Immediacy: Up Close and Personal

Language can be inclusive or exclusive. It can place the listener at a distance or forge a close and personal bond. Immediate language is personalized lan­guage, and it can be very effective in persuasive situations Consider the follow­ing excerpt from a televised speech:

This historic room and the presidency belong to you It is your right and responsi­bility every four years to give temporary custody of this office and of the institu­tion of the presidency. You so honored me, and I am grateful – grateful and proud of what together we have accomplished.

The speaker was President Ronald Reagan, and the occasion was the 1984 announcement of his decision to run for a second term. This speech illustrates an effective use of immediacy. Reagan involves us directly and personally. We feel we are a part of his presidency, although what exactly "we" did together is not specified. Critics might say that this use of immediacy is misleading, yet it is certainly effective.

Empirical studies show that the use of verbal immediacy in public situa­tions has positive effects, increasing ratings of a speaker's competence, charac­ter, similarity to audience members, and degree of relaxation, especially when the speaker agrees with audience members. Immediacy is also effective in in­terpersonal contexts. If, however, it is blatantly used to create a bond where none exists, it can backfire. A low-status speaker might offend someone of high­er stains bv being too familiar. Sometimes norms for considerateness preclude being too immediate. As communicators, we must find a balance between fa­miliarity and polite deference.

Abstraction: Creating General Categories

I remember in complete detail my grandmother’s house. If I close my eyes, I can picture the garden in back and the broad veranda where I played as a child. When I speak of this place, I use the word house. Yet no single thing called “house” exists, only particular houses, such as the ones you and I grew up in. A house has no particular color, shape, or size. It is simply a structure used for human habitation. “House” is an abstraction, a synthesis of what many houses have in common. All words are abstractions, although some are more general than others. To call my grandmother's house a “dwelling unit” or an “abode” is to abstract it even further, and to abstract something is to make it less real.

Of course, abstraction is necessary. Abstract concepts allow us to talk about the future, to make predictions, and to think logically and mathematically. In Robin Lakoff’s terms, abstraction is "the basis of science, crucial to human understanding and the growth of our intellect and to our power as a species over the physical universe. It has made us what we are."

Abstract language can also be false and dangerous. It is the basis of stereo­typing. When my grandmother's house becomes merely a “house,” it loses its individuality; it is reduced to a series of general qualities. Similarly, when my neighbor becomes a “New Yorker” or a “teacher” or an “American,” she loses her uniqueness. Your idea of what she is like is shaped by these abstractions. Fi­nally, when some people become “we” and others “they”, the way is paved for misunderstanding and abuse.

Metaphors We Live By

We usually think of metaphors as devices that poets use, not as a feature of everyday talk. Metaphors, however, are found in every kind of discourse, and their presence affects us in interesting and important ways. A metaphor is a lin­guistic usage that allows us to understand and experience one thing in terms of another. Metaphors guide our thoughts and actions.

Ceorge Lakoff and Mark Johnson illustrate the pervasiveness of meta­phors by looking at the common ways we talk about argument. What under­lying comparison is common to the following statements?

He attacked every weak point in my argument.

His criticisms were right on target.

I demolished his argument.

He shot down all my arguments

The metaphor is that argument is a war – a common way of viewing argument in our culture. Lakoff and Johnson ask us to imagine instead another kind of culture, where argument is viewed as a dance, the participants are seen as performers, and the goal is to perform in a balanced and aesthetically pleasing way. In such a culture, people would view arguments differently, carry them out differently, and talk about them differently.

Metaphors allow us to grasp abstract or difficult concepts in terms of more understandable ideas. In doing so, however, they highlight some aspects of the concept and downplay others. Let’s look at some common metaphors used to describe love. Love can be thought of as a physical force (“There’s electricity be­tween us,” “When we’re together, sparks fly”); as mystic power (“She’s bewitch­ing,” “The magic is gone”); as madness (“I’m crazy about him”); or as war (“She conquered my heart,” “He’s besieged, by women”). Each of these metaphors calls our attention to a different kind of experience and legitimizes a different kind of behavior. If love is a physical force or mystic power, it is beyond our control; there's nothing we can do but let it wash over us. If love is madness, then irrational behavior is defensible. What if, however, we were to think of love in a new way, as a collaborative work of art? Following from this meta­phor, love would be something to be worked on, something that takes shape over time, and something that is beautiful and precious. Our reactions to and expenence of love would be significantly different.

Lakoff and Johnson believe that the metaphors we live by have a political dimension. Metaphors are often imposed on us by people in power: politicians, religious leaders, economists, and advertisers control us by creating metaphori­cal values. Once we come to believe in a given metaphor, say, “Bigger is better” or “More is good,” then it becomes difficult to see the world in any other way. Accumulation is valorized, and behaviors such as conservation are devalued.