Discussion 4, Chapter 4

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Apr 3, 2024

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Discussion #4: Chapter 4 John Randle 1. Please describe the differences between high and low context cultures. What does being in a high or low context culture have to do with language? What type of culture are you from in your own opinion? Well to begin with high-context culture, these are those in which the rules of communication in mainly communicated/transmitted through the use of contextual elements such as a person’s status, ton of voice, or their body language and in which they’re not absolutely stated. This is where the key difference is between the two. According to Study , “This is in direct contrast to low-context cultures, in which information is communicated primarily through language and rules are explicitly spelled out.” (Williams, 1). This also doesn’t necessarily mean that every culture is completely high-context or low-context. All societies contain some at least some parts that are a mixture of both, for example the United States is categorized as a low-context culture, but a common thread such as a family gathering is actually an example of high-context. For high-context, t he context in which the communication takes place is key to the communication of the message, whereas with low-context, the context in which the communication takes place is secondary/not as important to the message. I think the culture I fall under would the low-context category, I say this just because of the things I’m usually surrounded by such as information being explicitly shown in the messages themselves, or people following the rules and standards closely! 2. In section 4.2, language considerations, please identify each consideration and provide examples of each from your own experience. To begin, there’s ambiguous language which in most cases you should try to avoid for confusion with your audience. Not using specific language can make the sentence very vague and lead to different meanings. Jimmy states in his novel, “Descriptive words are ambiguous by nature. Think of words such as attractive, hideous, hungry, delightful, sweet, fun, nice, mean, etc. All of these words can mean different things to different people.” (Urbanovich, 112). For a personal experience, back when I was in 7 th grade I think, I was with my friend Carter and I had got my first video game, Call of Duty. Well, the first couple of scenes were a little graphic and he made the comment, “This is sick!”, and I didn’t know which context he was using. Did he think it was cool, or was he actually disgusted? It turned out to be him thinking it was actually just super cool, but I think this works very well, because he could’ve used different language and I could’ve understood his statement earlier! When using concrete language, as Jimmy states, we leave our audience less room for misinterpretation. Concreate language consists of using more specific language and words to get across your meaning. Jimmy states, “Rather than saying that someone is attractive, we could say that this person was recently crowned Miss America, or that she has dark brown eyes with solid cheek structure.” (Urbanovich, 112). I think an example that fits for me quite well is whenever a plane passes over head, instead of saying the normal, “Oh, there’s a plane”, I will usually say the exact model of the plane due to the fact that I’m a plane fanatic. A normal response would usually be, “Actually, that’s an FA-18 Super Hornet E Model most likely coming from Nellis Airforce Base”. For bypassing, its simply just words or phrases that sound the same but can have different meanings. For example, if I were to say, “Brian you’re burnt”, in the case I would be using it in would be if he did something dumb. In my mothers’ case, she would most likely say, “that bread is burnt”, implying that the bread got overcooked. The term jargon is especially used when in a certain area or career such as police officers using their catchphrases. If a pilot was trying to use jargon with a chef, it most likely wouldn’t have the same impact as if they were talking to another pilot. Think of connotative language as something you say not at someone, but when you hit knee against the wall super hard and a “Motherf*****” accidentally slips out. Denotative is actually used for a purpose, or towards someone, so in this case it would be calling someone the bad word. Lastly for euphemism and dysphemism, euphemism is when you can replace maybe a word that is too blunt or for example “too harsh”. If you were to say, “that girl is ugly”, that’s a little harsh. Instead, one may, “I don’t think that girl is my type”. For dysphemism, it is when someone uses a derogatory term in place of neutral term. I really liked jimmy’s example of when he states, “Referring to a mental hospital as a ‘nuthouse’…” (Urbanovich, 115).

3. What is the Sapir Whorf hypothesis? How does it work to reveal cultural prejudices? To begin, Sapir and Whorf believed that language influences thought…that’s the short version. For a more complex one, Sapir-Whorf describe in their work a, “…new principle of relativity, which holds that all observers are not led by the same physical evidence to the same picture of the universe, unless their linguistic backgrounds are similar.” (Livingstone, 1). What came from his research was that speakers of different kinds of language, as a appeared to show that speakers of varied languages were, as a final product of the difference between the two languages, intellectually different from one another. In simpler terms, it basically refers to the idea that a certain language a person speaks influences the way one thinks about reality. Our culture can be thought of as a lens through which us humans experience the world and develop shared meaning. It continues that the language that us human beings use is created in response to cultural needs. There is an obvious relationship between the way in which how we perceive the world and how we talk. The one important question that many people have asked is how the language that our society uses influences its culture and I think that is what Sapir and Whorf discovered in their research. 4. How is social media changing language in contemporary culture? Please answer this in terms of the class text, outside sources and your own personal experience. There can be no denying that social media has a significant impact on the ways that we communicate. Social media impacts our language by changing the meaning of some of our vocabulary or the words we “think” we know the meaning of. Not only has social media changed the way of our usual language terms, it has also introduced us humans to new terms and phrases! According to LinguaGreca , “Phrases such as “rolling on the floor laughing” or “talk to you later” are quickly changed to “ROFL” or “TTYL.” These short acronyms creep up in everyday language, proving that sometimes words, when put together, can make you “LOL” or “laugh out loud.” (Wilson, 1). I feel this is very true in the way as I even use this new language. Sometimes having a normal conversation with any student ranging almost from 6 th grade all the way to the college level is very difficult! SO many new terms are thrown around such as, “being in your bag” or “you’re burnt kid”. I said the second one to my mother and she responded with, “but John, I didn’t go in the sun today...”. What the real meaning of that word is basically when someone says something dumb or obvious, you will say, “you’re burnt”. This is just one example of many new terms happening in the new social media age.

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