---
layout: is-chapter
section: into-semiotics
permalink: /into-semiotics/chapters/ch5/
title: Communication
chapter: 5
order: 5
count: 5
book_sections: "§5.1–5.7"
summary: "Jakobson's six functions of language, the poetic function, pragmatics and register, and communication breakdown; practiced on BTS announcements, Thai ads, luk thung lyrics, kreng chai, and cross-cultural mishaps."
---

Jakobson's model is the analytical engine of this chapter. These activities train students to identify the **dominant function** of real Thai messages, to hear the **poetic function** in slogans and songs, and to see how **register** and **context** (pragmatics) affect communication.

<div class="activity" markdown="1">

## Activity 5.1 — Name That Function ★

<div class="meta">
<span class="tag type">Individual → Pair</span>
<span class="tag time">35 min</span>
</div>

<p class="concept">Practices: the six functions and identifying the dominant one (§5.3).</p>

For each Thai-context message below, identify **all functions present** and **circle the dominant one** (referential, emotive, conative, phatic, metalingual, poetic).

1. BTS announcement: *"The next station is Siam. Change here for the Silom Line."*
2. A billboard: *"อร่อยที่สุด! (The most delicious!)"*
3. A friend's LINE message: *"อยู่ไหน 555 (Where are you 555)"*
4. A teacher: *"The word 'kreng chai' means a feeling of considerate deference."*
5. A protest chant or campaign slogan with rhyme.
6. A monk beginning a chant in Pali.
7. *"โอ๊ย! (Ouch!)"*

<details class="notes" markdown="1">
<summary>Instructor notes</summary>

- (1) **referential** (states facts about the world). (2) **conative** (persuade to buy) with **poetic** (superlative, punch). (3) **phatic** (maintaining contact; "555" = laughing, keeps the channel warm). (4) **metalingual** (talking about the code, defining a word). (5) **poetic** in service of **conative**: good moment to note poetic devices can be *subordinate* (§5.4). (6) largely **phatic/poetic**, and if the meaning is opaque to the listener, primarily contact/ritual. (7) **emotive**.
- Emphasize Jakobson's key insight: all six are usually present; analysis means finding the **dominant** one (§5.3).
- Have pairs argue any disagreements: dominance is often genuinely debatable (e.g., is an ad's superlative poetic or conative-first?).
</details>
</div>

<div class="activity" markdown="1">

## Activity 5.2 — Rewrite for a Function

<div class="meta">
<span class="tag type">Pair</span>
<span class="tag time">25 min</span>
</div>

<p class="concept">Practices: how the same content changes the message when re-oriented (§5.3).</p>

Start with one neutral, referential sentence, e.g. *"The night market closes at 10 p.m."* Rewrite it **five** times so that a *different* function dominates each version:

- emotive (express your feelings about it)
- conative (get someone to act)
- phatic (just keep a chat going)
- metalingual (clarify a word in it)
- poetic (make it rhyme or use parallelism)

<details class="notes" markdown="1">
<summary>Instructor notes</summary>

- Sample: emotive (*"Ugh, the market shuts at ten already?!"*); conative (*"Hurry, the market closes at ten. let's go!"*); phatic (*"You know the market? Closes at ten, right? Anyway…"*); metalingual (*"By 'market' I mean the night market, and it closes at 22:00."*); poetic (*"Ten o'clock, the stalls all lock."*).
- Demonstrates that function is about **orientation**, not content (§5.3). Same facts, six messages.
- Quick, playful, and a strong formative check of whether students really grasp the functions.
</details>
</div>

<div class="activity" markdown="1">

## Activity 5.3 — Why Slogans Stick: The Poetic Function

<div class="meta">
<span class="tag type">Group (3–4)</span>
<span class="tag time">30 min</span>
</div>

<p class="concept">Practices: the poetic function as the projection of equivalence onto the sequence: rhyme, rhythm, parallelism (§5.4).</p>

Collect **three "sticky" Thai texts**: an advertising jingle, a **luk thung** or **mo lam** lyric line, a proverb (<em>suphasit</em>), or a campaign slogan. For each, identify the device that makes it memorable (**rhyme, alliteration, assonance, rhythm, or parallelism**) and explain, in Jakobson's terms, how "the formal patterning of the message is itself part of what it means."

Then test the claim: rewrite one of them in plain, non-poetic language. Is anything lost?

<details class="notes" markdown="1">
<summary>Instructor notes</summary>

- The plain rewrite is the crucial test: the referential content survives, but memorability and force collapse, proof that "the patterning of the message is itself part of what it means" (§5.4).
- Thai is tonal and rhyme-rich; <em>luk thung</em> and advertising exploit internal rhyme heavily. Students often find Thai examples *more* obviously poetic than English ones.
- Reinforce the "dominant" point: in a slogan the poetic function usually **serves** a conative aim (§5.4); it is a tool, not the end.
</details>
</div>

<div class="activity" markdown="1">

## Activity 5.4 — Register and Kreng Chai: A Role-Play

<div class="meta">
<span class="tag type">Group (3–4)</span>
<span class="tag time">30 min</span>
</div>

<p class="concept">Practices: pragmatics, code-switching, register, and context-dependent meaning (§5.5).</p>

The same request must be delivered to **four addressees**, adjusting register each time. Take the simple message *"I can't come to the meeting tomorrow"* and script/perform it to:

1. a **monk** or a senior teacher/professor,
2. your **boss**,
3. a **close friend**,
4. a **younger sibling**.

For each, note the changes: pronouns, polite particles (ครับ/ค่ะ), directness, honorifics, and how **kreng chai** (เกรงใจ, considerate deference) reshapes what you can say.

<details class="notes" markdown="1">
<summary>Instructor notes</summary>

- Thai grammaticalizes register far more than English (pronouns, particles, honorific vocabulary), so students *feel* §5.5 immediately. Map the changes back to Saussure's paradigm (§3.6): each slot offers a set of options with social value.
- Kreng chai is the pragmatic key: with a monk or boss, the *conative* directness of "I can't come" is softened almost out of existence; the same proposition, radically different encoding. Ties to §7.7's point about doctor–patient communication.
- Keep monk role-play respectful; students may prefer a "teacher" framing.
</details>
</div>

<div class="activity" markdown="1">

## Activity 5.5 — Diagnose the Breakdown

<div class="meta">
<span class="tag type">Pair</span>
<span class="tag time">25 min</span>
</div>

<p class="concept">Practices: using Jakobson's factors + noise/redundancy/code to diagnose miscommunication (§5.1, §5.6–5.7).</p>

Read (or recall) a real cross-cultural mishap in Thailand (e.g., a tourist and a vendor, an expat and a landlord, a foreigner misreading a *wai* or a smile). Using the model, **locate the failure**: was it a mismatch of **code**, **context/common ground**, **channel/noise**, or a wrong assumption about which **function** was dominant?

Write a two-sentence "diagnosis + fix."

<details class="notes" markdown="1">
<summary>Instructor notes</summary>

- Model diagnoses: a smile read as "happy" when it signalled embarrassment = **code** mismatch; "up to you / same same" misread as indecision = **context/common-ground** gap; a phone call dropping key words = **channel/noise**; taking a polite phatic "yes" as a referential commitment = **function** mismatch (§5.7).
- Reinforce §5.6: real communication is interactive; **feedback** is where such failures get repaired.
- Encourage students to bring their *own* mishaps: the personal cases are the most memorable, and non-Thai students can contribute cross-cultural examples from their own backgrounds.
</details>
</div>