My good friend and I have been reading the Intellectual
Devotional for a year together now, committed to communicating on each and
every of the 365 entries, discussing and debating topics ranging from the
history of the alphabet to Zoroastrianism. I would say the subject we have
returned to most, and which has dominated and born down on so many ever-lengthening
email exchanges, would be hands-down the subject of language and communication.
We’ve learned many things about communication, and some things the hard way,
which might be the best way. My fascination with the nature of language and
communication was very fresh on my mind one night while trying to salvage good
books from a local thrift store shelf (it’s a rare form of biblio-tarianism),
when I came upon this beauty of some post-college kid’s academic purging. I
skimmed its contents and discovered it tackled many of the points of language
and communication that resisted my processing like thickening syrup in my mind.
This book contains chapters contributed by different authors
from different backgrounds expanding on language in so many of its ramifications.
It begins with essays on the origins and purposes of language, moves into
specific expressions of communication like sign-language and multi-lingualism,
circles back to methods in conversation and anomalies in personal/public
communication, explores perspectives from well-known authors and speakers like
Hellen Keller and Malcom X, and even dives into censorship, humor, and
advertising. There are probably a few articles that could interest just about
anybody, and none are too long to bore or lose a reader entirely. There is just
enough of what you like to whet your appetite for more, but it is substantial
nonetheless.
Reading this book helps to emphasize the devastatingly beautiful
and intricate thing that human language is. I am reminded of a train-analogy Wittgenstein
utilized when expressed the multivalent nature of words and their varying uses:
“[Language is] like looking into the cabin of a locomotive.
We see handles all looking more or less alike. (Naturally, since they are
all supposed to be handled.) But one is the handle of a crank which can be
moved continuously (it regulates the opening of a valve); another is the handle
of a switch, which has only two effective positions, it is either off or on; a
third is a brake-lever, the harder one pulls on it, the harder it brakes; a
fourth, the handle of a pump: it has an effect only so long as it is moved to
and fro” (Philosophical Investigations, 1162). Language is as complex and
recalcitrant as thought itself, as it is an attempted externalization and crystallization
of thought, which is denatured in its new environment. There is frustration in
this unwieldy tool, but there is great power in it too, for which reason it is
one of the elemental forces and growing momentum behind all of civilization.
My favorite articles in the book include:
- Language And Thought
- Homemade Education (Malcom X)
- A Word For Evertything (Hellen Keller)
- Women Talk Too Much (not what it sounds like)
- The Social Basis Of Talk
Because I, personally, found the article “The Social Basis
Of Talk” by linguistics professor and author, Ronald Wardhaugh, I will also review
this excerpt particularly. It is an awesome treatment of the kinds of
assumptions and values everyone is bringing into a conversation, and discusses how
to navigate 'talk'. It was amazing, and revolutionary for a person like me. He
says something I've never been open to really. He alleges that there is so much
assumption, referral and inferences to/from personal experience, and such a
high amount of commonality and "trust" that is required to get
through communication, that it would be impossible to communicate at all if we
weren't willing to "assume the other person thinks and feels like we do on
most issues", or act as if that were the case even when we can't honestly
believe that. He says that if two communicators don't at the very least pretend
that they think like each other for the most part, then communication will
break down almost immediately as conversation is purely a cooperative
undertaking and the need to not be offended is paramount. “Public life is
possible only when the opportunities for being seriously offended are reduced
to near zero. If the risks in an activity are great, you may be wise to refrain
from that activity unless the potential gains are correspondingly great or you
have no alternative.” He bases this primarily on the human need for consistency
in the world and other people, and our threshold of tolerance for only small
bits of new information to assimilate at a time. “Life would quickly become
unbearable if it were not so ordered and predictable and consequently so
unworthy of close and continuing attention.” And this is why James Bond has no
friends.
He offers the caveat that some conversations are
specifically designated to allow for more experiential nuance, value contrasts,
and novel information; and that some personalities can operate on difference
levels of commonality; but he stated that we often underestimate how much
assumption, trust, and compromise is necessary for nearly all of our
communication to work. Talking is not simply a matter of information being transmitted successfully,
but a social interaction that may be deemed successful regardless of what the
ideological differences are. For this reason Wardhaugh states, “We are prepared
to tolerate a remarkable amount of unclarity in what we are told” and even are
willing to go to great lengths to be “parties to an [unspoken] agreement each
to accept the other as the other wishes to appear” to maintain that trust and
underlying sense of safety and connection.
At first I was skeptical that 'faking it' (as I call it) can
really be all that beneficial in conversation. What about the pursuit of truth,
about sharing our changes and discoveries with each other, about challenging
each other to be diligent, honest, and careful about assumptions? But the more
I read, the more I was convinced that I DO IT ALL THE TIME!!! His point about
WHY we do that is truly riveting and actually quite cogent. Although I hope I
am the type of person that will only compromise to a certain degree, I also
realize now that I might not be conscious of all my aims in conversation that
may be more apparent to others, even, than to my own self.
Sure, it is set up as a college course-book, but it is as
interesting and illuminating, as it is broad and cursory. I don’t know when I
decided I don’t like reading textbooks—even the word itself has a ‘thud’ to it—but
this is one I don’t mind keeping on my shelf. It’s a great reference, and fun
reading for anyone pondering on why they don’t seem to see eye-to-eye with some
people, or for those travailing to express themselves so that they will be
accepted, or for someone disillusioned with the use of language as a
social-manipulation, or for someone merely thirsty for increasing their
understanding of how language triggers cognitive growth and power of adaptation
in our accelerating networking culture.
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