VERBAL COMMUNICATION, WORDS & LANGUAGE : Elodie Laye Mielczareck

Verbal communication brings together all the written and oral signs produced by humans. Verbal communication is therefore used to exchange information by writing but also by voice. Also, we will find the semantic level of the words and also the paralinguistic level which concerns the voice, intonations, speech rate, etc.

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What is the difference between verbal and non-verbal communication? Everything that is behavioral, that is to say gestures, postures, the distance between bodies, rather concerns non-verbal communication. As you now understand, voice analysis (paralinguistics) is halfway between verbal language and body language.

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Why analyze people's words or speech? To learn lots of things about them! You can find out more about: their personality (extroverted or introverted), their social and geographical environment (accent, slang, etc.), its unconscious mental representations. Indeed, the choice of words and their syntactic organization gives us a lot of information. ​ Each of us carries a verbal identity. True for humans, this verbal identity also characterizes brands and companies.

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Comment trouver le sens des mots ? Il y a toujours plusieurs niveaux de lecture d'un mot, d'une phrase ou d'un discours. Le premier niveau, souvent appelé "dénoté", est le sens littéral que l'on retrouve dans le dictionnaire. Alors que le second niveau, souvent "connoté", est davantage lié au contexte d'émission du message. 

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How to find the meaning of words? There are always several levels of reading a word, a sentence or a speech. The first level, often called "denoted", is the literal meaning found in the dictionary. While the second level, often "connoted", is more linked to the context in which the message is sent. But there are also the implicit and untold dimensions. 

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And when words no longer have meaning? It happens that words, through repetition, no longer have meaning. They have lost their semantic load. They become "zombie words", emptied of their substance. Speech disconnected from reality transforms into Bullshit, the opposite of authentic and embodied speech. Whether in politics, business or marketing, "langue de bois" is one of the greatest scourges of our time.

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Actual trend: the Purpose which suggests that companies include their societal objective in their legal statutes. Unfortunately, we often come close to purpose washing... that is to say, commitments that look good on paper but are not real. The notion of inclusiveness in language is also present, and often even obligatory from a legal point of view. Indeed, companies must communicate clearly, simply and without discrimination.

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