LANGUAGE:
BARRIER AND BRIDGE
CHAPTER TOPICS
 Language is Symbolic
 Understandings and Misunderstandings
 The Impact of Language
 Gender and Language
 Culture and Language
Looking Out/Looking In
Thirteenth Edition
Language is Symbolic
 The Natural World
 Smoke means something is burning
 A fever means someone is ill
 Language is Symbolic
 Connection between words and the ideas or things they represent is arbitrary
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Understanding and Misunderstanding
 Understanding Words
 Semantic rules
 “Bikes” are for riding and “books” are for reading
 Equivocation
 Statements that have more then one commonly accepted definition
 Newspaper Headlines:
 “Family catches fire just in time.”
 “20‐year friendship ends at the altar.”
 “Trees can break wind.”
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Understanding and Misunderstanding
 Relative Language
 Words that gain their meaning by comparison
 Do you attend a large or small school?
 Fast and slow
 Smart and stupid
 Short and long
 Static Evaluation
 Statements that contain or imply the word is lead to mistaken assumptions about people
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Understandings and Misunderstandings
 Abstraction
 Is vague in nature
 Behavior language is specific to things people do or say
 Abstraction Ladder
 Abstract language can lead to miscommunication
Figure 5.1 Page 165
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Understandings and Misunderstandings
 Syntactic Rules
 Govern the grammar of language
 Pragmatic Rules
 Govern the way speech works in everyday interaction
 Consider the difference between:
 I love you
 I love ya
 I luv U
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Understandings and Misunderstandings
 Pragmatic Rules
 What do infer by the following sentences?
 “Would you like a drink?”
 “Would you like something to drink?”
 Pragmatic Rules of Email
 When reading an email what do you think when you come across CAPITAL LETTERS!
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The Impact of Language
 Naming and Identity
 Names are more than just a simple means of identification
 They shape the way others think of us
 They shape the way we view ourselves
 1900’s most popular names
 Bertha, Mildred and Ethel
 2008’s most popular names
 Madison, Ava and Chloe LANGUAGE: BARRIER AND BRIDGE
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The Impact of Language
 Affiliation
 Speech can build and demonstrate solidarity with others
 Convergence
 The process of adapting one’s speech style to match others
 Divergence
 Speaking in a way that emphasizes one’s differences from others
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The Impact of Language
 Power
 Power difference between two statements:
 “Excuse me, sir. I hate to say this, but I . . .I . . .I guess I won’t be able to turn in the assignment on time. I had a personal emergency, and . . .well . . .it was just impossible to finish it by today. I’ll have it on your desk Monday, OK?”
 “I won’t be able to turn in the assignment on time. I had a personal emergency, and it was impossible to finish by today. I’ll have it on your desk Monday.”
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The Impact of Language
 Powerless Language  Hedges:  “I’m kinda disappointed . . .” “I think we should . . .” “I guess I’d like to . . .”
 Hesitations:  “Uh, can I have a minute of your time?”
 “Well, we could try this idea . . .”
 “I wish you would—er—try to be on time.”
 Tag questions:  “It’s about time we got started, isn’t it?”
 “Don’t you think we should give it another try?”
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The Impact of Language
 Disruptive Language
 Three linguistic habits to avoid
 Fact‐Opinion Confusion
Fact
Opinion
You forgot my birthday.
me.
You keep interrupting me.
You tell a lot of ethnic jokes. You don’t care about LANGUAGE: BARRIER AND BRIDGE
You’re a control freak.
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The Impact of Language
 Disruptive Language
 Fact‐interference confusion
 A: Why are you mad at me?
 B: I’m not mad at you. Why have you been so insecure lately?
 A: I’m not insecure. It’s just that you've been so critical.
 B: What do you mean, “critical?” I haven’t been critical. . . . LANGUAGE: BARRIER AND BRIDGE
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The Impact of Language
 Disruptive Language
 Emotive Language
 Seems to describe something but actually announces the speakers attitude toward it
If you approve, say
Thrifty
Traditional
Extrovert
Cautious
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If you disapprove, say
Cheap
Old‐fashioned
Loudmouth
Cowardly
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The Impact of Language
 Language of Responsibility
 “It” Statements
 Note the difference in each set of sentences:
 “It bothers me when you’re late.”
 “I’m worried when you’re late.”
 “It’s nice to see you.”
 “I’m glad to see you.”
 “It’s a boring class.”
 “I’m bored in the class.”
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The Impact of Language
 Language of Responsibility
 “But” Statements
 In each sentence the word but cancels the thought that precedes it:
 “You’re really a great person, but I think we should see other people.”
 “You’ve done good work for us, but we’re going to have to let you go.”
 “This paper has some good ideas, but I’m giving you a D grade because it’s late.”
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The Impact of Language
 Language of Responsibility
 Questions
 Some questions are used to avoid making a declaration
 “What are we having for dinner?” Could mean, “I want to eat out.”
 “How many textbooks are assigned in that class?” Could mean, “I’m afraid to get into a class with too much reading.”
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The Impact of Language
 Language of Responsibility  “I” and “You” Language
 “I” statements accept responsibility for a message  “You” statements express judgment
 “You left this place a mess!”
 “You didn’t keep your promise!”
 “You’re really crude sometimes!”
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The Impact of Language
 Language of Responsibility  “I” and “You” Language
 An “I” statement has four elements:
 The person’s behavior
 Your interpretations
 Your feelings
 The consequences that the other person’s behavior has for you
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The Impact of Language
 Language of Responsibility  “I” and “You” Language
 Example:
 “I get embarrassed (feeling) when you talk about my bad grades in front of our friends (behavior). I’m afraid they’ll think I’m stupid (interpretation). That’s why I got so worked up last night (consequence).”
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The Impact of Language
 Language of Responsibility  Reservations about “I” language
 “I get too angry to use ‘I’ language”
 “Even with ‘I’ language, the other person gets defensive”
 “ ‘I’ language sounds artificial”
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The Impact of Language
 Language of Responsibility
 “We” Language
 Implies the issue is the concern of both parties
 “We need to figure out a budget that doesn’t bankrupt us.”
 “I think we have a problem. We can’t seem to talk about money without fighting.”
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Gender and Language
 Content
 Female friends spent more time discussing:
 Relationship problems, family, health
 Male friends spent more time discussing:
 Current events, music, sports, business
 Consider the gender’s impact on language:
 “I want to talk about important things, like how we’re getting along. All he wants to do talk about the news or what we’ll do this weekend.”
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Gender and Language
 Conversation Style
 The myth that women are more talkative than men does not hold up under scientific scrutiny
 Men’s speech is characteristically:
 More direct, succinct, and task‐oriented  Women’s speech is more typically:  indirect, elaborate, and focused on relationships
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Gender and Language
 Nongender Variables
 The link between gender and language isn’t as clear‐cut as it might seem
 The language between sexes is more similar than it is different.
 One scholar suggested that the popular book, “Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus” should be changed to “Men Are from North Dakota, Women Are from South Dakota.”
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Culture and Language
 Verbal Communication Styles
 Low‐context cultures
 Generally value language to express thoughts, feelings, and ideas as directly as possible.
 High‐context cultures
 Generally value using language to maintain social harmony.  Learn to discover meaning from the context in which a message is delivered: nonverbal behaviors, history of the relationship, etc
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Culture and Language
 Verbal Communication Styles
 Language and Worldview
 Linguistic relativism
 The worldview of a culture is shaped and reflected by the language its members speak.
 The Eskimos have a large number of words for snow
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Chapter Review
 Language is Symbolic
 Understandings and Misunderstandings
 The Impact of Language
 Gender and Language
 Culture and Language
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