1. Communication
Communication is the activity of transferring information that involves a sender, a message, and an intended receiver. The receiver does need not be present or aware of the sender's intent to communicate at the time of communication. It can occur across vast distances in time and space. The communication process is complete once the receiver has understood the sender. Language is a kind of communication. But it is not the only one. Communication can be a traffic light, bell, uniform, etc. the important is the people can understand the message that is sent.
There are some important aspects in communication; they are sender, receiver, and message. Sender means something or person who transfer the message to the receiver. These three aspects should be available in such communication. It is impossible to have understanding without those three aspects.
1.1 Human Communication
The ways people to communicate with other people are various. Language is not the only one way in communication. People also tend to use the sign, gesture and symbol to assist their communication. A variety of verbal and non-verbal means of communicating exists such as body language; eye contact, sign language, paralanguage, haptic communication, chronemics, and media such as pictures, graphics, sound, and writing.
Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities also defines the communication to include the display of text, Braille, tactile communication, large print, accessible multimedia, as well as written and plain language, human reader, and accessible information and communication technology.
1.1.1 Verbal Communication
Speaking is known as verbal communication. Verbal communication means conveying meaning in the form of word message. Verbal Communication also called as oral communication, typically relies on both words, visual aids and non-verbal elements to support the conveyance of the meaning. Oral communication includes discussion, speeches, presentations, interpersonal communication and many other varieties. In face to face communication the body language and voice tonality plays a significant role and may have a greater impact on the listener than the intended content of the spoken words.
A great presenter must capture the attention of the audience and connect with them. For example, out of two persons telling the same joke one may greatly amuse the audience due to his body language and tone of voice while the second person, using exactly the same words, bores and irritates the audience. Visual aid can help to facilitate effective communication and is almost always used in presentations for an audience.
1.1.2 Non verbal Communication
Nonverbal communication describes the process of conveying meaning in the form of non-word messages. It troughs gesture, body language or posture, gesture, facial expression and eye contact, object communication such as clothing, hairstyles, architecture, symbols and infographics. Non-verbal communication is also called silent language and plays a key role in human day to day life from employment relations to romantic engagements.
Speech also contains nonverbal elements known as paralanguage. These include voice quality, emotion and speaking style as well as prosodic features such as rhythm, intonation and stress. Likewise, written texts include nonverbal elements such as handwriting style, spatial arrangement of words and the use of emoticons to convey emotional expressions in pictorial form.
1.1.3 Visual Communication
Visual communication is the transference of ideas and information through creation of visual representations. Primarily, it is associated with two dimensional images that includes signs, typography, drawing, graphic design, illustration, colors, and electronic resources, video and TV. Recent research in the field has focused on web design and graphically oriented usability. Graphic designers use methods of visual communication in their professional practice
1.1.4 Written Communication
Over time the forms of and ideas about communication have evolved through progression of technology. Advances include communications psychology and media psychology; an emerging field of study. Researchers divide the progression of written communication into three revolutionary stages called "Information Communication Revolutions".
During the 1st stage written communication first emerged through the use of pictographs. The 2nd stage writing began to appear on paper, papyrus, clay, wax, etc.The 3rd stage is characterized by the transfer of information through controlled waves and electronic signal.
1.2 Non Human Communication
Every information exchanges between living organisms. Transmission of signals that involve a living sender and receiver can be considered a form of communication. However, human is not the only creature which was capable of communicating even primitive creatures such as corals are competent to communicate, plants and animals also can communicate. Nonhuman communication also include cell signaling, cellular communication, and chemical transmissions between primitive organisms like bacteria and within the plant and fungal kingdoms.
1.2.1 Animal Communication
All creatures from apes, bee, cicadas, dolphins even ants are capable in communication with other member of their species. Animal has ability to communicate although, they have limited organ of speech. Animal communication can be defined as any behavior of one animal that affects the current or future behavior of another animal.
The study of animal communication is called zoo semiotic. Animal communication, and indeed the understanding of the animal world in general, is a rapidly growing field, and even in the 21st century so far, many prior understandings related to diverse fields such as personal symbolic name use, animal emotions, animal culture and learning, and even sexual conduct, long thought to be well understood, have been revolutionized.
There are the examples of animal communication. The worker bees normally are able to communicate the nectar source. When worker bee finds a source of nectar and returns to the hive, it can perform a complex dance routine to communicate to the other bees about the location of nectar. Depending on type of the dance: round dance for nearby and tail-wagging dance with variable tempo for farther away.
Vervet monkey have about 36 vocal calls including the noises for vomiting and sneezing. When there is a danger or there is snake is around vervet use signal CHUTTER. When there is an eagle comes they use RRAUP.
1.2.2 Plant and Fungi Communication
Communication is observed within the plant organism, for example within plant cells and between plant cells, between plants of the same or related species, and between plants and non-plant organisms, especially in the root zone. Plant roots communicate in parallel with rhizome bacteria, with fungi and with insects in the soil. Plants also communicate via volatiles when exposed to herbivory attack behavior to warn neighboring plants. In parallel they produce other volatiles to attract parasites which attack these herbivores. In Stress situations plants can overwrite the genetic code they inherited from their parents and revert to that of their grand- or great-grandparents.
Fungi communicate to coordinate and organize their growth and development such as the formation of mycelia and fruiting bodies. Fungi communicate with same and related species as well as with nonfungal organisms in a great variety of symbiotic interactions, especially with bacteria, unicellular eukaryotes, plants and insects through semiochemicals of biotic origin. The semiochemicals trigger of the fungal organism reacts in a specific manner. If the same chemical molecules are not part of biotic messages, they do not trigger the fungal organism to react. This implies that fungal organisms can differ between molecules taking part in biotic messages and similar molecules being irrelevant in the situation.
So far five different primary signalling molecules are known to coordinate different behavioral patterns such as filamentation, mating, growth, and pathogenicity. Behavioral coordination and production of signalling substances is achieved through interpretation processes that enables the organism to differ between self or non-self, abiotic indicator, biotic message from similar, related, or non-related species, and even filter out.
2. Language
Language is what the member of a particular society speaks. People tend to use language for their communication. Whatever else people do when they come together - whether they play, fight, or make dishwasher – they talk. People live in a world of language. They talk to friends, wives, husbands, teacher, parents, bus driver, and total stranger. People talk face to face and over the telephone, and everyone responds with more talk. Language learning normally occurs most intensively during human childhood.
People have language because they have features which are unique as part of human language. They are displacement, arbitrariness, productivity, cultural transmissions, discreteness and duality.
· Displacement means that people can refer to past and future time to other location. So, they can talk about things and evens not prevent in the immediate environment.
· The form of human language demonstrates a property called arbitrariness. It is generally the case that there is no natural connection between a linguistics form and its meaning.
· Productivity is the ability of people to create utterances.
· Cultural transmissions is the acquire of language comes from cultural environment.
· Discreteness is the distinctive of each sound in language. Pack and back leads to distinction in meaning can only be due to the difference of p and b sound.
· Language is organized at two levels or layers simultaneously. This property is called duality or double articulation. Bin is have different meaning with nib.
3. Speech
Speech is vocalization of language. The speaker can produce a meaningful sound that called as speech. Each spoken word is created out of the phonetic combination of a limited set of vowel and consonant speech sound units. Speech in some cultures has become the basis of a written language, often one that differs in its vocabulary, syntax and phonetics from its associated spoken one, a situation called diglossia. There are two factors that influence speech :
· Form, size and the position of speech articulation. Speech needs complexity of organ speech.
· The ability of breath and producing sound in the same time.
From the text above we conclude that language is a tool of communication. The things that differentiate language from communication are:
- Language intentionally do by individual
- Language is a symbol
- Language is systematic
- Language is operated in two different operation in oral and written
Questions and answers
1. Ridwan’s
Language is used spontaneously. If someone can not spontaneously produced language, how is the explanation for this?
Answer:
People can produce language because they have some unique feature that do not have by others creature. If some one can not produced language spontaneously, or they need to think more when they want to speak, it can be diagnosed as speech disorder.
2.Habibah’s
Plants have communication but it seems like life system such as in photosynthesis. How do you explain it?
Answer:
Plants communication is different with animal and human communication. The form of communication doing by plants including system, such as the communication between root and other cells to transfer water from the soil.
3. Dulkarnain’s
Communication is one of the media to exchange meaning. Is there any special requirement to do communication? Because we have to use language systematically, and consciously, how if doing communication not under one’s control, can it de labeled as communication? Including communication within dumb, deaf and blind?
Answer:
Yes, there are some requirements to have a good communication. Between the speakers should understand the message they sent and of course there should be a channel so the message can transferred well. If the dumb, deaf and blind communicate each other there should be a person whose normal ability in communication to help they understand the message.
4.Siti Fatimatuzzahra’s
In animal communication, can they communicate without trained by people?
Answer:
Yes, they can but in certain communication. Not all human communication known by animal. For example, when you want to drive out chicken coming to your house, you will sound “HUHHSS!” then the chicken will go away, another is when you want to your cat come to you, you will sound “PUUUSS” then the cat will come to you.
5.Eka Farid’s
Speech is meaningful sound. Is speech has the same meaning as greeting?
Please give an example of meaningful speech and meaningless speech.
Answer:
Greeting is a kind of speech. When you greet someone “good morning” actually he / she already know that now is morning, but it is a meaningful sound represent greeting.
6.Rifa’s
Animal communication don’t use sound when talk with human. They use gesture or body language. Is that right?
Answer:
Yes, it is right. Animal tend to use gesture to communicate with human.
References
Bolinger, Dwight. And Sears, Donald A. (….) Aspects of Language; third edition. New York. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc.
Fromklin, Victoria., Blair, David and Collins, Petter. (1999). An Introduction to Language; fourth edition. Australia.Thomson Learning Australia.
Nur Indah, Rohmani and Abdurrahman. (2008) Psikolinguistik Konsep dan isu Umum.Malang.UIN Press.
Yule, George. (1985). The Study of Language; an Introduction. New York. Cambridge University Press.
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