Roman Jacobsen's Theory of Communication

 

Context (Referent)

 

Author (Addresser)

 «-------------Text (Message)----------------»

Reader (Addressee)

 

Medium (Contact)

Code

 

The addresser sends a message to the addressee. To be operative the message requires a context referred to ('referent' in another, somewhat ambivalent, nomenclature), seizable by the addressee, and either verbal or capable of being verbalized, a code fully, or at least partially, common to the addresser and addressee (or in other words, to the encoder and decoder of the message); and finally, a contact, a physical channel and psychological connection between the addresser and the addressee, enabling both of them to stay in communication. (Jakobson 1960, 353)