M_surinamensis
Shillelagh Law
- Messages
- 1,165
Communication is sort of interesting, from a biological perspective.
Many living things communicate on some level, not just animals either; plants, fungus and bacteria can share information with one another and even outside their own species. There are many different ways this can be accomplished; visuals and direct behaviors, chemically/physiologically, with scents and flavors and vibrations, colors and lights and textures. Some of these are pretty familiar to us and some of the ways we share information (we "get it" when we see a dominant gorilla pound its chest) and some of them are pretty alien to our conscious understanding (like how dying pine trees release gases that can stimulate the production of reproductive cells in members of their own species within a several mile radius, depending on the prevailing weather patterns).
As a species, we're pretty far ahead of the game when it comes to symbol manipulation though. The use of abstracts that are disconnected from the concept we want to communicate in order to relay information. Words, both verbal and written (and the fact that these can be the same thing is just astounding) are something we do exceptionally well. Some other animals can handle a few dozen, sometimes up to a few hundred of these but a normal person knows thousands and thousands of words.
Words that are supposed to be used to communicate a common concept, to share information between individuals who have a common understanding of the concepts the words are intended to represent. If there is no mutual comprehension, then there is no communication. Something that has caused me to have a bit of an internal debate, jumbling together the subjects of responsible communication and adaptive language into a single enormous topic.
When I was in... fifth or sixth grade, my English teacher gave the class two pieces of writing by the same author, to use as examples. They happened to be Martin Luther King Jr's "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" and the text of his "I Have a Dream" speech. Two pieces of writing that are by the same author, broadly addressing the same subject and holding the same position; which are radically different when looked at side by side. The language used, the choice of words, the tone and rhythm are very distinct in each of them. Because, or so my teacher at the time proposed anyway, they were written to communicate with two very different audiences. The letter was a response printed in a newspaper to an editorial where local religious leaders were condemning King's civil disobedience, written by an educated intellectual to communicate with other educated intellectuals. The speech was intended for a wider audience, many of whom had been denied ready access to the same level of academic opportunity that he personally had received. There are other dividing lines, reason versus passion and so on; but the choice of words indicates an awareness of the audience, targeted communication that ensures an effective understanding. This is responsible communication, choosing symbols that can be understood, which are shared in common between the communicator and the comunicatee.
Sometimes I am not so good at that idea of self-imposed limitations of vocabulary, though depending on who it is I am speaking to, the results can be very different. Some people look up words they don't know or ask for clarification (that's what I do when it comes up) and others just skip it and fail to understand.
Then there's adaptive language. Language changes, over time. Words are created to describe new things in a changing world, to convey concepts which didn't previously exist. Words fall into disuse as ideas are set aside or discarded. Sounds and pronunciation changes as we all adapt to the common use of other people, dialects and speech patterns change over time and over space. Sometimes there are distinct events which can alter some aspects rather abruptly; the Simplified Spelling Board for example, is why there are U.S. and British spellings for many words (color/colour, meter/metre). A combination of internet chat rooms and texting capable cell phones have given rise to enormous changes in the popular approach to writing. English has proven to be one of the most adaptive languages in the world. The upside of that is versatility, english speaking cultures have no problems making up new words and adding them to their lexicon quickly and easily (consequentially many other languages simply use the english word for whatever this new thing is). The downside is the potential breakdown of communication between individuals who have different vocabularies. We teach college courses so that people can comprehend what Chaucer wrote six hundred years ago. The average slob on the street can barely understand Shakespeare and he was writing four hundred years ago. Hell, I knew post-graduate students who couldn't make their way through Catcher in the Rye and it was written less than fifty years earlier and (while it is significant from a literary and cultural standpoint) it is not exactly intended to be reserved for the intellectual elite. El Cid was written nine hundred (or more) years ago and is easily understood using modern conversational Spanish, because the language didn't evolve as much.
So why do I have no problems accepting Americanized spellings and the way English changed over the centuries before I learned it to the modern incarnation I use conversationally... but have nothing but contempt and spite for LoLspeak? Is this my failing, a rigidity that doesn't let me change and adapt my vocabulary to a rapidly evolving language and modern usages or is it really the complete breakdown of the ability for my culture to communicate? Because I see so many misunderstandings that I honestly think most LoLspeakers would be better off just grunting at one another with emotional emphasis... or that we'd all be better off if they had been drowned in a bucket of tar shortly after birth.
I only really bring any of this up because it keeps coming up when I use the internet. I get so frustrated by the inability of some people to understand anything that is said to them, by these shifting frames of reference and by the comprehension gamble I take anytime I choose a word. Will they understand exactly what I am trying to say, because we agree on an identical definition of the words I used? Will they misunderstand by a little bit? By a lot? Will they fail to form any idea at all because it is just outside their vocabulary entirely? Will I communicate a proper intonation and emotional context or will it be lost because we have a different nuanced understanding of what the words meant when arranged in the order I chose? Where does this Kids in the Hall sketch fit in? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMsKIK4WG2s Or is it an infinite monkey situation at times?
... I really just wanted to tell someone that their deformed lizard was a tragic abnormality that should have been culled the moment it hatched rather than celebrated with youtube videos, but I knew... just knew, that they would never understand what I was trying to say.
Many living things communicate on some level, not just animals either; plants, fungus and bacteria can share information with one another and even outside their own species. There are many different ways this can be accomplished; visuals and direct behaviors, chemically/physiologically, with scents and flavors and vibrations, colors and lights and textures. Some of these are pretty familiar to us and some of the ways we share information (we "get it" when we see a dominant gorilla pound its chest) and some of them are pretty alien to our conscious understanding (like how dying pine trees release gases that can stimulate the production of reproductive cells in members of their own species within a several mile radius, depending on the prevailing weather patterns).
As a species, we're pretty far ahead of the game when it comes to symbol manipulation though. The use of abstracts that are disconnected from the concept we want to communicate in order to relay information. Words, both verbal and written (and the fact that these can be the same thing is just astounding) are something we do exceptionally well. Some other animals can handle a few dozen, sometimes up to a few hundred of these but a normal person knows thousands and thousands of words.
Words that are supposed to be used to communicate a common concept, to share information between individuals who have a common understanding of the concepts the words are intended to represent. If there is no mutual comprehension, then there is no communication. Something that has caused me to have a bit of an internal debate, jumbling together the subjects of responsible communication and adaptive language into a single enormous topic.
When I was in... fifth or sixth grade, my English teacher gave the class two pieces of writing by the same author, to use as examples. They happened to be Martin Luther King Jr's "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" and the text of his "I Have a Dream" speech. Two pieces of writing that are by the same author, broadly addressing the same subject and holding the same position; which are radically different when looked at side by side. The language used, the choice of words, the tone and rhythm are very distinct in each of them. Because, or so my teacher at the time proposed anyway, they were written to communicate with two very different audiences. The letter was a response printed in a newspaper to an editorial where local religious leaders were condemning King's civil disobedience, written by an educated intellectual to communicate with other educated intellectuals. The speech was intended for a wider audience, many of whom had been denied ready access to the same level of academic opportunity that he personally had received. There are other dividing lines, reason versus passion and so on; but the choice of words indicates an awareness of the audience, targeted communication that ensures an effective understanding. This is responsible communication, choosing symbols that can be understood, which are shared in common between the communicator and the comunicatee.
Sometimes I am not so good at that idea of self-imposed limitations of vocabulary, though depending on who it is I am speaking to, the results can be very different. Some people look up words they don't know or ask for clarification (that's what I do when it comes up) and others just skip it and fail to understand.
Then there's adaptive language. Language changes, over time. Words are created to describe new things in a changing world, to convey concepts which didn't previously exist. Words fall into disuse as ideas are set aside or discarded. Sounds and pronunciation changes as we all adapt to the common use of other people, dialects and speech patterns change over time and over space. Sometimes there are distinct events which can alter some aspects rather abruptly; the Simplified Spelling Board for example, is why there are U.S. and British spellings for many words (color/colour, meter/metre). A combination of internet chat rooms and texting capable cell phones have given rise to enormous changes in the popular approach to writing. English has proven to be one of the most adaptive languages in the world. The upside of that is versatility, english speaking cultures have no problems making up new words and adding them to their lexicon quickly and easily (consequentially many other languages simply use the english word for whatever this new thing is). The downside is the potential breakdown of communication between individuals who have different vocabularies. We teach college courses so that people can comprehend what Chaucer wrote six hundred years ago. The average slob on the street can barely understand Shakespeare and he was writing four hundred years ago. Hell, I knew post-graduate students who couldn't make their way through Catcher in the Rye and it was written less than fifty years earlier and (while it is significant from a literary and cultural standpoint) it is not exactly intended to be reserved for the intellectual elite. El Cid was written nine hundred (or more) years ago and is easily understood using modern conversational Spanish, because the language didn't evolve as much.
So why do I have no problems accepting Americanized spellings and the way English changed over the centuries before I learned it to the modern incarnation I use conversationally... but have nothing but contempt and spite for LoLspeak? Is this my failing, a rigidity that doesn't let me change and adapt my vocabulary to a rapidly evolving language and modern usages or is it really the complete breakdown of the ability for my culture to communicate? Because I see so many misunderstandings that I honestly think most LoLspeakers would be better off just grunting at one another with emotional emphasis... or that we'd all be better off if they had been drowned in a bucket of tar shortly after birth.
I only really bring any of this up because it keeps coming up when I use the internet. I get so frustrated by the inability of some people to understand anything that is said to them, by these shifting frames of reference and by the comprehension gamble I take anytime I choose a word. Will they understand exactly what I am trying to say, because we agree on an identical definition of the words I used? Will they misunderstand by a little bit? By a lot? Will they fail to form any idea at all because it is just outside their vocabulary entirely? Will I communicate a proper intonation and emotional context or will it be lost because we have a different nuanced understanding of what the words meant when arranged in the order I chose? Where does this Kids in the Hall sketch fit in? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMsKIK4WG2s Or is it an infinite monkey situation at times?
... I really just wanted to tell someone that their deformed lizard was a tragic abnormality that should have been culled the moment it hatched rather than celebrated with youtube videos, but I knew... just knew, that they would never understand what I was trying to say.
