CHAPTER 5: VERBAL MESSAGES

Basically, there are 3 major topics under this chapter.

1.    Principle of Verbal Messages

There are 6 principles of verbal messages.

* Meanings are in people

* Language is denotative an connotative

* Meanings depends on context

* Meanings vary in politeness

* Messages vary in assertiveness

* Messages can be deceive

A) Meanings are in people

We have to understand that the meanings of the message are in people, but not in words. As you changed, the meanings you created out of past message may be changed. Means that, although the message doesn’t change, the meaning you created yesterday and today may not be the same.

Bypassing occurs when the sender and the receiver miss each other with their meanings.

Different words, same meaning	It might look like there is disagreement on the surface but there is agreement at the level of meaning.
Same words, different meaning	It might look like both agree each other just because they use the same words but at the level of meaning, they are not really agree that (both are unconscious of the misunderstood).

B) Language is denotative and connotative.

Denotative is the meaning you found in a dictionary, while connotative is the emotional meaning of the words that given by the speaker.

For example, the word ‘fat’, for boys, it might mean weight gained; but for girls, when she was told that she is fat, she might think that she look uglier than before and might feeling depressed.

Snarl words and purr words are used to clarify the difference between denotative and connotative.

Snarl words are highly negative. E.g.: She is truly shit. They are a group of pigs. Purr words are highly positive. E.g.: She looks like an angle. He is my dream.

 C) Meanings depend on context.
Cultural context

1.The Principle of Cooperation

Meaning to say, both parties try to let each other understand each other in a communication.

The four maxims/corollaries in the principle of cooperation.

The maxim of quality	Say what you know only.
The maxim of relations	Talk about something relevant to the conversation only.
The maxim of manner	Be clear and avoid ambiguities.
The maxim of quantity	Be informative in the conversation.

2.The Principle of Peaceful relation	Maintain peaceful relationships and not to insult others in the conversation.
3.The Principle of Denigration	Avoid taking credit for accomplishment, or raising your own image.

The Gender Context

 Men tend to be direct and sometimes to the point of rude, while women tend to be  indirect and more complicated.

Example of gender context

Men: Have these letters out by three.

Women: It would be great if the letters could go out today.

The other three principle of verbal messages which are meanings vary in politeness, messages vary in assertiveness and messages can be deceive were discussed in the previous post.

2.Disconfirmation and Confirmation

Disconfirmation is a communication pattern in which we ignore a person’s presence and their message. Most people tend to think that a person is rejecting them although the fact is that the person is only disconforming them. We should bear in mind that disconfirmation and rejection are two different matters.

When we reject someone, we only disagree with them on something. We are just unwilling to accept the persons’ actions or words. On the other hand, disconfirming someone is the act of denying that persons’ importance. We kind of neglect what they are saying are doing as to us it simply does not matter. In disconfirmation, the person would feel like they do not exist and in rejection, one would feel like they had done something wrong.

Confirmation is the act of acknowledging someones presence and importance. It also involves our acceptance towards that particular person.

Now, take a look at this scene which also includes the examples of disconfirmation, rejection and confirmation responses.

You just received this semester’s results and they are a lot better than previous semesters’ results but they are still not great. You tell your parents, “I really tried hard to get an excellent result for this semester.”

Here are your parents’ responses in three different manners.

Disconfirmation: What should we have for dinner?

Confirmation: Going out every night hardly seems like trying very hard.

Rejection: Keep up the good work.

In disconfirmation, there are 4 major offensive language practices.

The first offensive language practice is RACISM. We are racist when we make a particular race look inferior to another by using any language through conscious or unconscious attempt. This could happen everywhere and anywhere. Racist language expresses our racist attitudes. For example, it is consider rude to call an Indian person Keling and to African American it is rude to call them blacks or Nigger.

Source: Facebook

There are certain guidelines we should follow to avoid racist remarks. Firstly, we should avoid disconfirming or confirming to statements or message because of a persons’ skin color. We should not insult or attribute others according to their race or cultural beliefs too. Lastly, we should not generalize and connect extremist attacks.

Next, SEXISM is a prejudicial attitude and beliefs with support favoritism that criticizes about a specific gender. It is also known as having a bias towards a specific gender. In sexism, there is sexist language regarded as a language that puts down a person due to his or her gender. In this practice, it is common for people to have sex-role stereotyping which is the assumption that certain roles or professions belong to men and others belong to women. For example, women should take up the profession of a police officer and men should not take over the role of women as housewives. In today’s society, we should take precaution to avoid sexist remarks. How can we do so? Here are some ways to avoid sexist remarks:

v   Avoid disconfirming or conforming to statements or messages because of their   gender.

v Do not insult or attribute others according to gender bias.

There is also HETEROSEXISM that involves attitudes, behaviors and language used to disparage gays and lesbians. Heterosexism is also a language presumes all people are heterosexual. People in the society should not shun those who are homosexual but learn to accept and understand them instead. We should avoid using heterosexist language. We should avoid offensive nonverbal mannerisms that parody stereotypes, avoid “complimenting” gay men and lesbians on their heterosexual appearance and avoid assuming and individual gay person can speak for all gay people.

convey-yourself.blogspot

Lastly, there is AGEISM whereby it is a prejudice against a person of other age groups. This form of discrimination is usually against the old and aging people. For example, a company would want to hire young graduates instead of mid-age men or women who are about to reach the age of retirement. We should avoid putting off someone because she or he is older, be patient with older folks as some of them might just have a problem with listening, do not assume older people are not interested in relationships and finally yet importantly do not assume older people are not interested in the world around them.

To wrap up the points above, racism, sexism, heterosexism and ageism are the major offensive language practices that we should not make it as a habit. Accept others for who they are.

In order to reduce our discrimination towards others, we should learn more on the preferred terms used in talking to and about members of different cultures. We learn to use language that is free of sexism, heterosexism, racism or ageism. This is cultural identifier. There are three forms of cultural identifiers.

1.       Race and nationality

Do not label people with names that they dislike based on their skin, colors, or traits. We should be sensitive to everyone’s culture. For instance, we should know that it is inappropriate to repute Asians as Orientals as this term regards European culture as preeminent.

2.      Affectional orientation

Do not use the word gay and lesbian in situations like, “I didn’t that someone who is gay/lesbian would be able to do that.” Why is it so? This is because the word gay and lesbian technically refers to a persons’ lifestyle, not their sexual orientation.

3.      Age and sex

 It is impolite for us to call an older person who is above 65 years old as old people. The word old person is rather offensive, so we should regard them as senior citizens. We should also call females and males below 17 years old as young female or girl and young males or boy. For those above 17 years old we should regard them as man and woman. Bear in mind that we should avoid using the word lady too as it is actually a type of stereotype of a proper woman.

For this second major topic on disconfirmation and confirmation, Mr. Anwari had showed us a video on racism. Below is the video. Enjoy J

3.Using Verbal Messages Effectively

The term intensional orientation (the “s” is intentional) refers to the tendency to view people, objects, and events in terms of how they are talked about or the way they are labeled. While extensional orientation refers to a tendency to look first at the actual people, objects, and events before looking at the labels.

For example, intensional orientation occurs when you think of a professor as an unworldly egghead, as that is your generalized image of a professor before getting to know the specific professor. In contrast, extensional orientation means you look at the professor without any preconceived labels, but guided by what he does or says, not judging him by the labels.

 The right way to correct intensional orientation is to focus first on the object, person, or event and then on the way in which the object, person, or event is talked about. Do not allow the labels to obscure what they meant to symbolize although labels can be helpful guides. Besides that, we have to avoid allness. The world is infinitely complex, and because of this you can never say all there is to say about anything—at least not logically. You may think you know all there is to know about certain individuals or about why they did what they did, yet clearly, you don’t know all.

For instance, you go on a first date with someone, just because of the boredom in the first hour during the first date, you may infer that this person is dull, always and everywhere. Yet it could be that this person is simply ill at ease or shy during first meetings. The problem here is that you are judging a person based on a very short acquaintanceship. Further, if you then define this person as dull, you are likely to treat the person as dull and fulfill your own prophecy.

 A useful extensional device that can help you avoid allness is to end each statement, sometimes verbally but always mentally, with an “etc.” (Et cetera)—a reminder that there is more to learn, know, and say; every stat to be sure, some people overuse the “et cetera.” They use it as a substitute for being specific, which defeats its purpose. Instead, it should be used to mentally remind yourself that there is more to know and more to say. Everything is unique. Language, however, provides similar nouns, such as teacher, student, friend, enemy, war, politician and liberal. Such nouns can lead you to group together all teachers, all students, and all friends and divert attention from the uniqueness of each individual, object, and event.

The misevaluation known as indiscrimination, a form of stereotyping, it occurs when you focus on classes of individuals, objects, or events and fail to see that each is unique. Indiscrimination can be seen in such statements, " He’s just like the rest of them: lazy, stupid, a real slob." "Read a detective novel? I read one when I was 16. That was enough to convince me." Index is an extensional device that is antidote to indiscrimination, a mental subscript that identifies each individual in a group as an individual even though all members of the group may be covered by the same label. For example, when you think of an individual politician as just a “politician,” you fail to see the difference between this particular politician and other politicians. However, when you think with the index—when you think not of politician but of politician 1 or politician 2 or politician 3—you’re less likely to fall into the trap of indiscrimination and more easy to differentiate the politicians.

Polarization, referred as the fallacy of “either/or,” is the tendency to look at the world and to describe it in terms of extremes—good or bad, positive or negative, healthy or sick, brilliant or stupid, rich or poor, and so on. Polarized statements come in many forms; for example: < After listening to the evidence, I’m still not clear who is right or who is wrong? < Well, are you for us or against us?

Most people and events exist somewhere between the extremes of good or bad, hardworking or lazy, pretty or ugly and so forth. Yet there seems to be a strong tendency to view only the extremes and to categorize people, objects, and events in terms of these polar opposites. When you use this either/or form in situations in which is 

inappropriate; for example, “The supervisor is either for us or against us.”

The two choices do not simply include all possibilities: The supervisor may be for us in some things and against us in others, or he or she may be neutral. Anything could be. Static evaluation is the tendency to retain evaluation without change while the reality is changing. The mental date helps to keep your language and thinking up to date and guard you against static evaluation. For example, you have to bear in mind that the people you know in 2010 are different with 2012, as time goes by, they will change

That is all on chapter 5….