Communicating Information

(Thought-Random)

        Have you ever thought that 'information' and 'communication' were two words you could interchange using?  Because if ever you have, gentle reminder, dear friend, apparently you can't!  Journalist Sydney J. Harris makes the distinction  in that 'information' is  giving out while 'communication' is getting through'.  And well, you just could use both  'information' and 'communication' as substantives  as when you say 'The information he gave was incorrect.' and 'My communication to them was intercepted'.   But see,  to interchange them would violate certain semantic constraints. To say  'The communication he gave was incorrect.' and 'My information to them was intercepted.' may be syntactically correct... meaning, they are grammatically correct, why not.... but they would not be semantically acceptable unless taken in appropriate contexts.  One's knowledge of meaning combinations simply hesitates to confirm.   This, in fact,  reminds me of the linguist Noam Chomsky's seminal  'Green ideas sleep furiously.'  Nothing wrong with the grammar of this sentence but definitely, it is a semantic violation. And guess what - I love that sentence, I really do!

                                

        Anyway, what really invites my interest at the moment is Sydney's 'getting through' concept of communication. This situation could be visualized as involving a speaker and a hearer in a context where the former tries to convey to a another an understandable message.  Just to call your attention, -  it is the message understood  that is the main focus, otherwise the communication doesn't reach home base and the activity is considered a communication failure.

        Three ways by which a message could be transmitted, Ladies and Gentlemen.   These are oral, written, and non-verbal. Oral: -you talk to another on the phone, you deliver a speech;  written: -you send an e-mail, you write a treatise; non-verbal: ...wait! -let's do this.  Let us, in fact,  zero down on this.  Non-verbal communication is also known as body language. This includes among others,  facial expression, eye contact, touch, and space. One doesn't have to communicate in so many words of his disapproval....he only has to frown and the message is sent. A smile is a message of either joy or consent. In some countries like Japan, a child being scolded  by an elder smiles to show courtesy.  A raised eyebrow is one of incredulity or skepticism;  rolled eyes, an 'I told you so' message.  Ever noticed that when you are in a crowded restaurant and the waiters are kinda being overworked, they will try to avoid your eye contact....-or at least delay meeting it?  Well, this is because with eye contact, one sends the message that he wants attention.  In other cases, however, giving eye contact may  mean it is you who is giving your interested attention as in a speech delivery situation.  The eyes are a very effective message transmitter.  They can communicate interest, hostility,  and attraction, -whether sexual or harmless flirting.  With touch, we can  communicate a great deal:  a firm handshake, a warm bear hug, a gentle brush of the back of the fingers across the other's cheek or a controlling grip on the arm. And then space.  Depending on culture, situation, or the closeness of the relationship, space could either be too distant or too close for comfort.  Thus the use of space could signal intimacy, dominance, aggression or affection. Doesn't this sound familiar?
  
        So communication is possible without any words involved.  But there is one other thing in communications where we do use words but do not necessarily follow academic categories like declarative, interrogative,  imperative sentences. If you still remember good old grammar school,  you were told that declarative sentences are statements; interrogative sentences, questions;   imperative sentences make others do an action and so on and so forth.  However, we really don't do these all the time.  This means that sometimes, we utter a question to state a disapproval  as when one says of a friend's mistake: - 'Isn't that the stupidest thing you ever did?'  Other times, we really are requesting, not asking a question with 'Won't you lend me five bucks for now?' because the positive response expected here is not a 'yes' or a 'no' but an actual giving of the money. Then take the situation where a lady makes an expressive 'It's cold in here!'. The function of this utterance is not to state her discomfort but to let the guy beside her either close the window where the draft is coming from or to let him put his arm around her for some warmth.

        The above sentences which apparently go beyond traditional grammar are called speech acts in the linguistics trade as engendered by the philosopher J. L. Austin.  He  posits the fact that we really perform an act when we utter a sentence no matter what the structure; that is, we request, we negate, we deny, we inquire....and a lot more.   In fact, our 4-year old at home is no exception. As she is always taught to ask for  permission for anything she wants done or wants to do herself, she dutifully complies.  So that when one time her father playfully forks away a piece of food from her plate during dinner,  she correspondingly communicates information of her demand for protocol: 'Papa, did you ask me permission?'

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