The Strengthening And Weakening Processes Of Information Transmission In Verbal Communication

In the paper, the writer wants to reveal the strengthening and weakening processes of information transmission in verbal communication and tries to find the key elements such as lexical items, syntax choices and the communicators'background knowledge (one's culture, etc), cognitive skills, social elements including one's social position and power, the communicators'closeness and solidarity, age, gender, etc. that will affect information transmission in verbal communication. Through the analysis of internal and external factors'influence, the paper intends to reveal the importance of taking different strategies in different contexts through dynamic adaptation (positive or negative responses) to information transmission. In addition, though the"strengthening processes"and"weakening processes"are discussed together in the paper, the writer wants to emphasize both sides of communicators should contribute to the exchanges of information transmission and strengthen the information transmission positively with each other instead of weakening negatively. There must be different opinions, which will become unanimous through negotiation and adaptation. The disagreement will change into agreement, the information weakened will become the information strengthened, and therefore such verbal communication will be satisfactory in some degree.But how can we have a correct judgment on whether the information transmission is satisfactory and successful or not? The writer holds that whether the information being sent is strengthened or weakened will be the decisive elements. To strengthen the partners'information is actually showing one's attitudes: he is cooperating and adjusting to the present situation positively; to weaken the partners'words will mean: he is unwilling to cooperate, or wants to end the communication early. If the speakers'information is strengthened by the hearers, it means that the speakers'utterances have been accepted and strengthened; there will be the sequential responses that will arouse the speakers'more responses, verbal communication will go further. If information transmission is weakened or interrupted, there will be not much cooperation and the communication will end early. Some examples will be given to prove that point above. In Chapter One, the writer firstly reminds the readers of the features of verbal communication and its components, and the barriers in verbal communication, which will prevent communicators from exchanging their ideas smoothly. The writer's main purposes,motivation,the necessity and significance in choosing this topic, related research questions, the theoretical framework, sources of data, methodology are also talked about in this chapter. In Chapter Two, the writer outlines the development of communication theory. In this chapter, Austin and Saussure's act of speech, Grice's cooperative principles, Horn and Levinson's ideas, Sperber & Wilson's relevance theory, face and politeness principles etc. are introduced. The development of communication theory in China is touched briefly. In this chapter, the writer also gives the detailed analysis of the common points between these theories and his own study in the paper. In Chapter Three, the framework of the Theory of Adaptation directing this research is introduced. The paper points out the face and politeness principles used in the analysis of some examples is useful in helping communicators make timely adaptation. The application of the Theory of Adaptation makes it possible to reveal the nature of verbal communication. Some useful and practical strategies in daily communication are talked about in Chapter Four. The writer holds that the success of the information transmission—the success of verbal communication—is influenced by both internal factors and external factors of linguistics. The writer thinks that those factors do have great influence upon the information transmission and points out that it is important and necessary to tell where the information core is, so that the communicators can strengthen or weaken the information transmission quickly, efficiently and appropriately. The relationships between the strengthening or weakening processes and the extension of the communication are discussed, as well as its relationships between cohesion, coherence of the discourse.The Theory of Adaptation has the natural relationship with the factors mentioned above. The examples used in the paper, especially those cited in Chapter Five, will prove the effectiveness of the theory applied. Through the analysis, the writer finds that the information transmission in verbal communication and its processes of strengthening or weakening information transmission are dynamic; they are in accordance with the contextual correlates of adaptability and structural objects of adaptability; the salience of the adaptation processes can often be found in verbal communication. During the processes, the principles of Face and Politeness will be used to analyze some examples. In other words, they will make choices (according to the Theory of Adaptation) in words, sentence patterns and different mood types so that the communicators'face can be saved. In Chapter Six, the writer gives his conclusion and some topics worth further research.All in all, on one hand, the internal and external factors, which have great influence upon the results of verbal communication and its processes of information transmission, have the natural and common ground with the Theory of Adaptation; on the other hand, the theory applied in the paper has a guidance on the communicators'positive adaptation to the actual situations, hence the communication will be successful and satisfactory.