What is language and what is communication? These are crucial yet often overlooked questions, or ones with answers presupposed rather than reflected upon. If one shrugs off the questions assuming that language is a code or system of rules regulating our communication and that communication is the utilisation of such a code in the transmission of a message from a sender to a receiver, then they should do well to revisit their internalised understanding of language and communication, contemplating instead the creative and transformative aspect of language (which suggests that it cannot be a code or a shared system in the first place) and the evasiveness of any message out there to be grasped (and the fact that remains – that we do communicate – right?). This course takes on this important task and explores the intricate dynamics (or dialectics, if you will) between language and communication, casting a new light on the former as a creative yet also continual process of conventionalising the latter. Based on this, students are invited to (re)examine how this dynamics unfolds in key concepts and theories of language and communication: context(ualisation), linguistic and communicative competence, semantics and pragmatics, conversational maxims and implicatures, speech act theory, relevance theory, politeness and humour. This will finally culminate in extended learning and application to our social, digitalised and AI-generated reality.
Language and communication, communication theory, context(ualisation), linguistic and communicative competence, semantics and pragmatics, conversational maxims and implicatures, speech act theory, relevance theory, politeness and humour
- To attend to the delicate relationship between language and communication and to warn of the perils of reducing one to the other.
- To introduce students to the basic terminology, ideas and theories utilised in the general study of language and communication.
- To formulate constructive critiques of the different approaches to language and communication that underlie the aforementioned theories.
- To develop perceptiveness in the understanding and handling of worldly matters such as ‘linguistic barriers’, ‘miscommunication’ and ‘misunderstanding’.
By the end of the course, students are expected to
1. be mindful of the irreducible dialectics between language and communication and the embeddedness of the former in the latter.
2. have acquired knowledge of the basics of linguistic studies as well as the communication theories often incorporated in them and be able to build constructive critiques of them.
3. have ruminated on our nature as languaging and communicating beings, in an ever-shifting landscape of language digitalisation and automation.
4. have nurtured an open attitude toward communication and reviewed their communication ethics as inspired by their own philosophy of language and communication.
The course consists of weekly 2-hour lecture sessions. An end-of-term, in-class exam will take place in the final session. Tutorials will take place on an irregular basis, depending on needs.
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Worksheets (task-based, short/essay questions about lecture content) |
40% (2 in total, 20% each) |
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Final Exam (in-class, open-book) |
40% |
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Participation |
20% |
Primary texts will be taken out of academic books. The course may also make use of other resources such as academic journal articles and online articles.
Weekly digital readings will be uploaded to the course Moodle page and students are encouraged to find additional materials via the HKU Library digital databases.