Verbal Communication

Louis de Saussure and Andrea Rocci

1Verbal communication. An introduction

1Verbal communication across two scientific worlds

Common sense tells us that a topic such as verbal communication should be a central concern both for the scientific study of communication and for the scientific study of language.

At a purely descriptive level, verbal communication is arguably the most pervasive form of communication in human societies. At least, it is so if we do not confine ourselves to the rare cases of ‘purely verbal’ communication events and processes (if they exist at all) but consider the huge gamut of prevalently verbal forms of communication and the even greater range of communication phenomena in which language can be shown to play a part either ...