Communication, experience and meaning: a theoretical perspective  (Page 3/3)

TALK AND COMMUNICATION IN THE COMMUNITY: Hymes' model for Communication in the community describes the components of speech as channel, forms of speech, participants, scene, setting, the norms of interaction, norms of interpretation, message form and content, speech genres, the rules and relations of speaking and the functions and purposes of speech in terms of outcomes and goals. One must master these means or styles of speaking in order to be competent socially. This theory of Communication is thirty years old and it is still as fresh and as relevant today as it was then.

The approach to Communication as described above can be summarized . . . in terms of a series of four questions: "1. What are the communicative events, and their components, in a community?2. What are the relationships among them? 3. What capabilities and states do they have, in general, and in particular events?4. How do they work? Basic to the series of questions is the distinction between signs and signals and sources of information generally, on the one hand, and what count as messages on the other. . . ; and the notion that the concept of message implies the full range of components present in a communicative event.The concept of a message is taken as implying the sharing (real or imputed) of a code (or codes) in terms of which a message is intelligible to participants, minimally an addressor and addressee, in an event constituted by transmission of the message, and characterized by a channel, a setting or context, a definite form or shape in the message, and a topic or comment." ( Cagle, 2006 )

IMPLICATIONS FOR TEACHER TRAINING: If the ideas above have helped you to discover something new about yourself in a classroom setting --about how you interact with students and colleagues and in what ways school is a sociolinguistic microcosm of the community, then you are on your way to becoming (1) a teacher-researcher in your own school and (2) to seeing how you can share with colleagues about your students' language and Literacy development.We should have more teacher-researchers in Trinidad and Tobago classrooms. Or at least teachers with the habit of journalling about their experiences in teaching and learning. You may have tried something new in this field--Language, Literacy and Communication. Or you may be doing something unique which you think is commonplace, our training also should endorse putting these practices in writing and we becoming "teacher-writers".

REFERENCES:

Cagle, J.A. (2006). "Notes on Communication Theory". Retrieved from http://zimmer.csufresno.edu/~johnca/spch100/notes.htm

De Camp, D. (1974). "Analysis of a Post-Creole Continuum", in Pidginization and Creolization of Languages, ed. D. Hymes, Cambridge University Press, New York.

Holdaway, D. (1979). Foundations of Literacy, Ashton Scholastic, Sydney.

Hymes, D (1974). Foundations in Sociolinguistics: An Ethnographic Approach, University of Pennsylvania Press, PA.

James, W. (2002). "A Different, not an Incorrect Way of Speaking Pts. 1-7." Retrieved from http:// trinicenter.com.

Joseph, B. A. (1995) "Revisiting Language Experience in Reading: Search for a Caribbean Paradigm", Working paper presented at the Ethnography in Education Forum, University of Pennsylvania.

Lark, V. A Note on Experience. Retrieved from http://personal.ecu.edu/mccartyr/american/leap/experien.htm

Lytle, S. and Botel, M. (1990). Reading, Writing and Talking Across the Curriculum, Pennsylvania Dept. of Education, Philadelphia, PA.

Roberts, P. (1998). West Indians and Their Language, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Shedroff, N. (2005). "An Evloving Glossary of Experience Design." Retrieved from http://www.nathan.com/ed/glossary

Youssef, V. (1992). Varilingualism as a Descriptor of Communicative Competence in Caribbean Sociolinguistic Complexes", UWI, St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago.

*Communication Definition. Retrieved from www.senate.psu.edu/curriculum_resources/guide/glossary.html