medium (n.)

A term used in the study of COMMUNICATION to refer to the functionally distinct dimensions in which a message is transmitted. In LINGUISTICS, the basic media are speech and writing, but others are not excluded (e.g. signing). Of these, speech is generally held in linguistics to be the ‘primary medium’, writing the ‘secondary’ or ‘derived’ medium, and the analysis of the differences between these media in STRUCTURAL and FUNCTIONAL terms is an important topic in linguistics. The term is usually distinguished from channel (as used in communication theory), which refers to the physical means whereby a (spoken or written) message is transmitted, such as a wire, air, light, etc. Terms such as mode and modality are used in various branches of linguistics in a similar way to ‘medium’.