Table 1 – Systems of human communication

Verbal: The verbal system comprises speech itself. Speech is made up of words, clauses and sentences, which are themselves connected into higher-order units. The words are made up of morphemes, the smallest linguistic units that carry meaning, and phonemes, the sound units of language.

Prosodic: Prosody comprises intonation, rhythm and those pauses in speech whose position and function are linguistically determined. The positioning of pauses in speech can affect meaning. Intonation is the pitch pattern of speech. Intonation affects meaning.

Paralinguistic: When we speak we do more than use the verbal and prosodic system of language. We ‘um’ and we ‘ah’, we laugh and we cry, we whine and yawn. These are all vocal behaviours which form part of what is called ‘paralanguage’.

Kinesic: The main kinesic channels of communication are movements of the face, head and body, posture and gesture.

Standing features of interaction: The principal standing features of interaction are interpersonal distance (and touch), orientation and appearance.

2. Do you agree with them that the language can only be manifested through the oral channel? (see table 1)

3. Consider the term code. Could it suit better to express the author’s view of communicative behaviour?

From: R. Jakobson. A Glance at the Development of Semiotics // Language in Literature, Harvard University Press, 1987. – P. 446.

Saussure underlines the fact that the language is far from being the only system of signs. There are many others: writing, visual, nautical signs, military trumpet signals, gestures of politeness, ceremonies, sets of rites; in the eyes of Saussure, “Customs have a semiological character.” The laws of transformation of the systems of signs will have completely topical analogies with language’s laws of transformation; and, on the other hand, these laws will reveal enormous differences. Saussure envisions certain dissimilarities in the nature of different signs and in their social value: the personal or impersonal factor, a thought-out act or an unconscious one, dependence or independence vis-à-vis the individual or social will, ubiquity or limitedness. If one compares the different systems of signs with language, one will witness, according to Saussure, the surfacing of aspects which one had not suspected; in studying rites or any other system separately, one will notice that all of these systems yield a common study – that of the specific life of signs, semiology.

According to the thesis Saussure maintained from the time of his preparation in 1894 of an unfinished study on William Dwight Whitney, “language is nothing more than one particular case of the Theory of Signs,” and

this will be the major reaction of the study of language in the theory of signs, this will be the ever new horizon which it will have opened – to have taught and revealed to the theory of signs a whole other and new side of the sign, that is to say that the sign does not begin to be really known until we have seen that it is not only a transmissible thing but by its very nature a thing destined to be transmitted.

1. What does Saussure mean when using the term system of signs – codes or channels?

2. Can Saussure’s statement contradict the theory of technological development?

Read the below fragments from the book “The Valley of Horses”, which describes how people can communicate in the situation when they don` t know each other’s language. The author of the book, Jean M. Auel is an international phenomenon nowadays. In the below fragments she describes a very special case of communication. Study it carefully from the perspective of media.

3. Interpret the choice of the heroine to learn the verbal code of other communicator.

“Ayla stared at the man. She couldn’t help herself, though she knew it was discourteous. It was not only impolite to stare, a woman was never supposed to look directly at a man, especially a stranger. “Where’s my brother, woman?" Jondalar shouted, grabbing her arms and shaking her. “Where is Thonolan?”

Ayla was shocked by his outburst. The loudness of his voice, the anger, the frustration, the uncontrolled emotions she could hear in his tone and see in his actions, all disturbed her. Men of the Clan would never have displayed their emotions so openly. They might feel as strongly, but manliness was measured by self-control.

There was grief in his eyes, though, and she could read from the tension in his shoulders and the tightening of his jaw that he was fighting the truth he knew but did not want to accept. The people she had grown up among communicated by more than simple hand signs and gestures. Stance, posture, expression, all gave shades of meaning that were part of the vocabulary. The flexion of a muscle could reveal a nuance. Ayla was accustomed to reading the language of the body, and the loss of a loved one was a universal affliction.

She returned to the fireplace to heat the soup. He watched her, still trying to fathom who she was. “That smells good,” he said, when the meaty aroma wafted toward him.

The sound of his voice seemed out of place. He wasn’t sure why, but it was something more than knowing he would not be understood. When he had first met the Sharamudoi, neither he nor they understood a word of each other’s language, yet there had been speech - immediate and voluble speech – as each strove to exchange words that would begin the process of communication. This woman madeno attempt to begin a mutual exchange of words, and she responded to his efforts with only puzzled looks. She seemed not only to lack an understanding of the languages he knew, but to have no desire to communicate.

No, he thought. That wasn’t quite true. They had communicated. She had given him water when he wanted it, and she had given him a container to make his stream, though he wasn’t sure how she knew he needed one. He didn’t form a specific thought for the communication they had shared when he gave vent to his grief – the pain was still too fresh – but he had felt it and included it in his wonderings about her.

“I know you can’t understand me,” he said, rather tentatively. He didn’t know quite what to say to her, but he felt a need to say something. Once he started, words came easier. “Who are you? Where are the rest of your people?” He could not see much beyond the circle of light shed by the fire and the lamp, but he had not seen any other people, nor any evidence of them. “Why don’t you want to talk?” She looked at him but said nothing.

A strange thought then began to insinuate itself into his mind. He recalled sitting near a fire in the dark before with a healer, and he remembered the Shamud talking about certain tests Those Who Served the Mother had to put themselves through. Wasn’t there something about spending periods of time alone? Periods of silence when they could not speak to anyone? Periods of abstinence and fasting?

Ayla glanced at him again, surprised to see a look of wonder on his face — as though he were seeing her for the first time. For some reason, it made her conscious of her discourtesy again, and she quickly looked down at the broth. Yet he had seemed unaware of her indiscretion. He was looking around at her cave and making his mouth sounds. She filled a bowl, then sat down in front of him with it and bowed her head, trying to give him the opportunity to tap her shoulder and acknowledge her presence. She felt no tap, and when she looked up, he was gazing at her questioningly and speaking his words. He doesn’t know!

He doesn’t see what I’m asking. I don’t think he knows any signals at all. With sudden insight, a thought occurred to her. How are we going to communicate if he doesn’t see my signals, and I don’t know his words?

She was jarred by a memory of the time Creb had been trying to teach her to talk, but she didn't know he was talking with his hands. She didn't know people could talk with their hands; she had only spoken with sounds! She had spoken the language of the Clan for so long that she could not remember the meaning of words.

But I am not a woman of the Clan any more. I am dead. I was cursed. I can never go back. I must live with the Others now, and I must speak the way they speak. I must learn to understand words again, and I must learn to speak them, or I will never be understood. Even if I had found a clan of Others, I would not have been able to talk to them, and they would not have known what I was saying. Is that why my totem made me stay? Until this man could be brought? So he could teach me to speak again? She shuddered, feeling a sudden cold, but there had been no draught.

Jondalar had been rambling on, asking questions for which he didn’t expect answers, just to hear himself talk. There had been no response from the woman, and he thought he knew the reason. He felt sure she was either training to be, or in the Service of the Mother. It answered so many questions: her healing skills, her power over the horse, why she was living alone and would not speak to him, perhaps, even how she had found him and brought him to this cave...”

Ayla had been trying to think of some way to begin to learn his words, and then she remembered how Creb had begun, with the name sounds. Steeling herself, she looked directly in his eyes, tapped her chest, and said ‘Ayla’.

Jondalar’s eyes opened wide. “So you have decided to talk after all! Was that your name?” He pointed at her. “Say it again” ‘Ayla’.

She had a strange accent. The two parts of the word were clipped, the insides pronounced back in her throat as though she were swallowing them. He had heard many languages, but none had the quality of the sounds she made. He couldn’t quite say them, but tried for the closest approximation: “Aaay-lah.”

She almost couldn’t recognize the sounds he made as her name. Some people in the Clan had had great difficulty, but none said it the way he did. He strung the sounds together, altered the pitch so that the first syllable rose and the second dropped. She couldn’t ever remember hearing her name said that way, yet it seemed so right. She pointed at him and leaned forward expectantly.

It was too much; she couldn’t get it at all. She shook her head and pointed again. He could see she was confused.

Ayla strained to make her mouth work the same way. “Duh-dah,” was as close as she could come.

He could tell she was having trouble making the right sounds, but she was trying so hard. He wondered if she had some deformity in her mouth that kept her from speaking. Is that why she hadn't been talking? Because she couldn’t? He said his name again, slowly, making each sound as clear as he could, as though he were speaking to a child, or someone lacking adequate intelligence, “Jon-da-lar... Jonnn-dah-larrr.”

“Much better!” he said, nodding approvingly and smiling. She had really made an effort that time. He wasn’t so sure if his analysis of her as someone who was studying to Serve the Mother was correct. She didn’t seem bright enough. He kept smiling and nodding.

He was making the happy face! No one else in the Clan ever smiled like that, except Durc. Yet it had come so naturally to her, and now he was doing it.

Her look of surprise was so funny that Jondalar had to suppress a chuckle, but his smile deepened and his eyes sparkled with amusement. The feeling was contagious. Ayla’s mouth turned up at the corners and, when his answering grin encouraged her, she responded with a full, wide, delighted smile.

“Oh, woman,” Jondalar said. “You may not talk much, but you are lovely when you smile!” The maleness in him began to see her as a woman, as a very attractive woman, and he looked at her that way.

Something was different. The smile was still there, but his eyes... Ayla noticed that his eyes in the firelight were deep violet, and they held more than amusement. She didn’t know what it was about his look, but her body did. It recognized the invitation and responded with the same drawing, tingling sensations deep inside that she had felt when she was watching Whinney and the bay stallion. His eyes were so compelling that she had to force herself to look away with a jerk of her head. She fumbled around straightening his bed coverings, then picked up the bowl and stood up, avoiding his eyes.

“I believe you’re shy,” Jondalar said, softening the intensity of his gaze. She reminded him of a young woman before her First Rites. He felt the gentle but urgent desire he always had for a young woman during that ceremony, and the eager pull in his loins. And then the pain in his right thigh. “It’s just as well,” he said with a wry grin. “I’m in no shape for it anyway.”

He talked to her and asked her where she had learned healing, not expecting an answer. She recognized her name, but nothing else. She wanted to ask him to teach her the meaning of his words, but she didn’t know how. She went out, to get wood for the fireplace in the cave, feeling frustrated. She was hungry to learn to talk, but how could they even begin?” [p. 400-406]

“How did you start that fire?” he asked again, sitting forward. “Oh, Doni! She doesn’t understand a word I’m saying.” He threw his hands up in exasperation. “Do you even know what you’ve done? Come here, Ayla,” he said, beckoning to her.

She went to him immediately; it was the first time she had seen him use a hand motion in any purposeful way. He was greatly concerned about something, and she frowned, concentrating on his words, wishing she could understand.

“How did you make that fire?” he asked again, saying the words slowly and carefully as though, somehow, that would enable her to understand - and flung his arm towards the fire.

“Fy...?” she made a tentative attempt to repeat his last word. Something was important. She was shaking with concentration, trying to will herself to understand him.

“Fire! Fire! Yes, fire,” he shouted, gesticulating towards the flames. “Do you have any idea what it could mean to make a fire that fast?”

“Yes, like that over there,” he said, jabbing his finger in the air at the fireplace. “How did you make it?”

He heaved a sigh and leaned back on the furs, suddenly realizing he had been trying to force her to understand words she didn’t know. “I’m sorry, Ayla. That was stupid of me. How can you tell me what you did when you don’t know what I’m asking?”

The tension was gone. Jondalar closed his eyes feeling drained and frustrated, but Ayla was excited. She had a word. Only one, but it was a beginning. Now, how could she keep it going? How could she tell him to teach her more, that she had to learn more.

“Don-da-lah...?” He opened his eyes. She pointed to the fireplace again, “Fyr?”

“Fire, yes, that’s fire,” he said nodding affirmatively. Then he closed his eyes again, feeling tired, a little silly for getting so excited, and in pain, physically and emotionally..

He wasn’t interested. What could she do to make him understand? She felt so thwarted, so angry that she couldn’t think of some way to communicate her need to him. She tried one more time.

“Dona-da-lah,” she waited until he opened his eyes again, “Fyr...?” she said with hopeful appeal in her eyes.

What does she want? Jondalar thought, his curiosity aroused. “What about that fire, Ayla?”

She could sense he was asking a question, in the set of his shoulders and the expression on his face. He was paying attention. She looked around, trying to think of some way to tell him, and she saw the wood beside the fire. She picked upastick, brought it to him, and held it up with the same hopeful look.

His forehead knotted in puzzlement, then smoothed as he thought he was beginning to understand. “Do you want the word for that?” he asked, wondering at her sudden interest in learning his language, when she seemed not to have any interest in speaking before. Speaking! She wasn’t exchanging a language with him, she was trying to speak! Could that be why she was so silent? Because she didn’t know how to speak?

Her breath exploded out; she didn't know she had been holding it. “Ud...?” she tried.

Her heart was pounding. Did he understand? She searched again, frantically, for something to keep it going. Her eyes fell on the cup. She picked it up and held it out.

“Who are you, Ayla? Where do you come from? How can you do... everything you do, and not know how to talk? You are an enigma, but if I’m ever going to learn about you, I think I’m going to have to teach you to talk.”

She sat on her fur beside him, waiting anxiously, still holding the cup. She was afraid that with all the words he was saying he would forget the one she asked for. She held the cup out to him once again.

“What do you want, ‘drink’ or ‘cup’? I don’t suppose it matters.” He touched the vessel she was holding. “Cup,” he said.

Jondalar followed through on the idea. He reached for the waterbag of fresh water she had left for him and poured some into the cup. “Water,” he said.

Jondalar nodded, then held the cup to his lips and took a sip. “Drink,” he said. “Drink water.”

“Drringk,” she replied, quite clearly except for rolling the r and swallowing the word somewhat. “Drringk ooahdah.”

(J.M. Auel. The Valley of Horses. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1982. – P. 387-406)

One of the definitions of language runs as follows: Language is another being. Study the case described in the below fragment taken from the newspaper Vmeste, 2007, June 15 and try either to prove or disprove the above definition. See if it overshadows the famous one-liner “Medium is the message”.

Слышала об удивительной книге, которую написала слепая женщина. Хотелось бы подробнее узнать о человеке, сумевшем, благодаря огромному упорству и целеустремлённости, преодолеть своё несчастье.

Вероятно, речь идёт о книге «Как я воспринимаю, представляю и понимаю окружающий мир». Неповторимость, уникальность этой книги заключена в том, что её автор, Ольга Скороходова, была слепоглухонемой.

Родилась Ольга в 1914 году в Украине, в бедной крестьянской семье. Заболев менингитом, 5-летняя девочка потеряла зрение, слух, а потом и речь. Но, как говорят, беда одна не ходит. Вскоре умирает мать, единственный человек, который опекал беспомощную девочку. Ольга попадает в одесскую школу слепых, потом в харьковскую клинику для слепоглухонемых детей, которой руководил крупный учёный Иван Соколянский. Начинал он с обучения простейшим навыкам, с развития ощущения пространства, умения пользоваться осязанием. И только потом знакомил с азбукой Брайля и учил речи. Затем главным стало чтение. «Читатель может верить мне или не верить, это его воля,- пишет Скороходова, - но знаниями и литературной речью я обязана чтению, чтению и ещё раз чтению книг, и в первую очередь художественной литературе».

Грянула Великая Отечественная война. Харьков заняли оккупанты. Гитлеровцы, ворвавшись в школу Ивана Соколянского, убили всех воспитанников. Лишь двоим чудом удалось спастись. Одной из уцелевших была Ольга Скороходова.

После войны вместе со своим учителем она переехала в Москву, стала учиться дальше. Трудная дорога, которую преодолевала Скороходова, привела её к потрясающим успехам. Сорока семи лет Ольга Скороходова защитила диссертацию, став кандидатом педагогических наук. Свидетели этой необыкновенной защиты рассказывают о том волнении, которое охватило переполненный зал, когда раздался ровный, немного глуховатый голос диссертантки. Ольга Ивановна не только прочла вступительную речь- она отвечала на вопросы слушателей («переводчики», касаясь её руки, выстукивали эти вопросы по особой азбуке). И лишь порой неточные интонации и чересчур низкий тембр голоса обнаруживали, что способность говорить свойственна учёному не от природы, а приобретена долгим и большим трудом.

Новые грани таланта Скороходовой открылись с выходом из печати её книги «Как я воспринимаю, представляю и понимаю окружающий мир», в которой она не только описывала свою жизнь, но и постаралась собрать материалы, представляющие большую научную ценность. Труд Ольги Скороходовой- это своеобразное руководство при воспитании глухонемых. Писатель глубоко исследует процесс восприятия слепоглухонемого. Оказывается, с помощью рук можно узнать человека, которого не видел несколько лет. И не только узнать, но даже определить его душевное состояние, его настроение. Так руки заменяют глаза.

В книге описывается также, что слепой и глухой человек способен «слушать» и наслаждаться музыкой и пением. Происходит это вновь при помощи рук – им передаётся вибрация инструмента, на котором играют, так человек «слышит». Впечатления Скороходовой от музыкального произведения всегда точны, верно воссоздают смысл произведения. Тонко чувствует она и природу. Любит цветы, наслаждается морем, солнцем, утренней свежестью. Её представления о мире не только верны, но и образны. Так, море она представляет в образе мифологического Посейдона, оно «представляется мне великим, широкоплечим, длинноруким, с пушистыми длинными кудрями из морской тины и такой же пышной бородой. Когда Посейдон сердится, он сильно раскачивает своей головой, развивающиеся кудри и борода нарушают спокойствие воздуха, и тогда начинается буря…».

И ночь с её тишиной и прохладой вызывает у автора поэтический образ: «Иногда я люблю идти по улице тихой, тёплой ночью. Всё кругом тихо- тихо, в домах замолкла дневная жизнь и шум, люди спят, тёмные прямоугольники окон не освещают улицы комнатным светом. Никто не знает, что я иду по улице одна и ничего не боюсь. И в таких случаях мне хочется представить ночь… в образе одинокой женщины. Чтобы обойти землю, она выскальзывает из уединённого дома, укутавшись тёмным покрывалом, идёт вокруг города, разливая запахи ночной сырости и навевая прохладу свои длинным покрывалом…».

Включенные в книгу очерки «В Музее- усадьбе Л.Н. Толстого», «О Байроне», «О Пушкине и Гоголе», «О том, как мне представляется Герцен», «А.М. Горький жив» и другие свидетельствуют не только о глубоком знании Скороходовой сочинений этих писателей, но и о своём, подчас очень оригинальном взгляде на их творчество. Эти очерки, а также подборка авторских стихов, которыми заканчивается книга, говорят ещё и о незаурядном литературном даровании автора.

Да, поистине нет предела возможностям человека!

К сожалению, Ольги Ивановны больше нет с нами. Но её жизнь останется огромным воспитательным примером стойкости и силы духа не только для многочисленных воспитанников Загорской школы слепоглухонемых, что под Москвой, но и многих других людей.

1. McLuhan M., Fiore Q. The Medium Is the Message, N.Y.: Random House, 1967, p.12 – 32.

2. Ehninger D. Marshal McLuhan: His Significance for the Field of Speech Communication. Speech Journal. – Vol. 6, 1969. – P. 16-24.

3. Griffin M. A First Look at Communication/Basic Text//N.Y., Toronto: McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1991. – P. 291-350.

4. Levinson P. McLuhan and Rationality // Journal of Communication, vol.31, № 3, 1981, p.179 – 188.

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