Essay Example

We use language to communicate with others and our language choice influences both our meaning and perception of others. Language influences our meaning because language is subjective. This refers to the fact that the meaning of words is different for those listening. The meaning of words to different people depends on many things such as culture, age or social groups. For example, when I was teenager, my mom did not understand my language because we used many slang words and these words had different meanings for me than they did for her.

In my teenager language “bast” meant “cool girl”, and for my mom it had its normal meaning. Language rules also influence our meaning and perception. Our regulative language rules knowledge reflects on our communication. If we do not know that in the library we should reduce our voice, how would others perceive us when we are speaking aloud? Constitutive rule knowledge gives us an understanding of respect, affection and professionalism. One of the language rules we should always follow includes punctuation rules, because punctuation really shapes meaning in written work.

I have another good example from my childhood in my native language, although it may not translate well to English. I will try to explain clearly in the following two sentences: ‘to execute, it is impossible to pardon’ and ‘to execute it is impossible, to pardon.’ Only the comma location was changed and the difference meant people’s lives. Language shapes perception in another way through the process of labeling. If we label someone, it becomes really hard to change our perception to reflect new knowledge about that person.

A long time ago, I labeled one of my relatives as a very negative person. This was not the truth, but I still find myself thinking of her as negative. We use our language to