CHAPTER – 1

SKILL OF COMMUNICATION STRUCTURE

1.0. LEARNING OBJECTIVES

1.1. INTRODUCTION
1.2. LANGUAGES AS SKILL OF COMMUNICATION
1.3. LINGUISTIC TECHNIQUES
1.4. MODERN USAGE AND STYLE
1.5. IDIOMS
1.6. PHRASES
1.7. SUMMARY
1.8. KEY WORDS
1.9. ANSWERS TO CHECK YOUR PROGRESS
1.10. EXERCISE QUESTIONS
1.11. FURTHER READING

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1.0. LEARNING OBJECTIVES

After reading this chapter you will be able to know

 Know the usage of language
 Understand language as a skill of communication
 Examine the term linguistics aspects in language
 Know the modern usage and style of a language
 Understand the terms idioms and phrases

1.1. INTRODUCTION

Language is very important for effective communication. So let us look at some

of the basic features of language. It is well-established fact effective communication is
made possible with the help of language. We do not have to be a linguist in order to
acquire good language skills. However, a basic knowledge of the theory of language will
certainly help us to understand the intricacies of writing and speaking clearly, So let us
look at some of the basic features of language.

When we try to define language, the first thing that comes to mind is words. Language
employs a combination of words to communicate ideas in a meaningful way. By
changing the words in a sentence, we can change its meaning, and even make it
meaningless. Language is the important medium of communication.

1.2. LANGUAGES AS SKILL OF COMMUNICATION

Effective communication is all about conveying our messages to other people

clearly and unambiguously. It's also about receiving information that others are sending
to us, with as little distortion as possible. Doing this involves effort from both the sender
of the message and the receiver. And it's a process that can be fraught with error, with
messages muddled by the sender, or misinterpreted by the recipient. When this isn't
detected, it can cause tremendous confusion, wasted effort and missed opportunity.

In fact, communication is only successful when both the sender and the receiver
understand the same information as a result of the communication. By successfully
getting our message across, we convey our thoughts and ideas effectively. When not
successful, the thoughts and ideas that we actually send do not necessarily reflect what
we think, causing a communications breakdown and creating roadblocks that stand in the
way of our goals – both personally and professionally.

Problems with communication can pop-up at every stage of the communication

process which consists of the sender, encoding, the channel, decoding, the receiver,
feedback and the context. At each stage, there is the potential for misunderstanding and
confusion.

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 The Communication Process

To be an effective communicator and to get our point across without

misunderstanding and confusion, our goal should be to lessen the frequency of problems
at each stage of this process, with clear, concise, accurate, well-planned communications.
We follow the process through below:

Source

As the source of the message, you need to be clear about why you're
communicating, and what you want to communicate. You also need to be confident that
the information you're communicating is useful and accurate.

Message

The message is the information that you want to communicate.

Encoding

This is the process of transferring the information we want to communicate into a

form that can be sent and correctly decoded at the other end. Our success in encoding
depends partly on our ability to convey information clearly and simply, but also on our
ability to anticipate and eliminate sources of confusion for example, cultural issues,
mistaken assumptions, and missing information.

A key part of this knows our audience: Failure to understand who we are
communicating with will result in delivering messages that are misunderstood.

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Channel

Messages are conveyed through channels, with verbal channels including face-to-
face meetings, telephone and videoconferencing; and written channels including letters,
emails, memos and reports. Language is the best channel for verbal communication.

Different channels have different strengths and weaknesses. For example, it's not
particularly effective to give a long list of directions verbally, while we'll quickly cause
problems if we give someone negative feedback using email.

Decoding

Just as successful encoding is a skill, so is successful decoding involving, for

example, taking the time to read a message carefully, or listen actively to it. Just as
confusion can arise from errors in encoding, it can also arise from decoding errors. This
is particularly the case if the decoder doesn't have enough knowledge to understand the
message.

Receiver

Our message is delivered to individual members of our audience. No doubt, we

have in mind the actions or reactions we hope our message will get from this audience.
Keep in mind, though, that each of these individuals enters into the communication
process with ideas and feelings that will undoubtedly influence their understanding of our
message, and their response. To be a successful communicator, we should consider these
before delivering our message, and act appropriately.

Feedback

Our audience will provide us with feedback, as verbal and nonverbal reactions to
our communicated message. Pay close attention to this feedback, as it is the only thing
that can give us confidence that our audience has understood our message. If we find that
there has been a misunderstanding, at least we have the opportunity to send the message a
second time.

Context

The situation in which our message is delivered is the context. This may include
the surrounding environment or broader culture

Check your progress

1. What is meant by communication?

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 2. What are the components of communication?

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1.3. LINGUISTIC TECHNIQUES

Linguistics is the study of the nature and structure of language. It traditionally

encompasses semantics, syntax, and phonology. Synchronic linguistic studies aim to
describe a language as it exists at a given time; diachronic studies trace a language's
historical development.

Semantics

Semantics is the study of meaning, usually in language. The word "semantics"

itself denotes a range of ideas, from the popular to the highly technical. It is often used in
ordinary language to denote a problem of understanding that comes down to word
selection or connotation. This problem of understanding has been the subject of many
formal inquiries, over a long period of time. In linguistics, it is the study of interpretation
of signs or symbols as used by agents or communities within particular circumstances
and contexts. Within this view, sounds, facial expressions, body language, proxemics has
semantic meaningful content, and each has several branches of study. In written
language, such things as paragraph structure and punctuation have semantic content; in
other forms of language, there is other semantic content.

The formal study of semantics intersects with many other fields of inquiry,
including proxemics, lexicology, syntax, pragmatics, etymology and others, although
semantics is a well-defined field in its own right, often with synthetic properties. In
philosophy of language, semantics and reference are related fields. Further related fields
include philology, communication, and semiotics. The formal study of semantics is
therefore complex.

Semantics is sometimes contrasted with syntax, the study of the symbols of a

language without reference to their meaning, and pragmatics, the study of the
relationships between the symbols of a language, their meaning, and the users of the
language. In international scientific vocabulary semantics is also called semasiology.

Syntax

In linguistics, syntax is the study of the principles and rules for constructing
sentences in natural languages. In addition to referring to the discipline, the term syntax is
also used to refer directly to the rules and principles that govern the sentence structure of
any individual language, as in "the syntax of Modern Irish."

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 Modern research in syntax attempts to describe languages in terms of such rules.
Many professionals in this discipline attempt to find general rules that apply to all natural
languages. The term syntax is also sometimes used to refer to the rules governing the
behavior of mathematical systems, such as logic, artificial formal languages, and
computer programming languages.

Phoneme

In a language or dialect, a phoneme is the smallest segmental unit of sound

employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances.

Thus a phoneme is a group of slightly different sounds which are all perceived to
have the same function by speakers of the language or dialect in question. An example of
a phoneme is the /k/ sound in the words kit and skill. In transcription, phonemes are
placed between slashes, as here. Even though most native speakers don't notice this, in
most dialects, the k sounds in each of these words are actually pronounced differently:
they are different speech sounds, or phones

Phonology

Phonology is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken

human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use. Just as a language has
syntax and vocabulary, it also has phonology in the sense of a sound system. When
describing the formal area of study, the term typically describes linguistic analysis either
beneath the word e.g., syllable, onset and rhyme, phoneme, articulatory gestures,
articulatory feature, mora, etc. or to units at all levels of language that are thought to
structure sound for conveying linguistic meaning. It is viewed as the subfield of
linguistics that deals with the sound systems of languages. Whereas phonetics is about the
physical production, acoustic transmission and perception of the sounds of speech,
phonology describes the way sounds function within a given language or across
languages to encode meaning. The term "phonology" was used in the linguistics of a
greater part of the 20th century as a cover term uniting phonemics and phonetics.

Phonetics

Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that comprises the study of the sounds of

human speech. It is concerned with the physical properties of speech sounds (phones),
and their physiological production, auditory perception, and neurophysiological status.

Phonetics was studied as early as 2500 years ago in ancient India, with account of
the place and manner of articulation of consonants in his 5th century BC treatise on
Sanskrit. The major Indic alphabets today order their consonants according to
classification. The branch of linguistics that deals with the sounds of speech and their
production, combination, description, and representation by written symbols. The system
of sounds of a particular language.

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Morpheme

A morpheme is the smallest linguistic unit that has semantic meaning. In spoken
language, morphemes are composed of phonemes the smallest linguistically distinctive
units of sound, and in written language morphemes are composed of graphemes the
smallest units of written language.

The concept morpheme differs from the concept word, as many morphemes
cannot stand as words on their own. A morpheme is free if it can stand alone, or bound if
it is used exclusively alongside a free morpheme. Its actual phonetic representation is the
morph, with the different morphs representing the same morpheme being grouped as its
allomorphs.

Types of morphemes

 Free morphemes like town and dog can appear with other lexemes as in town hall
or dog house or they can stand alone, i.e. "free".
 Bound morphemes like "un-" appear only together with other morphemes to form
a lexeme. Bound morphemes in general tend to be prefixes and suffixes.
Unproductive, non-affix morphemes that exist only in bound form are known as
"cranberry" morphemes, from the "cran" in that very word.
 Derivational morphemes can be added to a word to create derive another word:
the addition of "-ness" to "happy," for example, to give "happiness." They carry
semantic information.
 Inflectional morphemes modify a word's tense, number, aspect, and so on, without
deriving a new word or a word in a new grammatical category as in the "dog"
morpheme if written with the plural marker morpheme "-s" becomes "dogs". They
carry grammatical information.
 Allomorphs are variants of a morpheme, e.g. the plural marker in English is
sometimes realized as /-z/, /-s/ or /-ɨz/.

Morphology

Morphology is the identification, analysis and description of the structure of

words as units in the lexicon are the subject matter of lexicology. While words are
generally accepted as being the smallest units of syntax, it is clear that in most languages,
words can be related to other words by rules. For example, English speakers recognize
that the words dog, dogs, and dog catcher are closely related. English speakers recognize
these relations from their tacit knowledge of the rules of word formation in English. They
infer intuitively that dog is to dogs as cat is to cats; similarly, dog is to dog catcher as dish
is to dishwasher. The rules understood by the speaker reflect specific patterns in the way
words are formed from smaller units and how those smaller units interact in speech. In
this way, morphology is the branch of linguistics that studies patterns of word formation

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within and across languages, and attempts to formulate rules that model the knowledge of
the speakers of those languages.

Check your progress

3. Define linguistics.

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4. What does the term semantics mean?

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1.4. MODERN USAGE AND STYLE

Modern English is the form of the English language spoken since the Great
Vowel Shift in England, completed in roughly 1550. Despite some differences in
vocabulary, texts from the early 17th century, such as the works of William Shakespeare
and the King James Bible, are considered to be in Modern English, or more specifically,
are referred to as using Early Modern English or Elizabethan English. English was
adopted in regions around the world, such as North America, India, Africa, and Australia,
through colonization by the British Empire.

Modern English has a large number of dialects spoken in diverse countries

throughout the world. Most of these, however, are mutually intelligible. This includes
American English, Australian English, British English, Canadian English, Caribbean
English, Hiberno-English, Indo-Pakistani English, New Zealand English, Philippine
English, Singaporean English, and South African English.

According to the Ethnologue, there are over 1 billion speakers of English as a first
or second language as of 1999, a number surpassed only by the Chinese language.
However, Chinese has a smaller geographical range and is spoken primarily in mainland
China and Taiwan and also by a sizable immigrant community in North America.
Additionally, Chinese is itself divided into a number of regional dialects that may not be
mutually intelligible in spoken form. In contrast, English is spoken in a vast number of
territories including the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, the United States of America,
Australia, New Zealand, India, Pakistan, and Southern Africa. Its large number of
speakers, plus its worldwide presence, has made English a common language for use in
such diverse applications as controlling airplanes, developing software, conducting
international diplomacy, and business relations.

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Style of a Language

An English writing style is a way of using the English language. The style of a
piece of writing is the way in which features of the language are used to convey meaning,
typically but not always within the constraints of more widely accepted conventions of
grammar and spelling.

An individual's writing style may be a very personal thing. Organizations that

employ writers or commission written work from individuals may require that writers
conform to a standardized style defined by the organization. This allows a consistent
readability of composite works produced by many authors, and promotes usability of, for
example, references to other cited works.

In many kinds of professional writing aiming for effective transfer of information,

adherence to a standardized style of writing helps readers make sense of what the writer
is presenting. Many standardized styles are documented in style guides. Some styles are
more widely used, others restricted to a particular journal. Adherence to no particular
style is also a style in its own right; some may think it undesirable, others not.

Personal styles

All writing has some style, even if the author is not thinking about the style. It is
important to understand that style reflects meaning. For instance, if a writer wants to
express a feeling, he might write in a style overflowing with expressive modifiers. Some
writers use styles that are very specific, for example in pursuit of an artistic effect.
Stylistic rule-breaking is exemplified by the poet E. E. Cummings, whose writing
consists mainly of only lower case letters, and often uses unconventional typography,
spacing, and punctuation.

Proprietary styles

Many large publications define a house style to be used throughout the

publication, a practice almost universal among newspapers and well-known magazines.
These styles can cover the means of expression and sentence structures, such as those
adopted by Time. They may also include features peculiar to a publication; the practice at
The Economist, for example, is that articles are rarely attributed to an individual author.
General characteristics have also been prescribed for different categories of writing, such
as in journalism, the use of SI units, or questionnaire construction.

Academic styles

University students, especially graduate students, are encouraged to write papers

in an approved style. This practice promotes readability and ensures that references to
cited works are noted in a uniform way. Typically, students are encouraged to use a style
commonly adopted by journals publishing articles in the field of study. The list of Style
Manuals & Guides, from the University of Memphis Libraries, includes thirty academic

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style manuals that are currently in print, and twelve that are available on-line. Citation of
referenced works is a key element in academic style.

The requirements for writing and citing articles accessed on-line may sometimes
differ from those for writing and citing printed works. Some of the details are covered in
The Columbia Guide to Online Style.

General rules regarding writing style

 Use the active voice unless the passive voice is absolutely necessary.
 Use short, simple sentences where every word counts.
 Try to avoid technical terms unless our documents are specifically targeted to
specialists in the field in question. Always choose the language and vocabulary of
our target audience.
 Use action verbs instead of nouns.
 Remove unnecessary words.

Quotation marks

 Place quotation marks outside commas and periods and inside semicolons and
colons.

Use of the colon

 The colon normally introduces a list, formal quotation, summation or idea that
somehow completes the introductory statement.

Use of hyphens

 As a general rule all compound modifiers should be hyphenated.

 A hyphen is not necessary with adverbs ending in –ly
highly developed

 When the second word in a pair is capitalized

non-English
 Numbers
pre-1954

 When the last letter of a prefix is the same as the first letter in the second word,
use a hyphen.
anti-intellectual
 Use a hyphen to indicate joint titles.
writer-editor
 Use hyphens with a successive compound adjective (note spacing).

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 full- and part-time students

Abbreviations
Abbreviations do have their place however clarity and comprehension should not be
compromised by the use of abbreviations. Spell out an acronym in full at first reference
followed by the acronym in brackets. Acronyms can be used in subsequent references.
Cumulative grade point average (CGPA); CGPA

Check your progress

5. What are the different styles of writing?

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1.5. IDIOMS

An idiom is an expression, word, or phrase that has a figurative meaning that is

comprehended in regard to a common use of that expression that is separate to the literal
or definition of the words of which it is made. There are estimated to be at least 25,000
idiomatic-like expressions in American English.

In linguistics, idioms are usually presumed to be figures of speech contradicting

the principle of compositionality; yet the matter remains debated. John Saeed defines an
“idiom” as words collocated that became affixed to each other until metamorphosing into
a fossilized term. This collocation words commonly used in a group redefines each
component word in the word-group and become an idiomatic expression. The words
develop a specialized meaning as an entity, as an idiom. Moreover, an idiom is an
expression, word, or phrase whose sense means something different from what the words
literally imply. When a speaker uses an idiom, the listener might mistake its actual
meaning, if he or she has not heard this figure of speech before. Idioms usually do not
translate well; in some cases, when an idiom is translated into another language, either its
meaning is changed or it is meaningless.

An idiom is a phrase where the words together have a meaning that is different
from the dictionary definitions of the individual words, which can make idioms hard for
ESL students and learners to understand. Here, we provide a dictionary of 3,429 English
idiomatic expressions with definitions.

Some examples for Idioms in English Language

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A bit much

If something is excessive or annoying, it is a bit much.

A chain is no stronger than its weakest link

This means that processes, organizations, etc, are vulnerable because the weakest
person or part can always damage or break them.

A fool and his money are soon parted

This idiom means that people who aren't careful with their money spend it
quickly. 'A fool and his money are easily parted' is an alternative form of the
idiom.

A fool at 40 is a fool forever

If someone hasn't matured by the time they reach forty, they never will.

A little bird told me

If someone doesn't want to say where they got some information from, they can
say that a little bird told them.

Check your progress

6. What is meant by idiom?

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1.6. PHRASES

In grammar, a phrase is a group of words functioning as a single unit in the syntax

of a sentence. For example, ‘the store at the end of the street’ is a phrase. It acts like a
noun. It can further be broken down into two shorter phrases functioning as adjectives:
‘at the end and of the street’, a shorter prepositional phrase within the longer
prepositional phrase. At the end of the street could be replaced by an adjective such as
nearby: the nearby house or even the house nearby. The end of the street could also be
replaced by another noun, such as the crossroads to produce the house at the crossroads.

Noun Phrase

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 In grammar, a noun phrase (abbreviated NP) is a phrase whose head is a noun or a
pronoun, optionally accompanied by a set of modifiers. Noun phrases are very common
cross-linguistically, but some languages been argued to lack this category.

Form

Noun phrases normally consist of a head noun, which is optionally modified ("pre
modified" If the modifier is placed before the noun; "post modified" if the modifier is
placed after the noun). Possible modifiers include:

 determiners: articles (the, a), demonstratives (this, that), numerals (two, five, etc.),
possessives (my, their, etc.), and quantifiers (some, many, etc.). In English,
determiners are usually placed before the noun;
 adjectives (the red ball); or
 complements, in the form of a prepositional phrase (such as: the student of
physics), or a That-clause (the claim that the earth is round);
 Modifiers; pre-modifiers if placed before the noun and usually either as nouns
(the university student) or adjectives (the beautiful lady), or post-modifiers if
placed after the noun. A post modifier may be either a prepositional phrase (the
man with long hair) or a relative clause (the house where I live). The difference
between modifiers and complements is that complements complete the meaning
of the noun; complements are necessary, whereas modifiers are optional because
they just give additional information about the noun.

Verb Phrase

Verb phrases are sometimes defined more narrowly in scope to allow for only
those sentence elements that are strictly considered verbal elements to form verb phrases.
According to such a definition, verb phrases consist only of main verbs, auxiliary verbs,
and other infinitive or participle constructions.

Prepositional Phrase
In simplest terms, prepositional phrases consist of a preposition and an object of a
preposition. Prepositions are indeclinable words that introduce the object of a
prepositional phrase. Indeclinable words are words that have only one possible form. For
example, below is a preposition, but belows or belowing are not possible forms of below.

At the minimum, a prepositional phrase will begin with a preposition and end
with a noun, pronoun, gerund, or clause, the "object" of the preposition.

Check your progress

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 7. Name the types of phrases.

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1.7. SUMMARY

Language is very important for effective communication. So let us look at some

of the basic features of language. It is well-established fact effective communication is
made possible with the help of language. We do not have to be a linguist in order to
acquire good language skills. However, a basic knowledge of the theory of language will
certainly help us to understand the intricacies of writing and speaking clearly, So let us
look at some of the basic features of language.

In fact, communication is only successful when both the sender and the receiver
understand the same information as a result of the communication. By successfully
getting our message across, we convey our thoughts and ideas effectively. When not
successful, the thoughts and ideas that we actually send do not necessarily reflect what
we think, causing a communications breakdown and creating roadblocks that stand in the
way of our goals – both personally and professionally.

Linguistics is the study of the nature and structure of language. It traditionally

encompasses semantics, syntax, and phonology. Synchronic linguistic studies aim to
describe a language as it exists at a given time; diachronic studies trace a language's
historical development.

An idiom is an expression, word, or phrase that has a figurative meaning that is

comprehended in regard to a common use of that expression that is separate to the literal
or definition of the words of which it is made. There are estimated to be at least 25,000
idiomatic-like expressions in American English. In grammar, a phrase is a group of
words functioning as a single unit in the syntax of a sentence.

1.8. KEY WORDS

1. Language
Language is very important for effective communication.
2. Linguistics
Linguistics is the study of the nature and structure of language.
3. Communication
It is a process of transforming the messages, information, feelings, attitudes, and
emotions from one person to another.
4. Idiom

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 An idiom is an expression, word, or phrase that has a figurative meaning that is
comprehended in regard to a common use of that expression that is separate to the literal
or definition of the words of which it is made.
5. Phrases
A phrase is a group of words functioning as a single unit in the syntax of a
sentence

1.9. ANSWERS TO CHECK YOUR PROGRESS

1. It is a process of transforming the messages, information, feelings, attitudes, and
emotions from one person to another.
2. Communication consists of the sender, encoding, the channel, decoding, the
receiver, feedback and the context.
3. Linguistics is the study of the nature and structure of language. It traditionally
encompasses semantics, syntax, and phonology.
4. Semantics is the study of meaning, usually in language. The word "semantics"
itself denotes a range of ideas, from the popular to the highly technical.
5. Personal style, Proprietary style, and Academic style.
6. An idiom is an expression, word, or phrase that has a figurative meaning that is
comprehended in regard to a common use of that expression that is separate to the
literal or definition of the words of which it is made.
7. Noun phrase, Verb phrase, and Prepositional phrase.

1.10. EXERCISE QUESTIONS

1. Why language is considered to be the skill of communication?
2. Describe the term linguistics and its techniques.
3. Write an essay on modern usage of language and different language styles.
4. Discuss the term idiom in detail.
5. Examine the term phrases and its kinds in detail.

1.11. FURTHER READING

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1. Developing communication skills - Krishna Mohan & Meera
Banerji
2. Spoken English for you - Radhakrishna Pillai
3. English Grammar & Composition - Wren and Martin

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