Semantic Rules
Reflect the ways in which users of a language assign meaning to a particular linguistic symbol, usually a word.
Equivocal language
Statements that can have more than one meaning
Relative words
Gain their meaning by comparison
Static evaluation
Statements that contain or imply the word is lead to the mistaken assumption that people are consistent and unchanging
Abstraction language
Vague in nature
Behavioral language
Specific things that people say or do
Abstraction ladder
Illustrates how the same phenomenon can be described at various levels of specificity and abstraction
Syntactic rules
Govern the grammar of a language
Pragmatic rules
Govern the way speech operates in everyday interaction
Convergence
Adapting ones speech style to match that of others
Divergence
Communicators who want to set themselves apart from others
Emotive language
Seems to describe something but actually announces the speakers attitude toward it
