UNIT 7: THE LANGUAGE
IN COMMUNICATION II
Unit Objectives
• At the end of the unit, you will be able to:
• define and describe the major principles of verbal messages;
• explain some of the ways in which to communicate criticism, praise,
and appraisal;
• list the reasons why people lie and explain dimensions of lying;
• define confirmation and disconfirmation and provide examples; and
• state the main barriers to effective speech communication and
suggest corrective measures
• describe racist, sexist, and heterosexist language and explain their
impact on communication practice.
Exclusive and
Inclusive Talk
• Exclusive Talk
– talk that is of interest only to one particular group;
– other groups are 'excluded' from the topic of conversation
– e.g. communication between a group of doctors in the presence
of non-doctors; talking about one's country to others of the same
nationality within a heterogeneous group of people from various
countries.
– Exclusive talk also includes self-talk that centres on the self
exclusively and on little else.
• Inclusive Talk
– making an attempt to include everyone involved in the
conversation,
– making people feel a part of the communication situation.
Downward and
Equality Talk
• Downward Talk
– the sender creates a message that is condescending or
patronising, and manipulative or directive
– the speaker puts himself or herself above others and addresses
them from this position of power. E.g. "I know you probably don't
realise this but…" or "You probably don't keep abreast with
developments in computer technology, so…."
– the speaker tells people how they should feel e.g. "Don't be silly,
you'll pass the course", or "Forget about the cheat. You'll meet
someone better pretty soon", or even "Lots of people are worse
off. Don't feel sorry for yourself!"
– the speaker interrupts others rudely to have his or her say in the
matter at hand.
• Equality Talk
– opposite of downward talk
– sender treats everyone involved as an equal;
everyone has a right to speak and has a right to be
heard
• Power Play
– special type of talk that puts the listener down to allow
the sender to get what s/he wants often using more
elaborate ways e.g. by expressing ignorance of the
rules of social etiquette: "I didn't know you don't want
me to look into your mail-box, so I took the liberty
to…", "Do you want me to knock before I come into
your office next time?" and so on.
•
Management Strategies (particularly for
controlling downward talk)
– Express your feelings about the message
– Describe the behaviour you object to
– State/Suggest a co-operative response that
both parties can live comfortably with
Criticism, Praise,
and Honest Appraisal
• Criticising is not simply finding fault with a
person's behaviour or character.
– we have to highlight both strengths and weaknesses
with a view to help shortcomings
– must be constructive to be worthwhile for the parties
concerned.
• Praise is communication that is meant to
compliment or to say something positive about
people and/or their behaviour.
• Appraisal involves added judgement or value.
• Important to distinguish when a person is asking
for a compliment, a critique and/or appraisal.
How to Criticise
• A few tips on how to extend criticism:
– Focus on the event or behaviour, not on the person
– Take responsibility for your criticism (criticism is
owned by the speaker rather than the listener).
– State concern for the other person along with the
criticism.
– Be specific to make the criticism work better.
– Avoid mind reading. E.g. "Don't you ever care
enough about …..” compared with "I'd use a stronger
introduction and friendlier style to address the
interests of the readers."
Giving Praise
• Praise is positive feedback that is given to a
person or group of people:
– Use I-messages e.g. "I thought your performance in
the play was good. I particularly liked the way you…"
is certainly better than "Your performance in the play
was good."
– Use positive non-verbal feedback to support the
verbal message (provided these are appropriate to
the cultural context of the speaker and/or the listener)
e.g. touching the forearm, patting on the shoulder,
smiling, etc.
– Be specific by extending the I-message (see
example in 1 above)
Lying and Honesty
• 'Lying' may be defined as the act of
deliberately misleading another person by
giving false information (commission)
and/or providing incomplete information
about an issue/topic/matter (omission).
• Reasons for lying
– Gain some kind of reward and/or to escape
punishment
– Basic needs - lies told to gain or to retain objects that
fulfil basic needs such as money and food
– Affiliation - lies told to increase desired
affiliation/association or to decrease undesired
affiliations
– Self-esteem - lies told to protect or increase one's
self-esteem of oneself, the person one is interacting
with or some third party
– Self-gratification - lies told to achieve some personal
satisfaction such as humour
• Two dimensions of lying:
• The ethical dimension to lying concerns
deciding or at least thinking about what is right
and what is wrong about not telling the truth.
• The effectiveness dimension is about whether
the lie succeeds or fails to gain the reward or
avoid the punishment that gave rise to the lie in
the first place.
• One has to examine one's own beliefs and
communication practice within the relevant
cultural context(s).
Gossip and
Confidentiality
• Gossip is idle, third party talk, which might
include rumour, especially about the personal or
private affairs of others.
• Some problems of gossip:
– Confidentiality broken
– Invasion of privacy
• Ethical implications of gossip:
– revealing information that you have promised to keep
secret
– Knowing something to be false and yet passing it on
– Being invasive by invading people's privacy
Verbal Message Barriers and
their Correction
Polarisation
• the tendency to view the world in terms of
opposites, and to describe it in extremes (good
vs. bad, positive vs. negative, intelligent vs.
stupid etc.)
• Correcting polarisation: we must realise and
understand that most people have qualities that
fall somewhere between extremes on a
continuum (See Appendix II, particularly at the
'relativity principle)
Verbal Barriers (cont’d…)
Intensional Orientation
• the tendency to look at people, objects, and events in a
way they are talked about and the way they are labelled.
e.g. "Peter is dull and boring".
• cultural identifiers used by one group of people on
another - may be racist and derogatory e.g. African
American or black or Negro?
• Correcting intensional orientation: to 'extensionalise'
i.e. see people, objects and events as they are and not
in terms of convenient labels; cultural identifiers must be
acceptable
Verbal Barriers (cont’d…)
Fact-Inference Confusion
• referring to inferential statements as though they
were facts e.g. "This university is the best in the
country" is an inferential statement
• correcting fact-inference confusion: Inferential
statements are those which are often made
tentatively in that they are open to possible
alternative viewpoints, or they may be proved
wrong
Verbal Barriers (cont’d…)
Bypassing
• a pattern of misevaluation in which people fail to
communicate their intended meanings E.g. a
woman says "I like you" to a man (friendship or
love/permanent relationship?)
• Correcting bypassing: Look for meanings in
people, not in words; also the listener should
constantly seek feedback about what is said to
avoid miscommunication
Verbal Barriers (cont’d…)
Allness
• the wrong belief that we know all that needs to be known
about a person or group;
• the world is a very complex place (remember the six
blind men and the elephant?)
• Correcting allness:
• end all statements with an et cetera (etc.) whether
verbally or mentally to remind yourself: "There are more
things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of
in your philosophy" …)
Verbal Barriers (cont’d…)
Static Evaluation
• a verbal evaluation statement about an event, person, or
object that remains unchanging (static) although the
original object or person changes greatly over time
• correcting static evaluation: we must always try to
date our statements and especially our evaluations of
ourselves, other people, events and objects e.g.
Ahmad's academic performance in 2000 need not be the
same in 2001 (because he could have worked harder or,
unfortunately, grown lazy
Verbal Barriers (cont’d…)
Indiscrimination
•
•
•
•
focus on classes of people, objects, or events and failure as though there
are no differences; stereotypes and ethnocentric perspectives:
stereotyping - forming a fixed mental picture of some group that is applied
to each individual of the group without regard to his or her unique individual
qualities
ethnocentrism - the tendency to see other and their behaviours through
one's own cultural filters; to evaluate the values, beliefs, and behaviours of
one's own culture as being more positive, logical, and ‘natural’
Correcting indiscrimination: we must see uniqueness in individuals
despite labels and stereotypes to avoid discriminating against people on
racial, religious, cultural, and national basis;
– use an index (verbal or mental subscript) to identify and relate to people as
unique individuals e.g. Urban Chinese1 is NOT equal to Urban Chinese2, and
Malay Muslim1 is NOT the same as Malay Muslim2
Verbal Barriers (cont’d…)
Confirmation and Disconfirmation
Confirmation:
• those set of behaviours that acknowledge and
accept the presence of the other person(s) with
whom we come into contact.
• It is the opposite of disconfirmation.
Disconfirmation:
• we ignore someone's presence as well as his or
her communications.
• we must keep an open mind about situations
that call for confirmation
Verbal Barriers (cont’d…)
SEXISM
• -any conscious or subconscious attempt to use language
in a way that places the members of one sex in an
inferior position.
• can affect men as well
• even women against women, or men against men
• feminists have argued that language use is basically
sexist i.e. is biased towards women
• bias affects the way men treat women and the way
women regard themselves
• many reforms aimed at improving the perceived lower
status of women and removing connotations that treat
women as sex objects
Verbal Barriers (cont’d…)
Sexist language:
• -language used to reproduce or represent a sexist stance that already exists
in society:
• Generic Man: common terms used to reproduce this include man, mankind,
the common man, and cavemen.
• Generic He and His: the so-called ‘neutral gender’
• Words with positive connotation for men: confident forceful, strong, etc.
• Words with negative connotation to describe women: fickle, frivolous, timid,
etc.
• Feminine markers for women derived from men's labels: waitress, actress,
mistress, etc.
• Different metaphors to refer to men and women:
• 'power' animal metaphors for men e.g. lion, tiger, wolf, etc.;
• lower status food metaphors and baby animal names for women e.g. sugar,
honey, tomato, cookie, piece of cake, chick, kitty, etc.
• Connotations of women as objects of sexual conquest: pussycat, baby,
sweetie, skirt, etc.
Verbal Barriers (cont’d…)
Sex-Role Stereotyping
• Are doctors always male, and nurses always
female?
• Are kindergarten teachers always female, and
firemen male?
• What corrective measures may be taken?
• Summary: Men who have the power to name
things, people, and events and language to
assert their dominance over women; so what
language reform is possible?
Verbal Barriers (cont’d…)
Heterosexism
• "refers to language used to disparage gay men
and lesbians"
• DeVito's views about 'homophobic language'
• "denies the lesbian and gay identity a certain
legitimacy" (2001, p. 104).
• Is this also a norm in Asian cultures, and more
specifically in Malaysian culture(s)
• multiple norms depending on the number of
primary cultures we have in the country?
Verbal Barriers (cont’d…)
RACISM
•
any conscious or subconscious attempt at using language that places
a particular racial or ethnic group in an inferior position.
•
Racist language is like sexist language – reflects and perpetuates
racist attitudes in the same way that sexist language does for sexist
attitudes
•
What do racist attitudes emphasise?
•
What are the socio-political effects of such attitudes in multiracial,
multicultural societies?
Racism is not only about speakers but also about the listeners who
hold racist attitudes.
•
•
How can we develop racism-free speech communication practices?