Words: The bridge of meaning

Summary: [You might view the earlier post “Language – the social tool” before this.] We interpret the data we receive from others during interactions and convert them into information that makes sense to us. It’s not the words that matter, it’s the meanings they carry that induce us to think and act as we do.


Often, we learn not to like differences, to reject thinking in ‘foreign’ ways if they act against the view of the world that our early socializations have given to us.

Stereotypes

Thus, stereotypes are, so to speak, injected into our psyches and triggered unconsciously to influence our thinking and our actions.

We interpret the data we receive from others during interactions and convert them into information that makes sense to us. The (emotional) meanings that are attached to the words - beyond what they denote - carry additional pointers.

We file them away in mind as schemas. They are then used unquestioningly to guide our activities, and provide reasons for our behaviour.

Preconceived notions

We might think that life in the business organization is a matter of critical thinking. However, all too often it relies on pre-conceived notions – of what is seen as ‘best practice’, what other people have done before, and most importantly what form of language and presentation company culture accepts.

It’s not the words that matter, it’s the meanings they carry that induce us to think and act as we do. What this means is that managers need to encourage communication – and indeed conversation - to help people monitor talk and prevent the unconscious practice of infusing life into stereotypes.

Function of education

The function of education is partly to counter-balance conditioned patterns of thought – to subject connotations, schemas and stereotypes to the hard light of analysis and evidence.

We can learn to refuse the promptings of our unconscious schema, and the stereotypes that our memories push before us. But it is not easy – and when we are tired, poorly educated or otherwise less in control, the stereotypes and connotations can retake command.

Conversations – getting used to others

We need to realize that effective communication is not limited to or controlled by either ‘stock of words’ or grammar rules. With language we connect, and it’s by no means a simple tool.

We need to recognize the power of its connotative side that can more easily break than make the global associations we strive for. We need to recognize the need for constant vigilance. Conversations help; they enable us most to get used to others.

And, what we get used to helps us to change, gradually, what we might have brought to our adult lives unquestioningly - the mind-set, and thus, the ‘sense’ we draw from words.

Perhaps this is what language in diversity really stands for – for each of us, a bridge of meaning from past to future.

Comments/opinions, anyone??

Words: The social tool

Summary: Words ‘live’ in conversations – in denotations and connotations. Meanings we hold in mind are already generalized, referring not to one but to a class or group of objects.

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.”

“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”

“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master – that is all.”

Lewis Carroll Through the Looking Glass.

Words mean different things to different people. Language then, is a complicated business, although we might think of it as a simple social tool.

Denote and connote

A large enough stock of words, we feel, should make our talking to others internationally easy. However, how people in different countries learn to speak, understand, or even think a language is far more complex than grammar or ‘dictionary meanings’.

Words ‘live’ in conversations. A word may have a denotation - standing for a person, a place, a thing or an idea. Most words also have connotations - associations, implications and insinuations, associating them with emotions, and feelings that may be judgemental.

For example, the noun ‘pig’ denotes an animal species. But its loaded meanings include dirty, smelly, inquisitive, grossly unpleasant, chauvinism - and cops.

Semantics

Organizational fears are that hints of sexism or discrimination could upset team relations, and productivity. Employers hope to install equality with politically correct language, erasing negative or derogatory words from usage.

But does this correct the mindset? As it happens, meanings we hold in mind are already generalized, the word referring not to one but to a class or group of objects. The mental associations are simply transferred to the replacing words like, for example, idiot-retarded-challenged-differently abled.

With the use of euphemisms, bias and prejudice are no longer visible. But their hold on semantics remains and extends with the (connotative) ‘sense’ moving – from old word to new word.

For diverse workgroups, just keeping up with euphemisms could sometimes make more confusion than sense.

Upbringing

Childhood conversations - Jean Piaget’s “socialized speech” - begin the process of taking in culture. As children grow, they model themselves on parents, teachers and friends - first understanding and then speaking, thinking and acting, just as the others around are seen to do.

People become tied to their background and live life according to the customs, norms, and habits of thought they experience in their upbringing. It makes their world organized. It stabilizes daily life by telling them exactly how to identify things and act on them.

Connotations play a large part in stereotypes - hackneyed conceptions, with perhaps an element of truth and a large dollop of fancy. A stereotype becomes a standard received idea, preserved in our minds.

Cont’d 2…The bridge of meaning

Body language: Twist of the thinking brain

Summary: [You might view the earlier post “Body language: Motivating signals” before this.] Emotional arousal can be motivational. But people can also stop and reason critically before they act.


Our visual impressions register at two levels. When we read the body language in intense situations, our initial reaction is to immediately follow suit.

The context

Understanding the context of the situation is a more deliberate process that comes later, as we explore the image consciously.

We then recognize and elaborate on the body language. Finally we might even reverse our initial reaction and stay put instead.

Through both routes, states of emotional arousal develop. These pump up the energy appropriate for action, be it reflexively, or as the result of conscious thought.

Two circuits

The emotional brain monitors whole body actions. Its hub is called the amygdala. Two neural circuits pass through it.

The first, the subcortical circuit operates in much the same way in all higher order animal species. This is the basis of automatic reflex-like emotional behaviour.

The second, the cortical circuit, includes cognitive centres for thinking and reasoning, and is much more efficient in humans. This sustains recognition of emotional body language, and is more adept at causal assessments.



Critical reasoning

Hence people can rush into action simply because others are doing so. But they can, on the other hand, also stop and reason critically about what they should do:

They say, “Why should I run? Let me look first if there is a reason to run."

So they may also run towards the ‘danger’ than away from it - like reporters do to get scoop news.

As long as the cortical circuitry in the brain remains active, people think for themselves as and when they act, even in an emotionally charged crowd.

Issues of motivation

Group activity may be stimulated in more ways than one. The ‘reasoning’ of emotional body language may at times have more success than words in motivating behaviour.

For example, management planning may send directives for one type of group activity. Yet emotional arousal in cohesive work groups may become high enough to override the formal lines of command and control.

Human motivation is complex. Organizations need to be aware that heterogeneous groups used to different cultures and ways of doing can easily upset expectations of uniform, logical individual and group actions within any system.

Comments/opinions, anyone??

Body language: Motivating signals

Summary: There’s little or no control over the involuntary signals conveyed by our body language. Human and other primates use gestural signals as guides for their own behaviour. The emotional contents are contagious.


Our behaviour, we realize, can telegraph our thoughts.

So we put a good deal of effort into being ‘correct’ at work or in social gatherings. ‘Rules’, social or cultural, are imposed to control voluntary movements in interpersonal relationships.

Tuned to visuals

Despite these safeguards however, there’s little or no control over the involuntary signals (of emotional messages), conveyed by body language – posture, expressions, tone of voice, etc.

Unbeknownst to us, our bodies are tuning through visual, non-verbal cues into ‘understanding’, ‘resonating’, and ‘responding’, all at the same time.

At unconscious levels, we’re emotionally involved with the environment and others we see around us.

The body language

Non-verbal communication isn’t an alternative to speech, but an integral part of language clearly providing clues to sense making.

Researchers at the University of Tilburg, Netherlands explain that we’re actually so sensitive to living and non-living environments that imagery can bring on strong emotional reactions.

So we’re moved to laughter or tears watching a movie or seeing a painting, a sculpture, or just pictures – each image we perceive is worth a thousand words to us.

Human and other primates are especially sensitive to gestural signals. They use them as guides for their own behaviour.

Precise information

Thus, body language is still a very potent motivator of group action. It sends out information that is more precise than speech. The emotional contents are contagious, touching group members, inducing activity.

Even the casual observer can understand the message, and quite unconsciously, experience fellow feelings. All of us carry this strong tendency just as most animals, to do as others do to ‘survive’ as a group.

Emotional arousal

Response depends on the degree of emotional arousal. For example, when a little afraid, a person may show it fleetingly in eyes or face. This means low arousal, and its significance is lost unless others around catch the look and interpret it correctly.

But when the degree of arousal shoots up and the person is terror-stricken, he/she also runs for cover. Distress, clearly enacted, finds ‘like-mindedness’ forthwith.

Onlookers become attentive instantly, their own emotional states rising in response to the cues they are receiving. The collective intent resonates and surges. Everybody runs for cover – without a word being spoken!

Cont’d 2…Twist of the thinking brain