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Language and communication as a social behaviour
Language which is the act of speaking can be regarded as actions intended to achieve a
particular goal by verbal means. It is usually done using utterances which can be referred to as
speech acts that can be identified in terms of their intended purposes—assertions, questions,
requests, etc. (Austin, 1962; Searle, 1969, 1985). At first glance it might seem that the type of act
an utterance represents will be given by its grammatical sentence type, but languages are not
constructed in so simple a fashion. English, for example, has an interrogative mode for asking
questions, an imperative for issuing commands, a declarative for making assertions, and so on.
However, the grammatical form does not determine the speech act an utterance represents. For
instance, "Can you tell me your name?" (as typically used) and "Do you know how to sail a boat
with paddle stick?" are both in the interrogative mode, but they constitute quite different speech
acts. "Yes" might be an adequate response to the latter, but the former is intended to be understood
as a request rather than a question, and "Yes" would be a defective answer. Considerations of this
sort require a distinction be drawn between the semantic or literal meaning of an utterance and its
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intended meaning. Acts of speaking typically are imbedded in a discourse made up of a coherently
related sequence of such acts.
There is the view that an understanding of the role of language use will illuminate the social
psychologist's understanding of several phenomena. Also that a clearer understanding of the social
nature of the situations in which language is used will deepen our general understanding of the
principles and mechanisms that underlie language use. Linguists often say that language and
communication is not the same thing, and certainly that is true. People can and do communicate
without language, and species that don't use language (which include all except Homo Sapiens)
seem able to communicate adequately for their purposes. Nevertheless, it would be a mistake to
minimize the difference between the kinds of communication that can be accomplished with and
without language. The utility of language as a tool for communication seems to lend itself to
grandiose and sometimes vaporous pronouncements, but it is hardly an exaggeration to say that
the social order, as it is constituted in human societies, is predicated on the capacity for linguistic
communication, and without this capacity the nature of human social life would be radically
different. Even if language were nothing more than a tool for communication, it would warrant
social behaviour. In the most general sense, communication involves exchanges of representations
between the speaker(s) and the listener(s).
Communication is a process involving two information-processing devices. One device
modifies the physical environment of the other. As a result, the second device constructs
representations similar to the events already stored in the first device (Sperber & Wilson, 1986,).
In human communication, the information processing devices are people, the modifications of the
environment are (typically) the perturbations of air molecules caused by speech, and the
representations are mental representations. The main point here is focusing on the central role of
representations in communication, which is the object created in mind during exchange of speech;
precisely how the representations stored in one device come to be constructed by the second
device.
Social behaviours are initiated, maintained, changed and terminated through some
activities. A social activity is said to occur if: (i) two or more individuals are involved (ii)
individual perform mental acts, exhibit behaviour or engage in action (iii) the actions are in a
coordinated way (iv) which collectively has some purpose or function. The definition thus
connects social activities with more than one individual, with mental acts, behaviour or actions,
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with coordination and with collective purpose or function. As institutionalization of the activity
sets in, it will in many cases be connected with certain artifacts and in some cases with specific
uses of the natural environment. In addition, it will be regulated by norms and conventions which
will be reinforced by more or less strong sanctions. As a consequence, a set of activity determined
social roles to be filled by the individuals who engage in the activity will develop and there will
be expectations about what behaviour is best for the activity, as whole and for the activity roles, in
particular. Activities in the sense defined here always elicit some degree of coordination and
cooperation, this can be heightened if the individuals in pursuing the purpose of the activity take
each other into ethnical or tribal consideration and trust each other (Allwood 1976). The concept
of “social activity” is crucial for a language and communication. It is through social activities that
the whole social structures such as instruments, groups and conglomerates are related on the one
hand, to each other and, on the other, to atomistic social constituents such as individuals (and their
acts, behavior and actions), aspects of the natural environment and artifacts (which are aspects of
the natural environment transformed by individuals). Social activities are the arenas where holistic
structures of various kinds (including institutionalized aspects of the activities themselves) are
initiated, maintained, changed or terminated through a selected language (expression) and means
of passing the information from the speaker to the listener(s) or receiver(s) (communication),
which provide a dynamic part of social life. Social behaviour in relation to language and
communication is inevitable in every facet of life structures both formally and informally.
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