Discussion

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Verbal Communication

3.1 Language and Meaning

L E A R N I N G O B J E C T I V E S

1. Explain how the triangle of meaning describes the symbolic nature of language.

2. Distinguish between denotation and connotation.

3. Discuss the function of the rules of language.

4. Describe the process of language acquisition.

The relationship between language and meaning is not a straightforward one. One reason for this

complicated relationship is the limitlessness of modern language systems like English. David

Crystal, How Language Works: How Babies Babble, Words Change Meaning, and Languages Live or

Die (Woodstock, NY: Overlook Press, 2005), 8–9. Language is productive in the sense that there are an

infinite number of utterances we can make by connecting existing words in new ways. In addition, there is

no limit to a language’s vocabulary, as new words are coined daily. Of course, words aren’t the only things

we need to communicate, and although verbal and nonverbal communication are closely related in terms

of how we make meaning, nonverbal communication is not productive and limitless. Although we can

only make a few hundred physical signs, we have about a million words in the English language. So with

all this possibility, how does communication generate meaning?

You’ll recall that “generating meaning” was a central part of the definition of communication we learned

earlier. We arrive at meaning through the interaction between our nervous and sensory systems and some

stimulus outside of them. It is here, between what the communication models we discussed earlier labeled

as encoding and decoding, that meaning is generated as sensory information is interpreted. The indirect

and sometimes complicated relationship between language and meaning can lead to confusion,

frustration, or even humor. We may even experience a little of all three, when we stop to think about how

there are some twenty-five definitions available to tell us the meaning of word meaning! David

Crystal, How Language Works: How Babies Babble, Words Change Meaning, and Languages Live or

Die (Woodstock, NY: Overlook Press, 2005), 187. Since language and symbols are the primary vehicle for

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our communication, it is important that we not take the components of our verbal communication for

granted. Language Is Symbolic

Our language system is primarily made up of symbols. A symbol is something that stands in for or

represents something else. Symbols can be communicated verbally (speaking the word hello), in writing

(putting the letters H-E-L-L-O together), or nonverbally (waving your hand back and forth). In any case,

the symbols we use stand in for something else, like a physical object or an idea; they do not actually

correspond to the thing being referenced in any direct way. Unlike hieroglyphics in ancient Egypt, which

often did have a literal relationship between the written symbol and the object being referenced, the

symbols used in modern languages look nothing like the object or idea to which they refer.

The symbols we use combine to form language systems or codes. Codes are culturally agreed on and

ever-changing systems of symbols that help us organize, understand, and generate meaning. Wendy

Leeds-Hurwitz, Semiotics and Communication: Signs, Codes, Cultures (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum

Associates, 1993), 53. There are about 6,000 language codes used in the world, and around 40 percent of

those (2,400) are only spoken and do not have a written version. David Crystal, How Language Works:

How Babies Babble, Words Change Meaning, and Languages Live or Die (Woodstock, NY: Overlook

Press, 2005), 17, 24. Remember that for most of human history the spoken word and nonverbal

communication were the primary means of communication. Even languages with a written component

didn’t see widespread literacy, or the ability to read and write, until a little over one hundred years ago.

The symbolic nature of our communication is a quality unique to humans. Since the words we use do not

have to correspond directly to a “thing” in our “reality,” we can communicate in abstractions. This

property of language is called displacement and specifically refers to our ability to talk about events that

are removed in space or time from a speaker and situation. David Crystal, How Language Works: How

Babies Babble, Words Change Meaning, and Languages Live or Die (Woodstock, NY: Overlook Press,

2005), 10. Animals do communicate, but in a much simpler way that is only a reaction to stimulus.

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Further, animal communication is very limited and lacks the productive quality of language that we

discussed earlier.

For example, the word calculate comes from the Latin word calculus, which means “pebble.” But what

does a pebble have to do with calculations? Pebbles were used, very long ago, to calculate things before we

developed verbal or written numbering systems. S. I. Hayakawa and Alan R. Hayakawa, Language in

Thought and Action, 5th ed. (San Diego, CA: Harcourt Brace, 1990), 87. As I noted earlier, a farmer may

have kept, in a box, one pebble for each of his chickens. Each pebble represented one chicken, meaning

that each symbol (the pebble) had a direct correlation to another thing out in the world (its chicken). This

system allowed the farmer to keep track of his livestock. He could periodically verify that each pebble had

a corresponding chicken. If there was a discrepancy, he would know that a chicken was lost, stolen, or

killed. Later, symbols were developed that made accounting a little easier. Instead of keeping track of

boxes of pebbles, the farmer could record a symbol like the word five or the numeral 15 that could stand in

for five or fifteen pebbles. This demonstrates how our symbols have evolved and how some still carry that

ancient history with them, even though we are unaware of it. While this evolution made communication

easier in some ways, it also opened up room for misunderstanding, since the relationship between

symbols and the objects or ideas they represented became less straightforward. Although the root

of calculate means “pebble,” the word calculate today has at least six common definitions. The Triangle of Meaning

The triangle of meaning is a model of communication that indicates the relationship among a thought,

symbol, and referent and highlights the indirect relationship between the symbol and referent, Ivor A.

Richards and Charles K. Ogden, The Meaning of Meaning (London: Kegan, Paul, Trench, Tubner,

1923). As you can see in Figure 3.1 "Triangle of Meaning", the thought is the concept or idea a person

references. The symbol is the word that represents the thought, and the referent is the object or idea to

which the symbol refers. This model is useful for us as communicators because when we are aware of the

indirect relationship between symbols and referents, we are aware of how common misunderstandings

occur, as the following example ill experienced-based association ustrates: Jasper and Abby have been

thinking about getting a new dog. So each of them is having a similar thought. They are each using the

same symbol, the word dog, to communicate about their thought. Their referents, however, are different.

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Jasper is thinking about a small dog like a dachshund, and Abby is thinking about an Australian shepherd.

Since the word dog doesn’t refer to one specific object in our reality, it is possible for them to have the

same thought, and use the same symbol, but end up in an awkward moment when they get to the shelter

and fall in love with their respective referents only to find out the other person didn’t have the same thing

in mind.

Figure 3.1 Triangle of Meaning

Source: Adapted from Ivor A. Richards and Charles K. Ogden, The Meaning of Meaning (London: Kegan, Paul, Trench, Tubner,

1923).

Being aware of this indirect relationship between symbol and referent, we can try to compensate for it by

getting clarification. Some of what we learned in "Communication and Perception," can be useful here.

Abby might ask Jasper, “What kind of dog do you have in mind?” This question would allow Jasper to

describe his referent, which would allow for more shared understanding. If Jasper responds, “Well, I like

short-haired dogs. And we need a dog that will work well in an apartment,” then there’s still quite a range

of referents. Abby could ask questions for clarification, like “Sounds like you’re saying that a smaller dog

might be better. Is that right?” Getting to a place of shared understanding can be difficult, even when we

define our symbols and describe our referents.

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Definitions

Definitions help us narrow the meaning of particular symbols, which also narrows a symbol’s possible

referents. They also provide more words (symbols) for which we must determine a referent. If a concept is

abstract and the words used to define it are also abstract, then a definition may be useless. Have you ever

been caught in a verbal maze as you look up an unfamiliar word, only to find that the definition contains

more unfamiliar words? Although this can be frustrating, definitions do serve a purpose.

Words have denotative and connotative meanings. Denotation refers to definitions that are accepted by

the language group as a whole, or the dictionary definition of a word. For example, the denotation of the

word cowboy is a man who takes care of cattle. Another denotation is a reckless and/or independent

person. A more abstract word, like change, would be more difficult to understand due to the multiple

denotations. Since both cowboy and change have multiple meanings, they are considered polysemic

words. Monosemic words have only one use in a language, which makes their denotation more

straightforward. Specialized academic or scientific words, like monosemic, are often monosemic, but

there are fewer commonly used monosemic words, for example, handkerchief. As you might guess based

on our discussion of the complexity of language so far, monosemic words are far outnumbered by

polysemic words.

Connotation refers to definitions that are based on emotion- or experience-based associations people

have with a word. To go back to our previous words, change can have positive or negative connotations

depending on a person’s experiences. A person who just ended a long-term relationship may think of

change as good or bad depending on what he or she thought about his or her former partner. Even

monosemic words like handkerchief that only have one denotation can have multiple connotations. A

handkerchief can conjure up thoughts of dainty Southern belles or disgusting snot-rags. A polysemic word

like cowboy has many connotations, and philosophers of language have explored how connotations

extend beyond one or two experiential or emotional meanings of a word to constitute cultural myths.

Roland Barthes, Mythologies (New York, NY: Hill and Wang, 1972). Cowboy, for example, connects to the

frontier and the western history of the United States, which has mythologies associated with it that help

shape the narrative of the nation. The Marlboro Man is an enduring advertising icon that draws on

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connotations of the cowboy to attract customers. While people who grew up with cattle or have family that

ranch may have a very specific connotation of the word cowboy based on personal experience, other

people’s connotations may be more influenced by popular cultural symbolism like that seen in westerns.

Language Is Learned

As we just learned, the relationship between the symbols that make up our language and their referents is arbitrary,

which means they have no meaning until we assign it to them. In order to effectively use a language system, we have

to learn, over time, which symbols go with which referents, since we can’t just tell by looking at the symbol. Like me,

you probably learned what the word apple meant by looking at the letters A-P-P-L-E and a picture of an apple and

having a teacher or caregiver help you sound out the letters until you said the whole word. Over time, we associated

that combination of letters with the picture of the red delicious apple and no longer had to sound each letter out. This

is a deliberate process that may seem slow in the moment, but as we will see next, our ability to acquire language is

actually quite astounding. We didn’t just learn individual words and their meanings, though; we also learned rules of

grammar that help us put those words into meaningful sentences.

Key Takeaways • The triangle of meaning is a model of communication that indicates the relationship among a thought, symbol,

and referent, and highlights the indirect relationship between the symbol and the referent. The model explains

how for any given symbol there can be many different referents, which can lead to misunderstanding.

• Denotation refers to the agreed on or dictionary definition of a word. Connotation refers to definitions that are

based on emotion- or experience-based associations people have with a word.

• The rules of language help make it learnable and usable. Although the rules limit some of the uses of language,

they still allow for the possibility of creativity and play.

3.2 Language, Society, and Culture

L E A R N I N G O B J E C T I V E S

1. Discuss some of the social norms that guide conversational interaction.

2. Identify some of the ways in which language varies based on cultural context.

3. Explain the role that accommodation and code-switching play in communication.

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4. Discuss cultural bias in relation to specific cultural identities.

Society and culture influence the words that we speak, and the words that we speak influence society and

culture. Such a cyclical relationship can be difficult to understand, but many of the examples throughout

this chapter and examples from our own lives help illustrate this point. One of the best ways to learn

about society, culture, and language is to seek out opportunities to go beyond our typical comfort zones.

Studying abroad, for example, brings many challenges that can turn into valuable lessons. The following

example of such a lesson comes from my friend who studied abroad in Vienna, Austria.

Although English used to employ formal (thou, thee) and informal pronouns (you), today you can be used

when speaking to a professor, a parent, or a casual acquaintance. Other languages still have social norms

and rules about who is to be referred to informally and formally. My friend, as was typical in the German

language, referred to his professor with the formal pronoun Sie but used the informal pronoun Du with

his fellow students since they were peers. When the professor invited some of the American exchange

students to dinner, they didn’t know they were about to participate in a cultural ritual that would change

the way they spoke to their professor from that night on. Their professor informed them that they were

going to duzen, which meant they were going to now be able to refer to her with the informal pronoun—an

honor and sign of closeness for the American students. As they went around the table, each student

introduced himself or herself to the professor using the formal pronoun, locked arms with her and drank

(similar to the champagne toast ritual at some wedding ceremonies), and reintroduced himself or herself

using the informal pronoun. For the rest of the semester, the American students still respectfully referred

to the professor with her title, which translated to “Mrs. Doctor,” but used informal pronouns, even in

class, while the other students not included in the ceremony had to continue using the formal. Given that

we do not use formal and informal pronouns in English anymore, there is no equivalent ritual to the

German duzen, but as we will learn next, there are many rituals in English that may be just as foreign to

someone else.

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Language and Social Context

We arrive at meaning through conversational interaction, which follows many social norms and rules. As

we’ve already learned, rules are explicitly stated conventions (“Look at me when I’m talking to you.”) and

norms are implicit (saying you’ve got to leave before you actually do to politely initiate the end to a

conversation). To help conversations function meaningfully, we have learned social norms and

internalized them to such an extent that we do not often consciously enact them. Instead, we rely on

routines and roles (as determined by social forces) to help us proceed with verbal interaction, which also

helps determine how a conversation will unfold. Our various social roles influence meaning and how we

speak. For example, a person may say, “As a longtime member of this community…” or “As a first-

generation college student…” Such statements cue others into the personal and social context from which

we are speaking, which helps them better interpret our meaning.

One social norm that structures our communication is turn taking. People need to feel like they are

contributing something to an interaction, so turn taking is a central part of how conversations play out.

David Crystal, How Language Works: How Babies Babble, Words Change Meaning, and Languages

Live or Die (Woodstock, NY: Overlook Press, 2005), 155. Although we sometimes talk at the same time as

others or interrupt them, there are numerous verbal and nonverbal cues, almost like a dance, that are

exchanged between speakers that let people know when their turn will begin or end. Conversations do not

always neatly progress from beginning to end with shared understanding along the way. There is a back

and forth that is often verbally managed through rephrasing (“Let me try that again,”) and clarification

(“Does that make sense?”) David Crystal, How Language Works: How Babies Babble, Words Change

Meaning, and Languages Live or Die (Woodstock, NY: Overlook Press, 2005), 268.

We also have certain units of speech that facilitate turn taking. Adjacency pairs are related

communication structures that come one after the other (adjacent to each other) in an interaction. David

Crystal, How Language Works: How Babies Babble, Words Change Meaning, and Languages Live or

Die (Woodstock, NY: Overlook Press, 2005), 277. For example, questions are followed by answers,

greetings are followed by responses, compliments are followed by a thank you, and informative comments

are followed by an acknowledgment. These are the skeletal components that make up our verbal

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interactions, and they are largely social in that they facilitate our interactions. When these sequences

don’t work out, confusion, miscommunication, or frustration may result, as you can see in the following

sequences:

Travis: “How are you?”

Wanda: “Did someone tell you I’m sick?”

Darrell: “I just wanted to let you know the meeting has been moved to three o’clock.”

Leigh: “I had cake for breakfast this morning.”

Some conversational elements are highly scripted or ritualized, especially the beginning and end of an

exchange and topic changes. David Crystal, How Language Works: How Babies Babble, Words Change

Meaning, and Languages Live or Die (Woodstock, NY: Overlook Press, 2005), 268.Conversations often

begin with a standard greeting and then proceed to “safe” exchanges about things in the immediate field

of experience of the communicators (a comment on the weather or noting something going on in the

scene). At this point, once the ice is broken, people can move on to other more content-specific exchanges.

Once conversing, before we can initiate a topic change, it is a social norm that we let the current topic

being discussed play itself out or continue until the person who introduced the topic seems satisfied. We

then usually try to find a relevant tie-in or segue that acknowledges the previous topic, in turn

acknowledging the speaker, before actually moving on. Changing the topic without following such social

conventions might indicate to the other person that you were not listening or are simply rude. Ending a conversation is similarly complex. I’m sure we’ve all been in a situation where we are “trapped”

in a conversation that we need or want to get out of. Just walking away or ending a conversation without

engaging in socially acceptable “leave-taking behaviors” would be considered a breach of social norms.

Topic changes are often places where people can leave a conversation, but it is still routine for us to give a

special reason for leaving, often in an apologetic tone (whether we mean it or not). Generally though,

conversations come to an end through the cooperation of both people, as they offer and recognize typical

signals that a topic area has been satisfactorily covered or that one or both people need to leave. It is

customary in the United States for people to say they have to leave before they actually do and for that

statement to be dismissed or ignored by the other person until additional leave-taking behaviors are

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enacted. When such cooperation is lacking, an awkward silence or abrupt ending can result, and as we’ve

already learned, US Americans are not big fans of silence. Silence is not viewed the same way in other

cultures, which leads us to our discussion of cultural context.

Language and Cultural Context Culture isn’t solely determined by a person’s native language or nationality. It’s true that languages vary

by country and region and that the language we speak influences our realities, but even people who speak

the same language experience cultural differences because of their various intersecting cultural identities

and personal experiences. We have a tendency to view our language as a whole more favorably than other

languages. Although people may make persuasive arguments regarding which languages are more

pleasing to the ear or difficult or easy to learn than others, no one language enables speakers to

communicate more effectively than another. Steven McCornack, Reflect and Relate: An Introduction to

Interpersonal Communication (Boston, MA: Bedford/St Martin’s, 2007), 224–25.

From birth we are socialized into our various cultural identities. As with the social context, this

acculturation process is a combination of explicit and implicit lessons. A child in Colombia, which is

considered a more collectivist country in which people value group membership and cohesion over

individualism, may not be explicitly told, “You are a member of a collectivistic culture, so you should care

more about the family and community than yourself.” This cultural value would be transmitted through

daily actions and through language use. Just as babies acquire knowledge of language practices at an

astonishing rate in their first two years of life, so do they acquire cultural knowledge and values that are

embedded in those language practices. At nine months old, it is possible to distinguish babies based on

their language. Even at this early stage of development, when most babies are babbling and just learning

to recognize but not wholly reproduce verbal interaction patterns, a Colombian baby would sound

different from a Brazilian baby, even though neither would actually be using words from their native

languages of Spanish and Portuguese. David Crystal, How Language Works: How Babies Babble, Words

Change Meaning, and Languages Live or Die (Woodstock, NY: Overlook Press, 2005), 84.

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The actual language we speak plays an important role in shaping our reality. Comparing languages, we

can see differences in how we are able to talk about the world. In English, we have the

words grandfather and grandmother, but no single word that distinguishes between a maternal

grandfather and a paternal grandfather. But in Swedish, there’s a specific word for each

grandparent: morfar is mother’s father, farfar is father’s father, farmor is father’s mother,

and mormor is mother’s mother. David Crystal, How Language Works: How Babies Babble, Words

Change Meaning, and Languages Live or Die (Woodstock, NY: Overlook Press, 2005), 188. In this

example, we can see that the words available to us, based on the language we speak, influence how we talk

about the world due to differences in and limitations of vocabulary. The notion that language shapes our

view of reality and our cultural patterns is best represented by the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. Although

some scholars argue that our reality is determined by our language, we will take a more qualified view and

presume that language plays a central role in influencing our realities but doesn’t determine them, Judith

N. Martin and Thomas K. Nakayama, Intercultural Communication in Contexts, 5th ed. (Boston, MA:

McGraw-Hill, 2010), 222–24.

Culturally influenced differences in language and meaning can lead to some interesting encounters,

ranging from awkward to informative to disastrous. In terms of awkwardness, you have likely heard

stories of companies that failed to exhibit communication competence in their naming and/or advertising

of products in another language. For example, in Taiwan, Pepsi used the slogan “Come Alive with Pepsi”

only to later find out that when translated it meant, “Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the dead.”

“Results of Poor Cross Cultural Awareness,” Kwintessential Limited, accessed June 7,

2012, http://www.kwintessential.co.uk/cultural-services/articles/Results of Poor Cross Cultural

Awareness.html.

Similarly, American Motors introduced a new car called the Matador to the Puerto Rico market only to

learn that Matador means “killer,” which wasn’t very comforting to potential buyers. “Cross Cultural

Business Blunders,” Kwintessential Limited, accessed June 7,

2012, http://www.kwintessential.co.uk/cultural-services/articles/crosscultural-blunders.html.

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At a more informative level, the words we use to give positive reinforcement are culturally relative. In the

United States and England, parents commonly positively and negatively reinforce their child’s behavior by

saying, “Good girl” or “Good boy.” There isn’t an equivalent for such a phrase in other European

languages, so the usage in only these two countries has been traced back to the puritan influence on

beliefs about good and bad behavior. Anna Wierzbicka, “The English Expressions Good Boy and Good

Girl and Cultural Models of Child Rearing,” Culture and Psychology 10, no. 3 (2004): 251–78. In terms of

disastrous consequences, one of the most publicized and deadliest cross-cultural business mistakes

occurred in India in 1984. Union Carbide, an American company, controlled a plant used to make

pesticides. The company underestimated the amount of cross-cultural training that would be needed to

allow the local workers, many of whom were not familiar with the technology or language/jargon used in

the instructions for plant operations to do their jobs. This lack of competent communication led to a gas

leak that immediately killed more than two thousand people and over time led to more than five hundred

thousand injuries. Subodh Varma, “Arbitrary? 92% of All Injuries Termed Minor,” The Times of India,

June 20, 2010, accessed June 7, 2012, http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2010-06-

20/india/28309628_1_injuries-gases-cases.

Key Takeaways • Getting integrated: Social context influences the ways in which we use language, and we have been

socialized to follow implicit social rules like those that guide the flow of conversations, including how

we start and end our interactions and how we change topics. The way we use language changes as we

shift among academic, professional, personal, and civic contexts.

• The language that we speak influences our cultural identities and our social realities. We internalize

norms and rules that help us function in our own culture but that can lead to misunderstanding when

used in other cultural contexts.

• We can adapt to different cultural contexts by purposely changing our communication.

Communication accommodation theory explains that people may adapt their communication to be

more similar to or different from others based on various contexts.

• We should become aware of how our verbal communication reveals biases toward various cultural

identities based on race, gender, age, sexual orientation, and ability.