Interjections Perform A Useful Function In Communication English Language Essay
Communication is an essential part of human interaction. Communication which is etymologically related to both communion and community comes from the Latin word communicare, which means to make common (Weekley, 1967,p. 338) or “to share.” DeVito(1986) describes on this, that communication is the process of act of transmitting a message from a sender to a receiver. Different types of communications have different types of purpose.
Interjection is an utterance in communication of language which has its certain functions. This paper will present and discuss how interjection performs a useful function in communication. Many authors had presented exquisite pieces of research concerning about interjection in language and given several definition for that. It could be simply a word that expresses emotion. It is a reaction that reveals variety of emotion and different feeling. Nalan(2006) study on Turkish interjection define interjection as linguistic show of emotion and expressive behavior. Another study conducted by Wharton (2003) describe an interjection expresses a mental or emotional attitude or state. Interjections have no grammatical relation to other parts of the sentence, but they occur linearly within this grammatical structure of the sentence.
Many previous studies regarded interjections as a separate class in that they can stand alone to constitute a complete utterance. Ameka 1992 (cite in Huang 2003) classifying the functions of interjections into several ways.. On this account, the classification of interjections is proposed to distinguish it from the other part of speech in the language system for instances expressive interjections, phatic interjection, conative interjection, onomatopoeic act verb.
Expressive interjections, as the name indicates, an expressive are purely used to express people’s emotion. Some may call it ‘emotive interjections’ refer to a little word which constitute an utterance to simply convey the people’s emotion for example: Gee why the mailing fee is so high? Expressive interjection can also convey disgust, surprise, pain etc. Examples of this type are ‘gee’, ‘ah’ and ‘wow’. Gee can show speaker’s reluctance, impatience and embarrassment as well. Phatic interjections are used to meet conversational goals and maintain the personal exchanges. These kind of vocal gestures express a speaker’s attitude towards the on-going discourse like mhm or yeah are examples of this type.
Conative interjections are used to get the recipients’ attention or to demand the recipients to response. Therefore, conative interjections are not only passively used to express the speaker’s mental state as the previous two that I have mentioned, but the utterance is direct at the auditor. For example, in English sh is used to tell people to be quiet like in a sentence, Sh, Kids, don’t say something like that again and eh to repeat what has been said or say something more such in sentence like Eh, would you mind telling me that
Onomatopoeic speech act verbs contain the following features. First, most importantly, onomatopoeic speech act verb carries perlucotionary forces. Second onomatopoeic speech act verbs are standardized and grammaticalized to fit the phonological system in the language. Third, onomatopoeic speech act verbs are onomatopoeic because they imitate the sounds produced by certain action or behavior. In the following, a group of selection onomatopoeic speech act is accounted, for instance the words hi and hello this type of speech act verb is produced by the speaker to interact with others in everyday talk and meet the basic interactional needs like greeting or farewell such in “Hello Dad you are at home now”. The words hey is an informal summoning to draw people’s intention, a sentence like hey, what on earth do you think about this story
The following are some examples of common interjections in English and their communicative functions show how would they occur or reason for their existence in language. Ah is an expression of pleasure, realization and surprise for examples: “Ah that feel good, Ah now I understand, Ah I have won!.” Hmm expresses hesitation, doubt: “ Humm I am not sure”. and Ouch expresses pain: “Ouch! That hurts!” Dear is an expression of pity: “Oh Dear! Does it hurt? Well shows for expressing surprise and introducing a question: “Well I never and “Well what did he say” Er shows expressing for hesitation “Lima is the capital of…….er…Peru” Oh is an expression of surprise: Oh! You are here
As we have seen, in those cases in which interjections occur constituting an independent utterance to provide the hearers, with a vague idea of speakers’ feeling and purpose. Granted that all interjections have some kinds of meaning; otherwise they would probably not find their way in the language. Probably the meaning of interjections has been fairly established since each and every interjection is utter in a particular language and situational context.
In conclusion, it is worth pointing out that various interjections can be used to suggest certain emotion or attitude. Aside from plain interjections expressive of emotion, the several types of interjections can be distinguish among such words and phrase in different language. Recognizing the function and the place of interjection element as well as mastering the use in everyday communication makes constituent element of every speaker’s linguistic competence and performance. Although interjections may contribute to linguistic communication, it does not necessarily follow from this that they encode anything linguistic. Interjections are just one kind of procedural expression which serve as a means to activate a range of concept in the seeking of optional relevance and may result in different explanation or reactions in different cognitive environments.
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