What is communication? How to communicate? Why we need communicate?
Communication is a vital way to connect the world.
There are four key definitions of communication:
- Transmission of messages
- Social interaction through messages
- Sharing of meaning information, ideas and feelings
- Reciprocal creation of meaning in a context
There is an essay about analyzing a famous movie <<Forest Gump>> in some communicative traditions and approaches.
‘Forrest Gump’ is the one of the most successful movie in the world. This movie has significant influence for generation. When people talk about the movie ‘Forrest Gump’, someone will discuss the most famous dialogue,which is ‘ Life was like a box of chocolates, you never know what are you going to get.’ Some people use this to be a motto and encourage their belief in the whole life. In this movie, feminine lead gave a pair of Nike running shoes to leading actor, and Forrest Gump did so many meaningful things with this pair of shoes. After this movie, the shoes were famous and people called it ‘Forrest Gump Nike shoes.’ Forrest Gump Nike shoes are also the respective of the classic famous running shoes until now. Why this dialogue can be splendid and immortal and why Forrest Gump Nike shoes can be a representative of classic running shoes and people are crazy about it around the world. In addition, why this movie bring the fame and fortune, and be regarded as a classic of inspiring the human life as well. This essay will use two traditions of communication theory to explain these questions.
‘Life was like a box of chocolate, you never know what are you going to get.’ is a simile in rhetorical tradition. Simile can be defined as an expression which describes a person or something as being similar to someone or something else. For everyone , the meaning of life is important and different. People will have different life style because different religions, culture, countries and occupations. However, no one is God and no one can predict what will happen on the next second. In this movie, Forrest Gump is a changeling when he was a child,and he has a very low intelligence quotient. Anyone laughs at him, but his mother did not give him up, and mom took Gump to the normal primary school. He got the degree of college and became a millionaire undergoing his struggle.
Foolish people not always be foolish, people can create second change for themselves. This dialogue can capture people’s hearts, arousing people’s resonance. “Dialogue was seen as a branch of rhetoric; one learned to make one’s ideas more persuasive and effective by adorning those ideas with images,extended metaphors and ‘conceits’”( Booth, Wayne C. 2004) In other words, rhetoric is a historic and traditional way to express and persuade people. Why people think its important. Rhetoric tradition is the most relative tradition of communication theory ,and language will be boring and ordinary without rhetoric tradition in all walks of life. Furthermore, nobody doubted that brilliant scientists had to have training in how to speak well, to facilitate their discoveries. According to Waston Tony J (1995), Plain speaking is simply a rhetorical alternative, not a turning away from rhetoric and rhetoric is all about using language to persuade. In this movie, Gump ‘s mother is a brave, confident and independent female, she did not give up and did not want to admit Gump’s Intelligence quotient is lower than normal people. However, she use this rhetorical dialogue to make her son the true meaning of life. It is not very useful for children to say some philosophical and abstract principles, they don not understand probably. Rhetorical dialogue can more vivid expression of the people want to express meaning. In addition, rhetorical process are not only focus on how people communicate with others, its also very way human beings think (Waston, Tony J, 1995). Sometimes, when people make an decision or decide to do something or buy something, people are in effects persuading themselves rather than others to follow a certain argument about what should do. Furthermore, rhetorical speaking is not tell ‘ lie’, and it is easy to find the disparities to be made between rhetoric and ‘ reality’. Waston Tony J (1995) stated, this view is very different from the one which is gaining ground in social and cultural studies which are frequently said to have performed a ‘linguistic turn’. Rhetoric as involved in all processes of human communication and the construction of reality.
This paragraph will evaluate ‘life was like a box of chocolates’ in semiotic perspective. What is the first think of, when people talk about the chocolates. Maybe most of people will think sweet, romantic and love. In this dialogue, the chocolate will represent brave, courageous and immortal. Different taste of chocolate can represent different life experience. Happy, delightful, sad, and trouble, and everyone will experience this, just not sure when will happen. Everybody knows it is the truth of life.Nobody can image an alleged idiot can be a successful business man. We can deny a person’s some abilities are not prefect , but we can not deny all of him, and it is unfair. As the saying goes, god closed a door for you, and open a window for you. Do not be timid, everybody has opportunities to create wonders. In this movie, every time when Gump and Jenny met, Forrest Gump will give Jenny a box of chocolates.In this perspective, chocolates represent the pure love, is like Forrest Gump’s love for Jenny, is pure and everlasting. In other words, Gump is a stupid, he always give chocolates and only give chocolates to Jenny. He thinks his like is the same as Jenny’s.
Unfortunately, the fact is not the same as he thought. By contrast, he is not stupid because he knows what love is. This movie use a chocolate expresses the truth of life, and expresses the meaning of love as well. Semiotics as condition and mediation as well.
“ Across cultures, psychic and trans-personal structures organize individual human behavior and affect though semiotic and other social modes of structuring. The effect of this constrained facilitation and fashioning of human vitality is provisionally consistent, conditional patterns of being”(Larocco, S. 2014).
In this movie, the feather is another symbol. The start of movie, a feather is flying, as the wind flew to the Forrest Gump. He put this in his favorite story book, when he found it. And the end of this movie, When Gump took his son to school, this feather is out of the book which is Gunp favorite story book.and flying far away. For semiotics, this feather has so many implications. Fist of all, this feather represent miss and emotional sustenance, Gump miss his mother and his wife, the director use this object to convey that the feather can bring Gump’s love for his mother and wife to the distance. From feather floated from a distance, to finally and go again, this is a kind of interpretation of samsara. This feather also want to show a kind of generation of inheritance and in pursuit of a better life in the future. Gump’s life is the same a feather, drifted in a variety of place and experienced all kinds of major historical events. Gump feel the life also realized the true meaning of life because of these experience. Language is polysemic system of representation, and everyone’s understanding of a word or the same word are different because different experiences and consciousness.
In conclusion, talk is the most essential tool to communicate, and language is most important element of dialogue. Rhetoric and semiotics are most basic and important as the seven traditions of communication theories, paying the important roles in people’s communication.
Reference list:
Larocco, S. 2014, Ideology, Affect, Semiotics: Towards a Non-personal Theory of Personality, Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, vol 48, no 2, pp.129-142,.
Littlejohn, S. and Foss, K. 2011, Theories of human communication, Waveland Press, Long Grove, Ill.
Watson, T. 1995, Rhetoric, Discourse and Argument in Organizational Sense Making: A Reflexive Tale, Organization Studies, vol 16, no 5, pp.805-821,.
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