We went over the first half of Chapter 7, about verbal communication. The instructor explained the differences between icons and signs and went over the origins of the field of semiotics.
Concepts from the text were discussed, such as constitutive and regulative rules, personal idioms, and dialects. We discussed prejudices people have about certain dialects. We also talked about high-context cultures and low-context cultures. Linguistic determinism was described and the term schadenfreud was the example. We then moved into denotative and connotative meanings.
We watched some video clips that illustrated denotative and connotative meanings of “interested” and “interesting.”
We watched a video clip where we saw how perception checking could have made a communication interchange easier.
Then we went into communication dyads and wrote a perception check. Students turned in their writing that was assigned at the last class and also turned in their perception check.
