PURPOSIVE COMMUNICATION

Week 1

 What is Language? It is derived from the Latin Lingua which means tongue and the French
langue, language is the “entire complex of phenomena associated with human vocal and
auditory communication of emotions and ideas.” Language is called a social phenomenon,
because it has relevance only in a social setting.
 What is Communication? Communication is an effective exchange of ideas, opinion and
formation between two or more persons in an authentic situation. The word effective is
highlighted because communication takes place if it is understood, relayed and shared.
 The sender (speaker) of the speech (message) must be understood by the recipient (listener).
The sender is likened to an encoder, the speech to a code and to the recipient, the decoder, this
is the usual process in communication.

Week 2 : Formal & Informal Language

 We use formal language that are serious or that involved people we don’t know well. Informal
language is more commonly used in situations that are more relaxed and involve people we
know well.
 Formal language is more common when we write; informal language is more common when we
speak. However, there are times where writing can be very informal, for example, when writing
postcards or letters to friends, emails or text messages. There are also examples where spoken
English can be very formal, for example, in a speech or a lecture.

Week 3: Context Clues, Root Words, Common Prefixes, Meaning in Dictionary, Vocabulary

 Vocabulary is commonly defined as “all the words known and used by a particular person.”
Knowing a word, however, is not as simple as merely being able to recognize or use it. There are
several aspects of word knowledge that are used to measure word knowledge.
 Words can be defined in various ways, and estimates of vocabulary size differ depending on the
definition used. The most common definition of a lemma (the uninflected or dictionary form;
this includes walk, but not walks, walked or walking). Most of the time lemmas do not include
proper nouns (names of people, places, companies, etc). Another definition often used in
research of vocabulary size is that of word family. These are all the words that can be derived
from a ground word (e.g. the words effortless, effortlessly, effortful, effortfully are all part of the
word family effort). Estimates of vocabulary size range from as high as 200 thousand to as low as
10 thousand, depending on the definition used.

Types of Vocabulary

 Reading Vocabulary – A literate person’s vocabulary is all the words he or she can
recognize when reading. This is generally the largest type of vocabulary simply because
a reader tends to be exposed to more words by reading than by listening.
  Listening Vocabulary – A person’s listening vocabulary is all the words he or she can
recognize when listening to speech. People may still understand words they were not
exposed to before using cues such as tone, gestures, the topic of discussion, and the
social context of the conversation.
 Speaking Vocabulary – A person’s speaking vocabulary is all the words he or she uses in
speech. It is likely to be a subset of the listening vocabulary. Due to the spontaneous
nature of speech, words are often misused. The misuse – though slight and
unintentional – may be compensated by facial expressions, tone of voice.
 Writing Vocabulary – Words are used in various forms of writing from formal essays to
social media feeds. Many written words do not commonly appear in speech. Writers
generally use a limited set of words when communicating. For example, if there are a
number of synonyms, a writer may have preference as to which of them to use, and
they are unlikely to use technical vocabulary relating to a subject in whom he has no
knowledge or interest.

Week 4: English Idioms

 An idiom is a phrase, saying, or a group of words that has a metaphorical (not literal) meaning,
which has become accepted in common usage. An idiom’s symbolic sense is quite different from
the literal meaning or definition of the words of which it is made. There are a large number of
idioms and they are used very commonly in all languages. There are estimated to be at least
25,000 idiomatic expressions in the English language. Idioms in fact, evolve the language; they
are the building blocks of a language and civilization. They also have great intensity to make a
language interesting and dynamic. Idioms bring a spectacular illustration to everyday speech.
They provide interesting insights into the use of words, languages, and the thought processes of
their speakers. They have a sense of mystery and fun about them. So what makes idioms
difficult? The answer is their “meaning”. Idioms are not easy to understand – especially for non-
native speakers, because their meanings are usually metaphorical. This characteristic of idioms
makes them strange and difficult to understand for English learners.