PowerPoint Presentation to accompany
Looking Out, Looking In, Tenth Edition
Chapter 5: Language: Barrier and Bridge
Presentation prepared by
Dr. Michael Pearson, Gretchen Gill, and Tim
Scanlon of West Chester University
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CHAPTER 5
Language: Barrier
and Bridge
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Language: Barrier and Bridge
• Language is Symbolic
• Understandings and
Misunderstandings
• The Impact of Language
• The Language of Responsibility
• Gender and Languages
• Language and Culture
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Language is Symbolic
• Words are arbitrary symbols that don’t have
any meaning in themselves.
• Words can be interpreted in many different
ways; this is the basis for many
misunderstandings .
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Understandings and
Misunderstandings
Understanding Words: Semantic Rules
• Semantic rules - govern the meaning of the symbols;
they reflect the ways in which users of a language
make sense of a particular linguistic symbol
• Semantic misunderstandings arise when people use
words as if they had different meanings.
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Understandings and
Misunderstandings
Understanding Words: Semantic Rules
• Equivocal language – statements that have more
than one commonly accepted definition
• Relative words - gain their meaning by
comparison
• Static Evaluation - the tendency to view people
or relationships as unchanging
• Abstract language – language that is vague in
nature
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Understandings and
Misunderstandings
Understanding Words: Semantic Rules
Abstraction
• Stereotyping – high level abstractions that
lead to blanket statements; “Men are no good”
“Skateboarders are delinquents”
• Abstraction ladder - shows how to describe the
same phenomenon at various levels of abstraction
• Behavioral language – low-level abstractions; refers
to specific things that you or the other person says or
does
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Understandings and
Misunderstandings
Understanding Words: Semantic Rules
Behavioral Description
• Who is involved?
• In what circumstances does the behavior occur?
• What behaviors are involved?
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Understandings and
Misunderstandings
Understanding Structure:
Syntactic Rules
• Syntactic Rules - govern the grammar of language
Understanding Context:
Pragmatic Rules
• Pragmatic rules - govern the interpretation of the
symbols in a given context
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The Impact Of Language
Naming and Identity
• Different names are more than just identification; they
shape the way others think of us, the way we view
ourselves, and the way we act.
Affiliation, Attraction, and Interest
• Convergence - process of adapting one’s speech
style to match that of others
• Divergence - process of emphasizing differences
from others
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The Impact Of Language
Power
• Powerless Speech Mannerisms - statements that
can make a person appear less authoritative or socially
attractive
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The Impact Of Language
Disruptive Language
• Fact-Opinion Confusion
• In everyday conversation, we often present our
opinions as if they were facts, and in doing so we
invite arguments
• Fact-Inference Confusion
• Confusion of factual and inferential statements –
conclusions drawn from an interpretation of
evidence; use perception checking instead
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The Impact Of Language
Disruptive Language
• Emotive Language - seems
to describe something, but
really announces the speaker’s
attitude
• To avoid arguments involving emotive words,
describe things or concepts using neutral terms
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The Language of
Responsibility
•“IT” statements - replace the personal pronoun “I”
with the less immediate word “it.”
•“I” language - clearly identifies the speaker as
the source of the message
• “BUT” language - strategy for wrapping the
speaker’s real but unpleasant message between more
palatable ideas
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The Language of
Responsibility
• Questions
Some questions can be sincere requests for information;
other times they are used to avoid declarations
“I” and “You” Language
• “I” language – a way of accepting responsibility for
a message
• “You” language - expresses a judgment of another
person
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The Language of
Responsibility
• Advantages of “I” Language
• Defense Reduction
• Honesty
• Completeness
• Problems with “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 Language of
Responsibility
“We” Language
• “We” statements - imply that the issue is the
concern and responsibility of both the speaker
and receiver of a message
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Gender And Language
Content
• On average, men and women discuss a surprisingly
different range of topics.
Reasons for Communicating
• Men and women often use language in different
ways for different purposes.
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Gender And Language
Conversational Style
• Women and men behave differently in conversations.
Nongender Variables
• Sex Role - the social orientation
that governs behavior, rather than
the biological gender
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Language And Culture
Verbal Communication Styles
• Low-context cultures – generally value using
language primarily to express thoughts, feelings,
and ideas clearly and logically
• High-context cultures - value using language as a way
to maintain social harmony
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Language And Culture
Language and Worldview
• Linguistic Determinism - the worldview of a culture
is unavoidably shaped and reflected by the language
its members speak
• Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis - theory in which language
is determined by a culture’s perceived reality
• Linguistic Relativism - language exerts a strong
influence on perceptions
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