Influence of Language on Communication - Essay Example

Introduction Language transmits information through written, reading, spoken, listening, sign language or/ and body language. Humans uniquely evolve solely in the ability and capacity to communicate with a language. Likewise, animals have their own language for instance, bees dance. Grammar is essential to language and perhaps came before thought and words in order to transfer people’s perceptions amongst each other. The underlying question is why do people communicate and how? Hence the usual question, what is language? Human communication is basically cooperative and shared intentions. Influence of language on communication The provocative and original account of human communication evolutionary origins, Michael Tomasello links the essential cooperative hierarchy of human communication, earlier discovered by Paul Grice, establishing the human cooperative structure as compared to social of interaction other primates. Tomasello posits that human cooperative communication emanates on a psychological infrastructure of common, joint attention as well as common ground. It evolved initially for collaboration and culture. The fundamental motives of the infrastructure are assisting and sharing of human communication. It request help and tells others of helpful things and share attitudes to bond within the cultural group. These cooperative motives created varying functional pressures for standardize grammatical constructions. For example, requesting help from immediate you-and-me and here-and-now, demands little grammar, but notifying and sharing needed rising complex grammatical devices. Empirical research in the form of gestural and vocal communication sounds inconsequential and irrelevant in providing basic issues as language, meaning, and communication. These are fundamental elements of arguments than inferences, propositions, and conclusions. It does not make sense for an argument about language purpose and meaning not communicated in the first instance. Language is a broad and complex parameter employed in communicating incredible number of different items. For this purposes, the universe of communication can be reduced to four basic classifications: ceremony, emotion, information, and direction. The first two lump together as they express cognitive meaning. The latter two expresses emotional meaning. Information communication happens most frequently in the thought-of use, but may not be as dominant as most people believe. The basic avenues of relaying information are statements or propositions. A proposition constitutes any declaration that underscores some fact, as opposed to value or opinion in the construction of arguments. Some incorrect “information” arises from invalid arguments. However, for reasons of learning logic, information relays a false or true statement. The informative statement content may be indirect or direct. Most statements in arguments are direct, for example, “all men are mortal.” In the case of indirect information, communication reads between the lines. Poetry, for instance, relays indirect information through ways like metaphors. Communicating direction happens when language causes or prevents an action. The basic examples would be when someone yells “Stop!” or “Come here!”. Commands cannot be true or false, unlike the communication of information. On the contrary, the reasons for providing commands may be true or false and thus be applicable to logical critique. Finally, language may be applied to express emotions and feelings and as such, expressions may or may not be intentional in evoking reactions in others. However, when emotional language happens in an argument the objective is to provide similar feelings in others so as to sway agreements with the argument’s conclusion(s). The ceremonial language use results in communication of emotional meaning, but may not be holistically accurate. The challenge with ceremonial language is the involvement all three other classifications at some strata and can be very hard to interpret well. For example, a priest using ritual phrases may be conveying information regarding religious rituals thus invoking assumed emotional reactions in religious following. It directs them to start the following stage of the ritual at one go and with similar couple of words. Ceremonial language is neither literally understood nor their literal meanings ignored. In common discourse, the three categories are not encountered in communication while in pure form. Ordinarily, people’s communication employs all kinds of strategies at once. This is also positive of arguments involving propositions desired to relay information that may be phrased and designed to evoke emotion. It results to a directive in some order required to follow from agreeing with the argument in question. Ability to isolate emotional and informational language is an important element to understand and evaluate an argument. At times, substantive reasons lack hence the possibility of accepting the truth of a conclusion is by way of emotional terminology. This is sometimes deliberate or accidental. Deliberate application of emotional language is evident in many commercial advertisements and political speeches. They are built to enable people share emotional reactions to something. Casual conversations make emotional language less deliberate owing to emotional expression in a natural aspect of communication with one another. Entirely no one constructs normal arguments in an ideally logical form. It has no inherent wrongs but complicates the argument analysis. Regardless of the motive, obtaining the emotional language and leaving out raw propositions and inferences is significant in ensuring that correct things evaluated. At times care where a single word holds entirely neutral and fair literal meaning. However, it also embodies emotional impact that influences a person’s reaction. Consider, for instance, the terminologies “bureaucrat” and “public servant”. It can be employed in describing similar positions and neutral meanings in their greater literal sense. The first instance arouses resentment, while the latter depicts more honorable and positive positions. In some situations, a term like “government official” for the time being sounds ideally neutral and missing in either positive or negative impact. Conclusion If a good argument is to be developed, it is proper to evaluate the arguments of others and perhaps demands excellent use of language. The honor here is to have a better approach at structuring ones thoughts and ideas so as to be able to comprehend them. In turn, it will enable easier expression of language in a variety of ways by helping others understand you. It also allows one to identify flaws which require fixing. This is where logic and critical reasoning skills stream in, though skills with language come first. Works Cited Adler, R. B. Understanding Human Communication. OUP, 2003. Aitchinson, J. The Seeds of Speech. Cambridge, 2000. Christiansen, M. H. and S. Kirby, eds. Language Evolution. OUP, 2003. Crystal, D. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language. Cambridge U P, 1995. Finch, G. Linguistic Terms and Concepts, Macmillan, 2000. Guasti, M. T. Language Acquisition. MIT Press, 2002. Misra, S. and Muralikrishna. C. Communication Skills for Engineers. Pearson, 2004. Read More