MediaSpace Wiki

Small Group Spring2006 Session05

Index Card Assignment due Thursday

After you do this weeks readings, create your own model of small group communication.

Agenda

• Collect questions
• Return questions
• Discuss card models
• Collect questions
• Lecture
• Questions

Language

• Readings: Keyton, c. 2, p. 23-27; Hirokawa et al, c. 5

Language and Group Communication

• Language is one of the 3 mediating elements of communication
  1. We build messages
  2. Using language
  3. Within media
• We use different kinds of language in different group media
  • Formal face-to-face meetings
  • Informal face-to-face get-togethers
  • Instant Messenger chat rooms
  • Distribution list discussions
  • Groupware systems
  • Designed group workflows
  • Group Decision Support Rooms (GDSS)
  • Teleconferencing
  • Videoconferencing
  • and more
• These differences take several forms
  1. Different media enable different kinds of languages
     • Verbal
     • Written
     • Non-verbal (more about this next time)
  2. Infrastructure-dependent vocabularies
     • Different media have different features and offer different possibilities
     • We develop vocabularies to describe and manage these features and possibilities
  3. Media-specific vocabularies and jargons
     • We often invent language that helps us to optimize our interaction within different media
     • Sometimes these invented languages make up for deficiencies in the medium
     • Other times they just occur as generally agreed upon vocabularies that are appropriate to the group medium
     • This reflects a general trend towards special vocabularies that occur in many contexts:
       • Professions
       • Knowledge Specialties
       • Organizations
       • Groups (as we see in the Bormann article)
• Language is fundamentally about representing meaning such that:
  • We can communicate our thoughts to others: vocabulary
  • Others can make sense of what we say: syntax
  • They want to make sense of our: presentation and language choice
  • Note the two very different problems here
    • What we say can't matter
    • If nobody listens to us or understands what we say
• Language is
  • Arbitrary
  • Abstract
  • Ambiguous
  • Culturally-bound
  • Media-bound
  • A source of misunderstanding
• Language entails vocabulary
  • The fundamental unit of language vocabulary is called a sign
    • Signs connect meaning (signifieds) with representation (signifiers)
    • Signifieds only exist inside our heads
      • We can find descriptions of signifieds in dictionaries: denotation
      • But every meaning starts with our experience: connotation
    • Signifiers only exist outside our heads
      • They take the form of signals: just meaningful differences
      • There is no necessary relationship between the 'signals we use and the meanings they represent
        • ’’’Symbols’’ are abstract representations that we associate meanings with (the word "sheep")
        • They are arbitrary. Lots of signals might be used to represent the idea of a sheep
        • They are ambiguous.
          • Overloading: The same word can have many meanings
          • Inheritance: The meanings the signs represent are hierarchically related:
            • Life -> animal -> mammal -> feline -> cat -> Siamese -> Sadie
          • Multiply inherited: they exist in multiple hierarchies and relationships:
            • Possession -> pet -> cat -> Siamese -> Sadie
        • Context bound: "Cat" means something different
          • At the zoo (mammal)
          • At home (pet)
          • At a construction site
        • Culturally bound: culture provides context
          • Note here that Bormann's fantasy chains provide groups with context in the form of common ground
            • Attributions
              • Heroes
              • Villains
            • Stories
            • Common Consciousness
            • Symbols
          • Symbolic Cues
      • But there can be necessary relationships
        • ’’’Icons’’’ are a visual representation of something real (picture of sheep)
        • ’’’Indexes’’’ are signals that correlate with real things ("baa")
• Language entails syntax
  • Rules for how we put signs together
  • Exampled by, but not limited to, sentence rules:
    • In English: noun phrase - verb phrase
    • Infix: noun-verb-noun
    • Transformations
      • Prefix: verb noun noun
      • Postfix: noun noun verb
  • Other rules
    • Message structure (Narrative rules)
      • The types of Fantasy Chain are examples of such message structure
    • Interpretation (Punctuation and Attribution)
      • Fantasy chains provide a basis for common interpretation in a a group
    • Interaction (Regulative rules, including Pragmatic Rules)
      • Fantasy narratives often establish such rules
    • Culture and Context (Constituative rules)
      • Symbolic Convergence creates context and culture that enables group cohesiveness
• Problems
  • Meaning is in people, not in words
    • People get meanings wrong: bypassing
    • They confuse one word for another: malapropisms
    • They make self-serving presumptions of responsibility (mispunctuation and misattribution)
  • People use language to organize things, sometimes with problematic results:
    • Stereotyping groups with allness
    • Ignoring the middle with polarization (there is always an middle ground alternative)
    • Shaping reality with biased language
  • Meaning is shared within groups
    • Symbolic convergence will often involve creating one or more of these problems as a way of creating groupness
    • Groups have special needs that require expression: jargon
    • That won't be understood outside that group: bafflegab
  • People assume that meaning is static (static definition)
    • Imposing the past on the present static evaluation
    • Language changes. We invent language
• What do we do to be better language consumers?
  • Be aware that
    • Signs are ambiguous and overloaded. The speaker may not mean what you think they do.
    • Every message is an attempt to translate ideas into words
    • That any message is risky
  • Where there is more than one interpretation, give people the benefit of the doubt
    • If there's still a question, clarify by asking
    • If there isn't a question and you think ill of the message, ask anyway
  • Listen before responding (interrupting). You can't really know what someone else is going to say.
  • Be supportive of other people's language choices
    • What your listeners objective is
• All of this is as important in groups as it is in any other context
  • Perhaps more so because groups don't work unless
    • We participate
    • We listen more than we talk
    • We find ways to work together.

Next

Find a place where you can watch a group (any group) interact from a distance. List five different non-verbal behaviors that seemed to contribute to the group's conversation.