Communication: Powerful Symbols - Essay Example

Words are Powerful Symbols When scholars first tried to model communication, it was envisioned as a simple procedure of one person sending a message to another. It would literally be like the speaker filling up a syringe with his message and injecting it into the receiver who would get the meaning of the message exactly as the source or speaker intended it ("Hypodermic Needle," 2004). There would be no misunderstandings because the words in the speaker's message held consistent meaning for the receiver and they would see the same picture ("Meanings," 2007). In the olden times, mass media's power was seen this way - that it had a direct, immediate and powerful effect on its audiences as was true in the 1940s and 1950s ("Hypodermic Needle," 2004). It is people who assign meaning to language, however. Since people visualize words from their own unique experience, meanings vary. As meanings are in people, they cannot come from one source as a fixed item then shot to another one as the same thing (McNamee, 1993). Words are only symbols of our shared meaning. ("Meanings," 2007). The importance of language is that it should communicate exactly the information we want to convey (McNamee, 1993). In the sense that language is a product of words, one can say that a culture's worldview is affected and influenced by the words of its particular language. Words both create and communicate worldviews (Friam, 2002), and language plays a central role in creation of a worldview. James Sire (2004) defines worldview as "a set of presuppositions which we hold about the basic makeup of our world." He suggests that "we should all think in terms of worldviews, with a consciousness not only of our own way of thought but also that of other people, so that we can first understand and then genuinely communicate with others in our pluralistic society." One's frame of reference is his worldview, the spectacles through which he sees the world (Taylor, 2006). In other words, worldview is the biggest determiner of human behavior. One might say he believes one way, but one's real worldview is revealed by what he does (McNamee, 1993). The philosophical importance of worldviews became increasingly clear during the 20th Century for a number of reasons, such as increasing contact between cultures ("Meanings," 2007) We acquire language when we understand what people say to us and when we understand what we read (Krashen, 2007). Further, in whatever we read and even hear, text will be judged not only on their content but also on their organization and textual impact. The notion of generic structure of narratives and news reports therefore give scope for bias (Goatly, 2001). In news reports, for example, the lead [paragraph] is crafted well to illicit the wanted impact by carefully choosing which element among the who, what, why, where, when, and how to emphasize. According to Goatly (2001), there is a power relation at work in and behind the texts that people encounter in their everyday lives. A writer then must make a language choice in structuring texts, representing the world and positioning the reader. Goatly (2000) expects readers not only to be able to identify fallacies and flaws in logical arguments but also to question the very categories upon which underlying assumptions in those arguments are based. One is therefore suggested to be able to explain "how the world and our relationships within it and to it are constructed through reading and writing." Goatly (2000) recognizes that a speaker of one language has difficulty in thinking in the way in which the speaker of another language thinks. Accordingly, there are ways in which we are "socially positioned by the discourse in which we participate, of how discourse enacts the power relations and conflicts within society." As there is a relationship between language and power, choices then play in structuring thought processes and in influencing social and ecological behavior. Goatly's (2000) words ring true just in the way words are used in the military. In America's Defense Monitor ("Language of War, 2007), records show that "air support" simply meant bombing, "body count" meant killing, "Principles of Dynamic Inaction" meant doing nothing but doing it with style, and "permanent pre-hostility" meant peace. It is just that - Well, it's the professional way of bubbling to the top. If people say precisely what they think, in terms that everyone can understand, they leave themselves no maneuvering room. But if they fuzzify their statements with multi-syllabic interfacing of wordalogical ideotoxicities, then they in the future can interpret it to be whatever it's best for them to interpret to mean at that time. And it keeps the people from finding out what's going on (Boren in "Language of War"). My understanding of what Goatly (2000) is saying is found mostly in my reaction to the "Panic Broadcast" made by Orson Welles and his group. On October 30, 1938 Welles and the newly formed Mercury Theater group broadcast their radio edition of H.G. Wells' "War of the Worlds." On the eve of Halloween, radio programming was interrupted with a "news bulletin" for the first time. What the audience heard was that Martians had begun an invasion of Earth in a place called Grover's Mill, New Jersey. According to the report, as 12 million people in the United States heard the broadcast, about one million of those actually believed that a serious alien invasion was underway. A wave of mass hysteria was said to disrupt households, interrupt religious services, cause traffic jams and clog communication systems. People fled their city homes to seek shelter in more rural areas, raided grocery stores and began to ration food. The nation was in a state of chaos, and this broadcast was the cause of it. By injecting the message directly into the "bloodstream" of the public, there was an attempt to create a uniform thinking. The effects of the broadcast suggested that the media could manipulate a passive and gullible public. For two people to understand one another, they must share the same worldview. A worldview is nothing other than our basic way of viewing the world. In the world of talk or communication or writing however, reality is created, maintained, or altered. When we communicate to people we assume we are sharing a mutually intelligible world. Even the most trivial and insignificant exchanges take place against this background shared: agreement on the conventions of space and time, awareness of gender and racial distinctions, or the meaning of metaphors. It's only because we share the same worldview that our words and sentences make sense. Then and there, conversations and negotiations proceed smoothly, as long as this background is unquestioned or unproblematic. In my experience, I've had to often explain myself what I mean by some terms if I communicate with people with different religions. This is because I and the receiver of my communication do not share the same reality - the contents of what we see, hear, and feel into a world of meaning, order, and stability. Most of the contents of my communication would be infinitely different from his as we have different experiences, and therefore different meaning. The chances of misunderstanding each other then is greater than if I had to be communicating with sometime with whom I have the same worldview. Sameness of worldview, therefore, reduces any chances of misunderstanding, if ever. It becomes the background of meaning for our immediate reality - the things we talk about. Our world view guides us as we communicate and our meaning in our talk is not worlds apart. References "Hypodermic Needle Theory." Theory Clusters. TWC. University of Twente. Last modified on September 6, 2004. http://www.tcw.utwente.nl/theorieenoverzicht/Theory%20clusters/Mass%20Media/Hypodermic_Needle_Theory.doc/ "Meanings are in People."Communication Moments. Vol. 1, Issue #2. September 12, 2007. http://www.inthemoment.com/index.phpoption=content&task=view&id=7&Itemid=75 "The Language of War," America's Defense Monitor, Center for Defense Information. September 12, 2007. http://www.cdi.org/adm/Transcripts/345/ Friam, J. Electric symbols: Internet Words and Culture. First Monday, Volume 7, Number 6, June 2002, http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue7_6/fraim/index.html Goatly, A. 2000. Critical Reading and Writing: An Introductory Course book. Routledge. ISBN-10: 0415195594. ISBN-13: 978-0415195591 McNamee, D. W. Watch your language! August 1, 1993. http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-14506741.html Sire, J. W. (2004). The Universe Next Door: A Basic Worldview Catalog. Intervarsity Pr. ISBN-10: 0830827803. ISBN-13: 9780830827800. Taylor, B. Blah Blah Blah: Making Sense of the World's Spiritual Chatter. 2006. September 11, 2007. http://peopleoffaith.com/christian-worldview.htm Read More