What does Socialisation refer to?
The process by which we learn to become members of society both by internalising the norms and values of society and also by learning to perform our social roles
What did Chomsky (1968) propose?
- Believed in the Language Acquisition Device (LAD)
- Language is INNATE, there is a predisposition to language
- Everyone has a ‘black box’ inside them that was hard wired for language
- Believed people are genetically predisposed to learn universal grammar, so children learned language naturally
- Assumed that there was universal rules that allowed people to distinguish grammatical from ungrammatical sentences
What did Bruner (1983) propose?
- Believed in Language Acquisition Support System (LASS)
- Believed language is LEARNT
- Children learn language through interaction with caregivers, who guide and support a child’s emerging language
- Believed language was developed through routines by: scaffolding (explains routines such as bath time), referencing (gestures and words - pointing to objects) and book reading
What does Scaffolding refer to?
Allows parents to raise expectations about language development
What does Referencing refer to?
How people manage and direct eachothers attention by linguistic means e.g. joint attention and book reading
What does Communication Styles refer to?
- Examines cultural and social aspects of language
- Learning to speak depends on culture, socio economic background and gender
- Style involves accents, vocabulary, grammar and the type of ideas we try to express
- Forms part of our identity
- Theorists include: Berstein and Labov
Who was Basil Bernstein (1971) and what did he he believe?
- A linguistic and researcher
- Believed the working class spoke an informal a ‘restricted code’ as contrasted with middle class who spoke a formal ‘elaborate code’
- He was interested in the relationship between language style and social class
What are Features of a ‘Restricted Code’
- Short and Simple sentences are used with much information conveyed non verbally
- Few descriptive words are used
- Much of the meaning only makes sense if the context is known e.g. he put it over there
- Stresses on the here and now
What are some Features of an ‘Elaborate Code’
- Complex, precise sentences are used
- More use of descriptive words
- The meaning us clear from the sentence alone (e.g. he out the spade in the shed)
- Events of the past are often referred to
What did Labov (1970) believe?
- Opposed Bernstein’s ideas
- Labov’s ideas were based around his work with black children from New York who spoke Black English Vernacular (BEV)
- Labov believed BEV was just as complex and rule governed as standard English and should be considered different not deficient
Which theorist specialised in Gender Differences within communication?
Deborah Tannen (1990) suggested there is a breakdown in communication due to different communication styles within genders e.g. Men use ‘Report Talk’ and Women use ‘Rapport Talk’
How do men talk?
- Men use ‘report talk’
e. g. public speaking; talk is used as a way of gaining and holding attention, and to negotiate and maintain status
How do women talk?
- Women use ‘rapport talk’
e. g. based on establishing relationships, developing understanding and negotiating differences - Women also shown to use more confirmatory tones ‘mmm’ and ‘yeah’ which indicates listening
- It is said women use ‘Hedge’ which is used to soften a request
What is Persuasive Communication?
Persuasive Communication involves trying to change beliefs, feelings and behaviours of another
What does Persuasive Communication involve?
- Source of the Message
- Nature of the Communication
- Characteristics of the Audience
What is the Source of the Message?
- Refers to ‘the speaker’
- Research suggests that an individual is likely to accept the word of people with expertise in an area, even without assessing the validity of their claim
- Research has shown that we attribute expertise to fast talkers, as long the gist of the message can be understood - listeners assume that a fast speaker is more intelligent and knowledgeable (Smith & Schaffer 1995)
- Trustworthiness is another characteristic that persuades one e.g. Politicians
What is the Nature of the Communication?
- Refers to the response and connection from audience
- Humans do not simply absorb information they react and interact to it, because of this, messages often aim to provoke an emotional response as well as to change out thinking
- If our reactions are unfavourable, we are unlikely to be persuaded
- Some advertisements make no appeal for reason but head straight for our emotions
- When people understand information they will respond to it more positively
- Some advertisements create fear or sadness, such as parents warnings or health campaigns, for this type of appeal to be successful, it must arouse sufficient anxiety, but not too much as we may miss the message the by becoming too emotional or end up avoiding the message
What does the Characteristics of the Audience refer to?
- The content or presentation style of a message will change depending on a range of characteristics of there audience: their age, relationship to us, education, personality and culture
- Due to a variety of characteristics, individuals differ on how carefully they’ll evaluate an argument, some people enjoy examining issues, weighting up the pros and cons and checking for inconsistencies within a debate, such people are said to have a high ‘need for cognition’ and are more likely to be persuaded by strong arguments in contrast, people with low need for cognition are less likely to take into consideration the strength of an argument and are more likely to be swayed by factors such as trustworthiness or expertise
