Old Specification Module 5 - Personal Communication

Clothing and Hairstyles
Body Adornment
Language
Personal Possessions

As mentioned in the introduction to this module, the themes for all the questions you will be asked in the exam are culture, identity, ideology and mode of address.

These themes are explored, discussed and researched through four different areas of culture - personal communication, organisational culture, mass media and the built environment.

Personal communication looks at how we use language, clothing, hairstyles, body adornment and personal possessions to express our personal identity, and through our personal identity, the culture we belong to and the subcultures which make us feel secure.

Personal identity is created in a number of ways, some of which you looked at in the first year of your course. It is your self image, your personality, your attributes etc.

Language is one of the main ways we express our individuality so we will begin by looking at IDEOLECT, our personal language – this develops through our individual language experiences – the way we learnt to talk, the area we come from, the language of our parents and relatives etc.