What is technical language?
Scientists have tried to come up with a definition since the beginning of the 18th century, therefore many interpretations have been made. They started to discuss terms and vocabularies in order to define technical language. A couple of years later they emphasized the importance of text and nowadays they are talking about text from a communication aspect.
The Anglo-Saxon society regarded a language to be a system, therefore they found little interest in technical language. This is one of the reasons why technical language often has remained scattered. However, this was not the case within the School of Prague. They found socio linguistics as well as technical language very interesting. The School of Prague used a horizontal dimension to describe the classification of technical language areas. A vertical dimension was used to describe the different layers of usage. The third dimension was based on expressions and communication, oral as well as written. The dimension dealing with communication is frequently used to find out whether a text should be classified as technical language or not. The result can be seen as a cube. A negative aspect when studying this model is that it can easily be misunderstood.
When a sender and a receiver are experts in the subject discussed, they will probably use technical language. On the other hand, they might have different knowledge and it is possible that they will discuss new information. The main idea is that they have the possibility to use the established technical language. Nevertheless, it is almost impossible to separate strict technical language from colloquial language.
A scale has been made to classify the different levels of technical language in the area of geography. We are clearly dealing with technical language when the sender and the receiver have the same knowledge about a specific subject e.g. communication between geographers. The next level is when the sender has to introduce the subject to the receiver e.g. when a geographer communicates with a student. And the final level is when the sender has to explain everything to the receiver e.g. when a geographer communicates with an amateur.
Text type, a sort of style pattern, is a term that can be found in technical language. A textbook is one example. Technolects are found in heavy scientific material for example reports whereas text types occur in less complicated compositions such as business letters.
Michaela Cullington, a student, wrote a paper “Does Texting Affect Writing?” in 2010 for an English class. The paper is an examination of texting and the belief that it negative effective student’s writing. Cullington goes into detail about textspeak- “language created by these abbreviations”- and their use in formal writings. She organizes the paper in a way that is confusing to understand at first (pg. 1). At the end of the paper, she discusses her finding in her own research which comes to show that texting does not affect writing. But this is contradicting to the information she received from the teachers. The students and the teachers were seeing differences in the use of textspeak in formal writing. Cullington has good support for her
Language is defined as the method of human communication either spoken or written, consisting of the use of words, in a structured or conventional way. Communication is the interaction or exchange of information or news(Webster, 2013).
In its most basic form, communicating involves a sender who takes his or her thoughts and encodes them into verbal and non-verbal messages that are sent to a receiver. The receiver than decodes the messages and attempts to understand what the sender meant to communication. The communication is completed when the receiver transmits verbal and nonverbal feed back to indicate his or her reception and understanding of the message. This process takes place within a context; also know as rhetorical situation, which includes all that affects the communication process such as the sender-receiver’s culture, the sender-receiver‘s relationship, the circumstances surrounding the sender-receiver’s interaction, and the physical environment of the interaction.
As applications of geospatial technologies continuously break the disciplinary barrier, the need for books on these technologies to reach diverse audiences is greater than ever. The challenge, however, is to write a book on this complicated subject that incorporates the knowledge of multiple disciplines and makes it valuable for those who may or may not have diverse educational backgrounds, but require using these technologies. Most books on geospatial technologies target a specific audience. Contrary to this, Geographical Information Science tries to target three different audiences (users, students, and engineers) by using formats and languages comfortable to them. While this effort is laudable, maintaining the balance and attractiveness to all the three audiences is challenging. The author, Narayan Panigrahi, has accomplished this balancing act but with mixed outcomes. His computer science background is clearly seen in the structure and contents of the chapters.
This rhetorical analysis is on the instructions on “How to Use Adobe Photoshop Tools” from WikiHow and to critique the use of the six characteristics of technical communication and the measures of excellence in technical communication as stated by Markel in the ninth edition of Technical Communication.
The six concepts of geography are location, region, spatial pattern, spatial interaction, human/ environmental interaction, and culture. The location is everything; it is the starting point in geography. The region is the area of the land with consistent recognizable features, it has variations in its physical features. There are mountains, hills, valleys, plains, plateaus, oceans, lakes, deserts and wilderness, variations occur in its social and cultural features too. The spatial pattern is when a pattern is found in places that are far apart. Spatial interaction is when geographers believe one event can lead to a change in another location that is far away. Managing change is a key aspect of geography, geographers learn from past changes and predict and future ones. Human/ environmental interaction is the impact humans have on the environment. Interaction is closely linked to change. Again, in both physical and human aspects of the subject, geographers want to find out how things are linked together and how one aspect affects another. Lastly culture has different impacts on the environment, natural resources, concern issues of how people think about the world and how they communicate that thinking to
Organizations depend on communication for very nearly every part of their operation. From directing touchy discussions between two people to immediately scattering discriminating data over a mass crowd and actually enlisting new clients, various built and rising channels permit organizations to help. Communication tools in modern technological era are the first need of business organizations. Being the part of business, these tools are leaving an immense effect on workplace environment. Business activities have become very convenient and easy with introduction of modern communication tools. Business communication has become child’s play with the inventions of electronic tools for exchanging ideas. These sorts of electronic specialized systems for descending correspondence or upward and sideways correspondence beat the impediments of routines for correspondence 50 years back. They give strategies for worldwide correspondence that are moment wi...
Next, we shall evaluate the key features of language which are; communicative, arbitrary, structured, generative, and dynamic. Communicative, language can allow one to interact with another. According to Willingham (2007), the bond found with the elements in language and what they mean is arbitrary. The way language is set up shows how the symbols are not arbitrary. The set up language shows precisely how intricate it can be. Generative, one is able to build countless number of meanings from words. Dynamic, language never stays the same, therefore it can be known as sporadic. According to Willingham (2007), changes are being made all the time as new words get added and as the ways of grammar change. These elements can be quite critical when it comes to language.
Needles C., & Knapp, K. (2004). Communication Strategies in a Technical Age. Boston. Little, Brown.
Finegan, Edward,."Language :its structure and use" Edward Finegan, David Blair and Peter Collins. 2nd ed. N.S.W : Harcourt, Brace & Co., c1997
Communication is an interdependent process of sending, receiving, and understanding messages. The definition implies that the components of the communication process cannot be examined separately. Rather, the relationship exists between the sender and the receiver, as well as the environment of the communication event, must be viewed as a whole. According to this perspective, if any of the components and circumstances change (that is, the number of individuals involved in the interaction, seating arrangements, or the time of the day) the communication event is altered. Communication is an ongoing process; we never stop sending and receiving messages. As we will discover, communication is a dynamic process, a process that changes from one communication setting to the next. Although it is difficult to predict, the ways of interpreting communication, certain components are always present in the communication process.
Communication is the sharing of information between two or more persons or groups to reach a common understanding. In the communication, the information or ideas conveyed must be understood. Effective communication allows participants to properly exchange ideas. Communication is the two way process of exchanging information. Communication can be done through oral, verbal and written communication. Information is transmitted as words, tone of voice, and gestures and postures. Information can be shared face to face or by telephone, fax, e-mail, text messaging, videoconferencing, electronic-portfolios, chat, memos, letters, reports, etc. The number and types of methods increase as information technology systems become ever more involving a great deal of worldly experience and knowledge.
To start with, I do not want to narrowly define language as merely verbal communication. Language is far broader than that. In a few seconds a person walking past you on the street could tell you more about themselves with a sincere smile than they could with a few rushed words. Language encompasses all aspects of communication that enhance the level of our interaction. The tone in our voice demonstrating our feelings on a topic or our body language indicating our level of interest are just as important in interaction as verbally communicating content. There for I define language as any act that is involved in the interaction between two or more people.
Ultimately, it is essential that individuals adhere to the pragmatic convention of the cooperation principle developed by Grice. As pragmatics is the study of understanding the meaning of words in relation to the context, flouting on an intentional and unintentional basis may lead to miscommunication or misunderstanding. Due to the nature of email communication, emails are vulnerable to pragmatic conventions such as the Gricean conversational maxims being flouted. Thus exposing emails to be a common denominator for misunderstandings, and a sound understanding of the pragmatic conventions may significantly cut down the number of incidents that occur.
In Any form of communication, there is a sender and receiver of the message. The question of whether the message is sent and how the message is received is of vital importance in communication. Communication is successful only when the receiver receives the intended message of the sender.