quite easily illustrated by the Russian word “ruka”, for which there is no suitable definition in English, where the hand itself is divided into two components - hand (arm from the hand to the elbow) and arm (arm from the elbow and above).
It would seem that such a simple word can hardly create significant problems in communication, but foreign language learners will easily prove the opposite to you. How do you hold your baby? On hands. Should I use hand or arm for this?
And if difficulties arise in such simple cases, then what about more complex gaps, when not only a word, but an entire phenomenon or concept is absent in the recipient or source language?
Such linguistic dilemmas cause great damage to the communicative function of a culture, but at the same time give rise to interesting phenomena such as code switching. We'll talk about this further.
Points of intersection of cultural functions
Culture performs many different functions in the life of society, which are studied by cultural studies. Like most sciences, cultural studies does not stand aside, but is in close interaction with other areas of humanities. In addition to cultural studies, for example, the sign and communicative function of culture is studied by linguistics.
To comprehend any cultural heritage, a person needs to master a certain sign system. Language as a means of interpersonal interaction is the object of study of linguistics.
Linguistic scientists study language from the point of view of its nature, functions, historical development, and internal structure. In turn, cultural scientists, based on the research of linguists, build their theories about the influence of language on the development of culture and society.
Communication as the only productive type of interaction
The emergence and existence of any society is impossible without communication. The Dictionary of Cultural Concepts defines communication as a process of interaction, the main purpose of which is the transfer of information.
Within the framework of one article it is impossible to cover the entirety, types and features of all types of communications possible in society. Therefore, let's take a closer look at some of them.
According to the method of transmitting information, communication can be divided into verbal and non-verbal. The “culture-person” system uses both types of communication to implement one of its most important functions - the first includes all types of languages ever created by man, the second - gestures, facial expressions, body movements, timbre of voice and other paraverbal means.
The communicative function of culture involves interpersonal interaction between people. It so happens that a person is strong precisely in society - alone he is not able to cope with any difficult problem.
In most cases, without communication, a person falls out of society, does not feel like a full-fledged individual, and long-term isolation, as a rule, leads to moral degradation. Only through communication do people become members of society, and then, in turn, by communicating and interacting, they create and develop this very society. In this way, the communicative function of culture is realized.
