Improving Language Choices

Language is a powerful tool. It allows us to abstract and store experiences and to share them with others. It allows us to make contact with and to influence, regu­late, persuade, and dominate one another. It makes us the humans we are. And yet, despite the great power it gives us, language also exerts power over us. Our thoughts and perceptions are filtered through language and can be distorted by it. It is important, then, that we use language with care and sensitivity, realizing that it can lead us astray as often as it can lead us to the truth.

We’ve seen that words are social agreements, agreements to express ideas in similar ways. We get into trouble if we start believing that words are complete and accurate reflections of reality. We should always remember that talking about something doesn’t necessarily mean it is real. Language has a peculiar tendency to reify concepts, to make us believe that they are tangible and real rather than fal­lible human constructions.

Another important principle to keep in mind is that meanings are in people, not in words. Although we share a language with others, we each shade its words and phrases with our own experiences. Meanings are by no means ob­jective, and, as our discussion of speech acts points out, we often mean more than we say and say less than we mean. Uncovering meaning involves making in­ferences about the communicative intentions of others. Only a madman would take as literal everything oth­ers say. A sane and competent communicator recognizes that language involves a great deal of social inference. One should always be careful to take context into account both when interpreting others’ messages and when creating one’s own.

When we encode messages through spoken language, we have to make choices. There is no single right way to use language; language choices must depend on our purposes, our audience, and the conventions of the discourse form we use. We use a specific kind of language to sell a used car, host a TV talk show, tell a joke, deliver a public speech, or talk to a stranger at a party. Each form of communi­cation has its own linguistic conventions. Although most of the time language that is direct, clear, concrete, and straightforward is preferred, there are also ap­propriate times for ambiguity, abstraction, and figurative language. Making lan­guage choices is no simple matter. It requires sensitivity to others, a clear sense of one’s own communicative intent, a great deal of social knowledge, and an overall understanding of the communication process.

II. Discussion

Task 1. Discuss the following questions in groups.

1. Dwell on the notion of language, its main characteristics and kinds.

2. What is a sign? Speak on its two parts and relationships.

3. In what way does a symbol differ from other signs?

4. Think of some other means to carry meaning.

5. What does linguistic productivity mean?

6. In what way does language affect our thought?

7. What is linguistic determinism?

8. What is linguistic relativity? Provide examples.

9. Speak on different forms a language takes to meet the needs of its users.

10. Dwell on the sound system of a language (phonology, phonemes).

11. Speak on the study of the meaning of a language (semantics, morpheme, rules of word formation).

12. Speak on the sentence structure of a language.

13. Dwell on the use of language in social context. What is a speech act?

14. State the role of context in a communicative situation.

15. Provide the explanation of the levels of context.

16. What is discourse?

17. Dwell on the conversation as a private form of talk and its distinctive features.

18. State the defining characteristics of classroom discourse as an example of public talk.

19. What conversational maxims are differentiated? Why are they sometimes violated?

20. Dwell on the fact that conversation presupposes sequencing.

21. What are conversational closings aimed at?

22. Dwell on the term of genderlect; provide reasons and examples of genderlects.

23. What are gender expectations and how are they supposed to be met?

24. What are the ways to improve communication between men and women?

25. What is the difference between low-context and high-context cultures?

26. How are low-context and high-context cultures related to verbal directness and indirectness?

27. How is expressiveness depicted in cultures?

28. How do cultures differ in terms of formality?

29. How does ambiguity affect communication? Does it always impede communication? What are the advantages of ambiguous language?

30. What is immediate language? What is it aimed at?

31. State the advantages and disadvantages of abstraction.

32. Provide some examples of metaphors in everyday language. What are metaphors aimed at?

33. What should communicators bear in mind when encoding messages?

Task 2. Identify the contextual information of the situations given bellow.

1. On the first of May, after their last year together at college, Frank Ashurst and his friend Robert Garton were on a tramp. They had walked that day from Brent, intending to make Chagford, but Ashrust’s football knee had given out, and according to their map they had still some seven miles to go. They were sitting on a bank beside the road, resting the knee and talking of the universe, as young men will.

2. Luis took me to lunch. “To thank you,” he said. “She would have fired me. It was all my fault.”

“These things happen,” I said as I dipped my chicken into some mayonnaise. “Although I’m sure it shouldn’t have.”

“I thought I’d confirmed with them,” he said. “But it was a mistake.”

“Never mind,” I comforted him. “It’s sorted out now.”

“I know.” He sighed. “I thought I was going to be fired.”

“Cheer up.” I laughed. “You just have to do something wonderful to redeem yourself.”

Task 3. What conversational maxims have been violated in the following situations? Offer your responses to improve these conversations.

1. – Smith doesn’t seem to have a girlfriend now. – He’s been going to New York quite often recently.

2. – I have something important to tell you… - John began. – I’m running out of time. And I still have to change.- She looked at her watch.

3. – You never come in time. – I came at 8 yesterday.

4. – What’s the address of your brother? – He lives somewhere in the centre of the town.

5. “It’s important that it’s quality,” I said anxiously. “It doesn’t need to be extravagant, but not poor quality.”

“The Hotel Lux never compromises on quality,” he told me pompously.

6. “Hi,” I said unenthusiastically. “How’s it going?”

“Goodness, Isobel, you sound dreadful. What’s wrong?”

Task 4. Analyze your classroom discussion as a specific form of discourse according to the set of questions provided.

1. What is the purpose of this discourse?

What do I and my partners hope to achieve? Do we agree about the purpose of this interaction? What would mark the success of this discourse, and what would mark its failure?

2. What rules regulate this discourse?

What speech acts are expected of each participant? What speech acts should participants avoid?

3. What are the normal style and structure of this discourse?

What specialized language choices are called for? How does one begin and end interaction? How might meanings here differ from those elsewhere?

4. What are the effects of engaging in this form of discourse?

What values and assumptions are presupposed in this discourse? Do I agree with these beliefs? Can this discourse be used to manipulate or dominate? How?