Purposive Communication Study Guide PDF

**EVALUATING MESSAGES AND/OR IMAGES** **Welcome to Module Five!** **In an increasingly interconnected world, effective communication transcends traditional boundaries and embraces the full spectrum of human sensory perception. This module is designed to hone students\' crucial communication skills...

**EVALUATING MESSAGES AND/OR IMAGES** **Welcome to Module Five!** **In an increasingly interconnected world, effective communication transcends traditional boundaries and embraces the full spectrum of human sensory perception. This module is designed to hone students\' crucial communication skills within the dynamic realm of multimodal contexts. Multimodal texts, the cornerstone of contemporary communication, encompass a rich blend of sensory experiences, including listening, reading, and viewing. In recognition of the vital role played by these multifaceted texts in both local and global settings, this module\'s primary objective is to empower students with the competence to evaluate and construct multimodal content that resonates with diverse audiences.** **At the end of this module, you should be able to:** 1. Evaluate multimodal texts critically to enhance receptive (listening, reading, viewing) skills; 2. Convey ideas through oral, audio-visual, and/or web-based presentations for different target audiences in local and global settings using appropriate registers; and 3. Adopt awareness of audience and context in presenting ideas. **INTRODUCTION** **Language is pervasive in our daily lives, encompassing our verbal interactions, written expressions, and even non-verbal cues that convey emotions and intentions. This linguistic presence extends to our online experiences as we navigate an increasingly digital world. Linguists are keen on studying the evolving mediums of language in this transition, delving into the nuances of communication.** **Linguistics places a significant emphasis on understanding how language operates within various everyday contexts, particularly in the era of the internet where communication takes on diverse forms. In this virtual landscape, linguists analyze not only traditional written and spoken language but also the visual elements such as images, signs, and photos. These non-textual elements carry their own ideologies and meanings, engaging the individuals exposed to this multilingual landscape.** **In the realm of the online age, it is crucial to adeptly interpret how these signs and visual cues communicate within the context of both the author and the reader or recipient. Mastery of this skill is essential for effectively navigating and comprehending the intricacies of communication within emerging digital landscapes.** **LINGUISTIC LANDSCAPES** **When you find yourself lost in an unfamiliar place, you would first look around for signs that may tell you where you actually are. You would look for street names, billboards, signage, or even bills posted on walls and posts. Those signs will help you familiarize yourself in the surrounding and may signal you about a familiar thing that may make you identify your location. The things that you can actually see that do not necessarily need words to express a thought is called linguistic landscape.** **Wherever you are, there linguistic and semiotic materials are. These may come in the form of billboards, signage, street names, traffic regulations, or graffiti. These materials go unnoticed most of the time. Advertisements, flyers and written notices are part of our everyday life. Memes, troll posts, and tweets are prevalent pnline. All of these are part of the linguistic landscapes.** **Linguists consider signs to express symbolic meaning and messages. It is both a language and medium of communication on its own. Researchers tend to analyze the purpose of the author/writer, how these signs and symbols are produced, and to whom they are directed to. In some cases, signs can usually be identified on the basis of form of the signage or symbol.** **Official signs are produced with a top down discourse, while signs produced by an individual or a group, but not officially recognized has bottom up discourse.** **Knowing where to draw the line between top down and bottom up is not always easy. Ben-Rafael, et al. (2006; in Mooney & Evans, 2015) suggest that the signs on individual shops are bottom up as these allow for personal choice in their composition and display. However, within the context of the shop itself, they could be regarded as top down. Leeman & Modan (2009; in Mooney & Evans, 2015) argue that the distinction between top down and bottom up signage practices is untenable in an era in which public-private partnerships are the main vehicle of urban revitalization initiatives in urban centers in many parts of the world, and when government policies constrain private sector signage practices. Nevertheless, Mooney & Evans (2015) said, if the distinction is thought of as a continuum whose orientation points may shift in different contexts, it is helpful in understanding how signs are constructed and consumed.** **Examine the signage that follows:** **The example above is a signage in Britain. The sign contains two languages, British and Welsh. This has a top-down approach because it is an official rule which you can attribute to the authority. It shows authority in making a request.** **Now, examine the picture that follows:**  **The picture shown above is a sign made by an elementary pupil. It is an example of a bottom-up discourse because it is a personal plea or request.** **The kind of signage and symbols vary depending on culture for the reason that each cultural environment has different reading practices. Some language are written from left to right, top to bottom, or the semantics, context and structure of language is different from one another.** **Looking at a particular sign, you may notice that the various elements used in it have meaning, and elements symbolic in the message they want to convey. Try to pay attention to the various features including color, size, shape, and where the sign is placed. They may be used in analyzing the symbolic and contextual meaning of signs. This is what linguists call as geosemiotics. It is a mode of analyzing signs.** **Geosemiotics the study of the social meaning of the material placement of signs in the world. By signs we mean to include any semiotic system including language and discourse (Scollon & Scollon, 2003; in Mooney & Evans, 2015).** **If you look at a sign more critically, you would likely understand the intention of the maker and his purpose. This is why signs are placed in a location that has relevance to the message it wants to convey. Imagine a one-way sign in a two-way street. Most drivers would surely get confused because it does not relate to the place where it is supposed to be.** Note that language and placement of signs are just two of semiotic systems. Other things, like typeface used, the color, images and so on, also create and communicate meaning. Because signs are so varied across the linguistic landscape, you need to pay attention to all these semiotic choices of the maker. Having mentioned the images, the use of symbols and other features also support the message of the sign. Imagine what would happen if the skull and bone sign on a poisonous bottle is colored pink. Now, consider the sign that follows: Analyze the sign. Is it in the right place? What meaning does the sign is trying to convey? Also, in evaluating signs, better ways of presenting the message must be explored. Consider this example:  At first glance, the sign may be read as two sentences: We make change and Work for women. A better way of presenting the message is by lay-outing the phrases this way, We make change work / for women. Although it is often assumed that signs only differ in features, signs are divided into different kinds based on the contextual meaning and discourse, thus, a sign may be: 1. **Regulatory**, if it indicates authority and is official or legal prohibitions, 2. **Infrastructural**, if it labels things or directs for the maintenance of a building or any infrastructure, 3. **Commercial**, which advertises or promotes a product, an event, or a service in commerce, or 4. **Transgressive**, if it violates (intentionally or accidentally) the conventional semiotics or is in wrong place, like a graffiti (In English, graffiti is used both as a singular and plural noun. In Italian, though, the singular form is graffito.) Being all too common, it is easy to imagine the first three kinds of signs, hence, the emphasis on the fourth one in this chapter. Now, examine the sign that follows, Identify the linguistic contents (words, phrases) in the graffiti and what each means. Also, identify the symbols used and what each tries to convey. This is an example of a graffiti, a transgressive sign. We have defined a transgressive sign as one which intentionally or accidentally violates the conventional semiotics at that place such as a discarded snack food wrapper or graffiti, or any sign in wrong space (Scollon & Scollon, 2003; in Mooney & Evans, 2015) As already mentioned, graffiti are transgressive signs. A graffiti may have varied meanings. The idea of the people is to have a medium of public voice is shown in the production of graffiti. Grafitti is an unsanctioned urban text (Carrington, 2009; in Mooney & Evans, 2015). This kind of transgressive discourse conveys Power and control to the person or group behind the production of graffiti. Most of these graffiti express a narrative outside the boundaries of the conventional language. Carrington (2009; in Mooney & Evans, 2015) describes a graffiti as vernacular. We can also understand it in relation to the bottom up scheme described above. As these signs are not top down, they allow the viewer to see the contributions of other people to the built environment. Graffiti is a way for disempowered people to make a visible mark, to disrupt the landscape that is increasingly occupied by the increasingly powerful. As argued by linguists, a graffiti creates a narrative and is a form of participatory culture. The people who live in the space provide evidence of their experiences, views and actions. In this sense, it is a form of citizenship. It allows for the visibility of a hidden community and permits this community to see itself in this environment. Having said that, examine now the narrative in the graffiti that follows. What could be the story behind the graffiti? How did the Upon reaching this point, artist disrupt the landscape? Was the artist successful in do communicating his views, and in making the community to which he belongs visible? People who go online are called netizens an abstraction of the words Internet and citizen. Netizens are metaphorically considered as the citizens of the virtual world. We now live in a time when almost everyone has at least one social media account. We communicate now through these virtual landscapes more than ever. This virtual space is also a language landscape. Looking at it as landscape rather than a language should prompt you to see the semiotic options in the context of social spaces in this environment. Three of the many media in this landscape are the following: **1. YouTube.** Although YouTube (Be mindful as to how the proper noun.) videos cannot specifically be considered as https //winbutter.com signs or symbols, YouTube video producers use symbols and signs, generally inclusive in the language used, to convey the message they want to express. It is difficult to generalize the use of YouTube whether for research, entertainment, or extensive advertisement. As such, the YouTube videos are language landscapes that can be analyzed in its context and features. While there is certainly some similarities between television and YouTube, it is has also been described as being post-television (Lister, et al.; in Tolson, 2010; cited by Mooney & Evans, 2015). Some media researchers believe that television differ from YouTube. Television tends to be filmed and recorded from a studio and is centered, while YouTube videos may be recorded by people who have recording gadgets at home which can be decentered. Also, television tends to be to have a hierarchy of discourse, with some channels and programs being more prestigious than others. This I Tube may depend on the institutional voice of the channel or program or the kind of people producing the content YouTube, however, is https://miceliproductions.com not hierarchical. While content is searchable and ordered so that viewers can find material, none of it is presented by the platform as more prestigious than anything else. In addition to this, rather than having an institutional voice, the voices on YouTube are individual voices, with ordinary people becoming celebrities and experts. Finally, what a viewer can watch is dictated by the television program schedule; while YouTube provides very little direction what to watch when. Just as producers can choose what to broadcast, viewers can choose what to watch hen to watch it (Tolson, 2010; in Mooney & Evans, 2015). **2. Twitter.** This virtual landscape is described by Mooney & Evans (2015) as ubiquitous. What this virtual landscape looks like depends on the technology and on the choices the user makes. An individual\'s experience of Twitter, for example, depends on who he/she is following, which hashtags he/she is interested in, and so https://www.saydaily.com on. Moreover, the way people use Twitter can vary widely. It may be used for keeping up with developments in work and career, making sure the train is running on time, following favorite celebrities, or interacting with friends. Twitter (and other online platforms), provides opportunities. (though always with limitations) and resources for making choices in how we create a personalized linguistic and semiotic landscape. Gillen & Merchant (2013; in Mooney http://s3-ap-southeast-1.amazonaws.com & Evans, 2015) refer to these choices in terms of constructing a point of view. Further, because of the user-generated content on Twitter, users are changing the very landscape they inhabit, even given the small amount of space allowed for each tweet (140 characters). Therefore, in dealing with and thinking about the linguistic landscape, we are no longer just thinking about signs, posters, billboards, and notices (Mooney & Evans, 2015). **3. Memes.** One of the things that the World Wide Web makes possible is the quick circulation of memes. Memes are prevalent in social media, and if we ask a student no matter how young if he/she has encountered one or two, it is most probably that he/she has already. To make the definition short, meme is a term given to any posts, language or photo that has an uptake to a social, moral, or political idea that most of the time seems funny. Memes are contagious patterns of cultural information that get passed from mind to mind and directly generate and shape the mindsets and significant forms of behavior and actions of a social group. Memes include such things as popular tunes, catchphrases, clothing fashions, architectural styles, ways of doing things, icons, jingles and the like, said Knobel & Lankshear (2007; in Mooney & Evans, 2015). Memes are a striking example of extensive, bottom-up activity that changes the linguistic landscape (Mooney & Evans, 2015). Memes do not only become viral; it also embeds a lasting impression to people who can relate to the meme. Since memes are naturally comic in nature, replicability of memes is one of its best elements. People who create memes tend to carefully consider the photo that will be used, the relevance of the message it wants to convey and the relationship of the photo, the symbols used, the message, and the font style and sized used. Now, examine the meme that follows. What does the meme is trying to convey? How does this meme relate to most students like you? The problem with this landscape is this: Too many memes are cringeworthy for their blundered grammar and erroneous spelling and/or punctuation. Some are even culturally insensitive, gender/class insensitive, and/or politically incorrect. Yet, people like and share them. Remember: Memes like that should never be patronized, especially by the educated and critical. **Today, evaluating texts and/or images is essential because of the proliferation of information resources and rapid technological change. As you have noticed, you are always confronted with a diverse wealth of information for personal, academic, or professional use that can be accessed in multicultural settings.** **With the advent of a digital environment or the Internet, most of the information is unfiltered making its authenticity, validity, and reliability questionable. The abundance Of information from various media, namely short message service, electronic mail, social media, print and electronic journals, periodicals, and advertisements also poses a challenge for you in terms of evaluating and understanding it fully.** **As a competent communicator, you should be able to evaluate, manage, and use information effectively to enhance your message, improve your receptive skills such as listening, reading, and viewing skills, and accomplish a specific purpose. One best way to evaluate messages and images is through critical reading.** **CRITICAL READING** **As one of the categories of reading skills along with rapid reading, previewing, literal reading and inferential reading, critical reading involves studying and evaluating the text closely in terms of relevance, validity, and logic.** **The goal of critical reading is to exarnine not only what message is conveyed but also how the message is conveyed as well as its purpose, target audience, and other ways of presenting it. Essentially, critical reading requires you to be an investigator and \"break down\" a text to appreciate and understand it better.** **QUALITIES OF A CRITICAL READER** **A critical reader\...** - **annotates the text by writing or using sticky notes;** - **determines and analyzes the organizational pattern (compare-contrast cause-effect, description, narration, definition, or persuasion) of the text;** - **asks critical questions that promote analysis, synthesis, and evaluation of text;** - **considers the cultural and historical background of the text or image;** - **distinguishes facts from opinions;** - **evaluates the author\'s credibility by checking on his/ her credentials or academic and scholarly background;** - **evaluates the source of the text and image;** - **looks beyond the text or ideas that are not explicitly stated;** - **makes inferences about the text or images and the author\'s ideas, biases, claims, agenda, or views;** - **assesses the usefulness and relevance of the text by previewing or reading the titles, table of contents, summaries and abstracts, introductions, conclusions, headings, and subheadings;** - **reads with specific question in mind that he/she wants the text or image to answer; and** - **reads with an open mind.** **GENERAL GUIDE QUESTIONS IN EVALUATING A TEXT** **Source** - **What is the source?** - **When was the text published?** - **Are there titles or headers, table of contents, summaries and abstracts, introductions, conclusions, headings, and subheadings in the source? Is the source useful? Is the source relevant? Is the source reliable?** **Context** - **What is the context of the text?** - **What pieces of information are given that provide the context of the text?** **Contents** - **What is the message?** - **What is the purpose of the message?** - **What are the facts or figures that support the message?** - **How is the message conveyed by the text?** - **What is the tone of the text?** - **What words contribute to frame the message of the text?** - **How do you think the audience might be affected the way the text is written?** **Audience** - **Who is the target audience?** - **What information is provided that give you the idea about the target audience of the text?** **Author** - **Who is the author?** - **What are the credentials of the author?** - **What is the author\'s purpose of writing (informational\' persuasive, or entertainment)?** - **What is/are the author\'s major ideals?** **Visual** - **How do you find the layout, design, and color? How are they used? Are they helpful in framing the message of the image?** - **Can you identify what is in the foreground and in the background? What are they?** **Technical Quality** - **What can you say about the color and size of the image?** - **What can you say about the quality of the image?** - **Is it copyrighted?** In Module 5, we embark on an exploration of language\'s dynamic role in our daily lives, both in traditional and digital realms. As we navigate an increasingly online world, our linguistic presence expands into new mediums, giving rise to linguistic landscapes. These landscapes encompass a rich tapestry of signs and symbols, from billboards to graffiti, which convey profound meanings beyond words. We delve into geosemiotics to understand the layers of meaning within these symbols, including color, size, shape, and location. The signs in these landscapes are categorized as regulatory, infrastructural, commercial, or transgressive, with the latter, like graffiti, offering an intriguing bottom-up discourse. In the digital age, the linguistic landscape extends to the online world, where netizens engage in language-driven communication through platforms such as YouTube, Twitter, and memes. Each platform offers unique ways to communicate, from user-generated content on YouTube to the concise and personalized interactions on Twitter, and the viral conveyance of ideas through memes. To navigate these diverse linguistic landscapes effectively, this module also equips learners with the tools of critical reading, encouraging the evaluation of texts and images. Qualities of a critical reader include annotation, analysis of organizational patterns, and the ability to ask probing questions. General criteria for evaluating messages involve assessing source credibility, understanding context, scrutinizing content, considering the audience, and evaluating the author\'s qualifications. These skills are vital in the modern era where the abundance of information in multicultural settings demands the critical scrutiny of authenticity, validity, and reliability. Module 5 uncovers the intricacies of linguistic landscapes, both physical and digital, and provides invaluable insights into interpreting symbols and signs for effective communication in our evolving world.  **REFERENCES**