really sorry to hear about your mom’s passing. LOL. Let me know how I can help.” She thought LOL meant “lots of love.”
Users report talking much more enthusiastically online than in the real world: “Like if I see something remotely funny, I might say HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH, when really there is no expression on my face.” Speech on Facebook is often breathless and emphatic, filled with words like “Okkkkkayyy” and “OMY!” It is as if some users feel the need to jump up and down to get the reader’s attention.74 Other observers believe that texting is popular because people long to share private conversations. The ability to send silent text messages in public spaces is so appealing that many people send texts during movies, sports events, on public transportation, or when dining. Are you among the many? In your opinion, where should we draw the line indicating when texting becomes inappropriate?
Informality, Anonymity, and Inflammatory Language
The informality of the Internet, together with its potential for anonymity, also affects language use in other ways. When online, people sometimes share their thoughts without displaying any concern for the feelings of others. Instead of conversing honestly and openly with one another, they comment about one another. Whereas gossip used to be whispered from person to person, racist, sexist, and homophobic remarks are now plastered across the Web for anyone to read. Comments like “so-and-so is a slut” and “blank has herpes” pop up on anonymous gossip sites. Trash-talk has gone digital, and it encourages some to go to extremes in their voicing of distasteful and dubious comments. How would you suggest this issue be handled?
Online language also can be inflammatory. What you text or tweet in haste or in anger may reach a wide audience and have unimagined serious consequences. For example, when one teacher posted on her Facebook page that she was “a warden for future criminals,” the district’s school board scheduled a hearing to determine whether to revoke her tenure.75 Do you think they should? Why?
Communication Skills
Practice Thinking Critically About Language Use
Throughout this chapter, we have stressed that mastery of certain language skills will improve your ability to communicate effectively with others. Use the following advice to ensure that your words work for you rather than against you.
Identify how labels impact behavior.
Remember that words are nothing more than symbols. No connection necessarily exists between a symbol and what people have agreed that symbol represents.
All of us, at times, respond as if words and things were one and the same. Think of how often you buy a product because of what the label seems to promise. Examine your behavior with people. How many times have your judged a person—positively or negatively—because he or she was liberal, conservative, feminist, chauvinist, intellectual, or athletic? Make certain that you react to people, not to the categories in which you or others have placed them.
Analyze how words affect feelings and attitudes.
Few of the words you select to describe things are neutral. We all use snarl words (words that have highly negative connotations) and purr words (words that have highly positive connotations). These words do not describe the people or things we are talking about. Rather, they describe our personal feelings and attitudes. When we make statements like “He’s a great American,” “She’s a dirty politician,” “He’s a bore,” “She’s a radical,” we should not delude ourselves into thinking that we are talking about anything but our own preferences.
Identify how experience can affect meaning.
Because we assign meaning on the basis of our experience, and because no two people have had exactly the same set of experiences, it follows that no two people have exactly the same meanings for the same word.
Too frequently, we let our words lead us away from where we want to go; we unwittingly antagonize our families, friends, or coworkers. We are infuriated, for example when an important business deal collapses because our position has not been understood, or we are terrified when the leaders of government miscommunicate and put their countries on a collision course.76 To avoid such problems, we must remember that meanings can change as the people who use words change.
Determine if meanings are shared.
Since intended meanings are not necessarily the same as perceived meanings, you may need to ask people with whom you are speaking questions such as “What do you think about what I’ve just said?” and “What do my words mean to you?”
Their answers serve two important purposes: They help you determine whether you have been understood, and they permit the other people to become involved in the encounter by expressing their interpretations of your message. If differences in the assignment of meaning surface during this feedback process, you will be able immediately to clarify your meanings by substituting different symbols or by relating your thoughts more closely to the background, state of knowledge, and experience of your listeners.
Each of us has learned to see the world not as it is, but through the distorting glass of our words. It is through words that we are made human, and it is through words that we are dehumanized.
Ashley Montagu
Complete The Chapter 4 Checklist
4.1 I can define language and explain the triangle of meaning. □Language is a unified system of symbols that permits a sharing of meaning. Language allows minds to meet, merge, and mesh. When we make sense out of people’s messages, we learn to understand people. As Ogden and Richards’s triangle of meaning illustrates, there is no direct relationship between words and things. Words do not “mean”; people give meaning to words.
4.2 I can explain factors at work in the communication of meaning. □Among factors influencing the communication of meaning are differences between denotative and connotative meaning, the relationship between meaning and time, meaning and place, and meaning and experience, and whether language is concrete or abstract.
4.3 I can identify barriers to meaning, including patterns of miscommunication. □Among factors contributing to confusion are the propensity for bypassing, labeling, evasive and emotive language use, and disagreements over politically correct language.
4.4 I can discuss the relationship between culture and language. □Culture influences how we experience, process, and use language. In part, because language and perception are intertwined, language use varies from culture to culture. We see this in how culture influences the words we use, contributes to confused translations, and affects communication style.
4.5 I can discuss the relationship between gender and culture. □Gender influences the experiencing, processing, and use of language. Language also influences the attitudes we hold about males and females, as well as how males and females perceive each other.
4.6 I can explain how power affects language use. □Some people talk more powerfully than others, coming directly to the point, projecting opinions with confidence, and eliminating nonfluencies and fillers from their speech.
4.7 I can explain how incivility affects language use. □Incivility
