Analyzing Conversations

Do you analyze conversations that you have on a daily basis?  I do.  Most introverts do, I think. The conversations that I have, even email messages, run through my head until I put them to rest. I must admit to even analyzing anonymous conversations that I overhear in stores, offices, restaurants, and campuses.  It's nosy, but it's such a great way to learn more about human nature!

Analyzing communication is not a new idea.   An English language philosopher, Paul Grice, wrote about the Cooperative Principle in 1975.  He observed that most conversation partners cooperate with one another in order to have effective communication.  The Cooperative Principle breaks down into four maxims. 

MAXIM OF QUANTITY  Each speaker gives no more or no less information than is required. Let's take the idea of more information first.  As an example, when I ask for directions, I often find that people overwhelm me with details that I can't remember anyway.  A few simple directions like "Right turn on Elm, left turn on First, first house on the right" would help me considerably. Sometimes my husband Wayne will relate a conversation that he has had and remark, "And he told me a whole lot more than I wanted to know." The Maxim of Quantity had been violated, I'm sure.

Now for the idea of less information.  Someone announces, "I got a new bread machine for Christmas."  A second person asks, "What have you made?"  First speaker answers, "Bread."  Hmm.  I might need to call in a psychologist to analyze that response!

MAXIM OF QUALITY  Each speaker speaks the truth and bases information on sufficient evidence. Husband to wife:  "Are you cold?"  Wife:  "No, I enjoy sitting in a meat locker."  A bit of sarcasm here, I believe.  I hope this marriage survives!

MAXIM OF RELATION   Each speaker contributes information relevant to the subject.  

First diner:  "Do you want dessert?  Second diner:  "Does the sun come up in the east?"  The first diner has to do a bit of thinking to realize that the second diner is saying "Yes."

MAXIM OF MANNER  Each speaker should speak in a clear fashion, avoiding vagueness, ambiguity, and wordiness.  Someone once told me that a neighbor "slept on the other side of the bed." Which side is the other side, I wondered?   It took me a few minutes to realize that the description was a euphemism for "gay."

Do we always follow the Cooperative Principle?  Probably not, and that's where concepts like humor, lying, sarcasm, and withholding information come into play.  Another interesting idea would be to determine if other cultures use the Cooperative Principle for communication in the same way as we do in English (I'll bet they don't!)

This YouTube video about violations to the Conversational Maxims should give you a good laugh! 

Saying What You Really Mean

Do you usually say exactly what you mean?  I'll bet your first response was "Of course I do. Doesn't everyone?"  Let's look at some examples of real language used in specific situations that may change your mind.

On a recent trip to Los Angeles, California, a group of us were dining at an upscale restaurant near The Grove.  (At least the menu prices hinted that this was a location for finer dining.)  My friend Mary, visiting from London, had a good laugh when the waitress appeared at her shoulder at the end of our meal and asked, "Are you still enjoying your dinner?"  You could surmise, of course, as Mary did, that the waitress was just checking to see if Mary was through with her meal, in which case the waitress would no doubt immediately have whisked her plate away . But the question had many possible interpretations and answers.  "No, the food tasted better before I got heartburn";  "Yes, the guacamole has just the right touch of spice";   "No, the music is too loud and the room is too hot" all come to mind.  But of course the waitress could have said more directly, "May I remove your plate?"

Many years ago, when I was grade school age, my mother and I religiously watched Perry Mason on television.  He was handsome, suave, and in control of every situation. During one episode, Perry Mason needed to have a private conversation with a client, so he turned to his secretary, Della Street, and asked, "May I impose?"   Della knew her boss well enough that she was able to interpret his question as a request for her to leave the room.  My mother and I had a good laugh and decided that we wouldn't have been quite so discerning.

Married couples are particularly adept at not expressing themselves in a direct manner.  And my husband of 32 years and I are no exception.  When he says, " I just saw the postman pass by,"  it  means he wants me to be the one to walk out to the mailbox and retrieve the mail.  If I say, "I've got work to do this evening." it is breaking the bad news to him gently that I won't be preparing supper.   

I'm sure by now you are thinking of many instances in your life of use of indirect language.  We often choose not to speak directly because we want to soften our expression, or appear more polite, or feel more comfortable suggesting rather than demanding.  It is part of our American culture.  

But have you ever considered the effort  it takes to understand others (or for others to understand us) when language is not direct?  We can't take the actual words at face value.  We have to go beyond the words expressed and add information from our own minds to correctly interpret indirect language. Cultural information, personal information, familiarity with the situation, location, and a good dose of common sense are all useful in interpreting language.  And we all do the necessary interpretation naturally until there is a misunderstanding.  If you have ever tried to learn a foreign language, you know that the words that you hear are often not what the person meant for you to understand.


The field of Linguistics has a term for the study of language in real contexts.  It is Pragmatics.  (Linguists spend a good deal of time, I think, thinking up esoteric terms that normal people don't understand immediately !)


Let me know if this brief discussion of use of language in context brings to mind any misunderstandings that you have experienced because of use of indirect language.  Those situations are often good for a hearty laugh!

You'd Think I'd Know How to Acquire a Language by Now!

A recent email message from a longtime friend caused my head to start whirling.  "I would like to pick your brain about learning Chinese."  We are meeting up for a short visit soon, and I know the topic will come up.

Yes, my field of study is languages.  Yes, I am a big fan of Linguistics.  Yes, I taught a foreign language, either Spanish or  Portuguese for many years.  But do I have the best advice to give someone who wants to learn another language, especially a good friend whom I don't want to lead astray?  I'm embarrassed to say I don't have a definitive answer.

I suppose I will begin our conversation with a description of the Communicative Approach.  This popular approach to learning a language emphasizes communication in the language (listening, speaking, reading and writing, not necessarily in that order) over learning and practicing grammar rules.  "Heresy!" many will cry.  "I want to speak correctly, not sound like a Tarzan-Jane conversation." 

It is so very difficult to convince language learners, especially well-educated adults, that communication should come first, followed perhaps by some targeted grammar study, not vice versa. The optimal mix of communicative skills and grammar is still being (passionately!) debated in the language profession.  But, my friend wants to learn Chinese NOW.

I think my first question to her would be, "What do you want to be able to do in Chinese?"  Most of us set our goals for language learning too high and expect quick results.  I wish learning a language could be as doable as learning a new software program - difficult but achievable.  I even wish I could equate learning a language to learning how to use the iPad (could it be going on a year and a half that I have been trying to make friends with that device?)  But deciding to become fully proficient in a new language under ordinary circumstances is a lifelong task.  It is a commitment only equaled to feeding the stray cat who begs for food at the back door.  As much as I applaud both activities, you may find that you have bitten off more than you can chew.

So, how about breaking down the nebulous goal of learning a language into doable steps, the more specific the better?  Maybe I'll ask my friend questions like the following.   Is there one language skill you want to concentrate on first?  Do you want to travel to China and hold simple conversations with native speakers? Do you want to read Chinese signs?  Would you like to start an Internet conversation with a native speaker? How long are you giving yourself to achieve a specific goal?  How will you know when you reach it?    We might make a start in helping her develop a Chinese language learning plan.

Let's see how the language learning conversation with my dear friend goes.  Tune in next week for an update! 

Will you be making merry on New Year's Eve?

Charming! was my first thought as I read about New Year's celebrations in El Paso (my home town) in 1913.  Yes, that would be exactly a century ago.  I was reading "Viva 1914", a "Tales From the Morgue" article in the El Paso Times for December 29, 2013 by Trish Long.

The direct quotations from the 100 year old article drew me back for a second reading. Why was I so fascinated?  It was the language used in writing the 1914 article, of course! We all know that changes in language are inevitable, whether we approve of those changes or not.  And change in language is usually not abrupt.  It sneaks up on us until,  one day, we realize that certain words or expressions or grammatical constructions are beginning to sound (as my 28 year old son frequently reminds me), old-fashioned, passé, so last century.

Here are some of the expressions from the 1913 article that I would judge as more typical of 1913 than 2013.  See if you would agree.

"Young and Old Make Merry..."   "The streets were thronged with merrymakers."   I don't think we do much making merry these days.  I would say that we had fun or had a great time. Some people might say that they had a blast (already out of date?). But a quick glance at a thesaurus reminds me that there are lots more interesting synonyms for making merry  (http://thesaurus.com/browse/make+merry).  You can paint the town, raise hell, make whoopee, live it up, let loose, kick up one's heels, or have a ball.  But even those expressions sound a little worn.  What do young people say these days, I wonder?  It isn't 'make merry' for sure!

"It was a merry old night for El Paso, everybody being gay..."  As everyone is aware these days, the word 'gay' has made a semantic shift so that the original meaning of 'happy' is now considered secondary to the primary meaning of 'homosexual'.

"The police bothered but few merrymakers last night.  Those who became rowdy or rough were summarily 'pinched' and sent to jail..."  The word 'pinched' was in single quotes in the original article, so it must have been considered slang in 1913.  A modern day slang meaning for 'pinched' is 'steal'.  

Now this next expression I love.  "Up in the ballroom the merry dancers tripped the light fantastic..."  Would modern day dances be described in such fanciful terms? I can't quite get a picture of that.

The article "Viva 2014" delighted me in other ways than the chance to do a little linguistic analysis. Life in January 1914 in El Paso felt so innocent and so hopeful.  What a contrast to present day articles about New Year's celebrations that urge restraint in eating and drinking and stress safety as the main concern. I would love to have joined my fellow El Pasoans of a century ago in ringing in the New Year.  But since I can't...

Charles Dickens' Amazing Language

Should I really read Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol again this holiday season?  I've been making that activity a Christmas tradition for more years than I can remember.  I know every character, every plot twist, every description, and I can even quote some of the lines.  Could Dickens still enthrall me?

I picked up my well worn paperback copy and decided to read just a few pages this year.  I was hooked. And it wasn't so much what Dickens said as how he said it.  Unlike many modern books that encourage lighting-speed reading to find out what happens next, Dickens slows down my frantic reading pace so that I can savor his language.  I want to share with you some of Dickens' language that still sends a thrill up my spine.

Photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/lorenjavier/3558739760/">Loren Javier</a> / <a href="http://foter.com/">Foter.com</a> / <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/">CC BY-ND</a>

"Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner!"  Every time I am not as generous at Christmas time as I should be, I think about that string of adjectives.  I wouldn't anyone to substitute my name for Scrooge!

"He [Scrooge] carried his own low temperature always about him;..."  Can't you just picture it?  A person who gives off such negative signals that he succeeds in driving away the world, which is exactly what he wants to achieve.

"The city clocks had only just gone three but it was quite dark already-it had not been light all day,,,"  Even in El Paso, Texas, I notice darkness stealing away the light starting at about 3:00 pm.  I think that has a profound effect on a person's psyche.








When the boy Scrooge is going home with his sister, Fan, the schoolmaster invites them to his very chilly parlor to partake of "...a decanter of curiously light wine, and a block of curiously heavy cake."  The description of those refreshments always brings a smile to my face.

And how I would like to have attended the Fezziwigs' Christmas celebration to meet the participants.   "In came the three Miss Fezziwigs, beaming and lovable.  In came the six young followers whose hearts they broke."







I would have enjoyed shopping for Christmas dinner at the fruiterers where there were "...great, round pot-bellied baskets of chestnuts, shaped like the waistcoats of jolly old gentlemen, lolling at the doors..."

But the future turns darker.  Dickens describes the two children under the Ghost's robe, Ignorance and Want as "yellow, meager, ragged, scowling, wolfish..."  The last of the Spirits leads Scrooge to a graveyard and points to a gravestone with Scrooge's name.  Scrooge wants to know if he is doomed.

 

  "The finger pointed from the grave to him and back again.
   'No, spirit!  Oh, no,no!'
   The finger still was there."


A Christmas Carol  is available free online from many different sources.  Thanks for letting me share some of my favorite Dickens' language.  Do you have a favorite scene from A Christmas Carol?

Happy Holidays to all.  See you the week of December 30th!

Do you make statements into questions like Valley Girls do?

'Uptalk' may no longer be just for California Valley Girls.  Have you noticed English speakers using a rising intonation at the end of statements instead of questions lately?  I have, and I must admit I have broken the cardinal rule of descriptive linguists: Accept language as it is currently being used rather than criticize usage. But that new use of  rising intonation has been bugging me!

These thoughts came to me after reading the article, "More men speaking in girls' 'dialect,' study shows" at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-25232387.  First I was intrigued by what a girls' 'dialect' might be.  As I understand it, linguists don't agree on the question of whether men and women speak differently. But the raised pitch at the end of all sentences has been identified with young women in California and Australia.  (Why Australia, I asked myself, but that is a topic for another time.)

In English, our pitch generally rises when we want to speak a question.  For example, the statement "The children played" can be transformed into a question by letting your voice rise on the 'played.' So a rising intonation for statements as well as questions is a new ( and therefore controversial) feature of the English language. 

If you are not quite sure what rising intonation is, see if you can identify at least two instances of  a speaker making a statement sound like a question in this YouTube video.

California/Valley Girl Accent 

'Uptalk' has been criticized for making the speaker appear to be less than credible.  Adjectives like 'airhead' and 'ditzy' come to mind.   But how about the use of   'uptalk' by the young lady in the video?  I think she made statements into questions as part of a communication style that attempts to involve the listener.  She appears to be seeking the understanding, and possibly the confirmation of her ideas, by the listener.  And isn't that what we females often do? Ask a question to involve the other person?

The article states that women are often trailblazers in language, coming up with innovations first, with the males following later.  And the article states that more men are now using 'uptalk.'  I had always viewed women as the more conservative gender in speech, but that may be changing as well. 

I'm going to start listening for more instances of 'uptalk' now. And I am going to be really embarrassed if I find myself using that language device. I would be interested to learn if you or your acquaintances are now into 'uptalk.'   

Something Got Lost in Translation

My home in El Paso, Texas is a living laboratory for language use.  El Paso is a bilingual community on the Texas-Mexico international border.  I constantly read every written word in sight and eavesdrop on as many conversations as I can without being obvious. So, I  keep myself well entertained in life by analyzing why a language expression  is just a little off as we attempt to express ourselves in English and Spanish. 

Take for example a sign that has popped up recently in our neighborhood. "We install Xmas lights. Elegant and fine." I am usually doing my 20 minute a day constitutional when I see it, so I have plenty of time to consider why that sign strikes me as a bit odd.   Does the sign communicate? Yes, of course, but it's the word 'fine' that interests me. 






Even though the Merriam Webster Dictionary lists 'elegant' as a synonym for 'fine', my instinct as an English native speaker is otherwise.  I can imagine a holiday light display as being 'elegant', but I probably wouldn't describe it as 'fine'.  Ah, but the Spanish word 'fino' carries a sense of being refined, classy, well-executed. I think this is a case of translating 'fino' as 'fine' (the two words being cognates), but the range of nouns that are described by the two adjective is a shade different.  Is this a big deal?  No, just something to ponder as I huff and puff around the neighborhood park.

Another example.  Recently I overheard a conversation in a local pharmacy waiting area that went something like this:
Customer:  We have been waiting for a long time for our prescription.
Employee:  What is your last name?
Customer:  Smith
Employee:  And your name?
Customer:  Do you mean my first name?
Employee:  Yes.
Customer:  Susan.

What led to the momentary confusion?  I think it was the fact that in English, the general concept of 'name' divides into 'first name' and 'last name'.  But in Spanish, the division is made by using two different words, 'apellido' (last name) and 'nombre'  (first name).  So the employee did a quick translation of 'nombre' to the English 'name' and didn't quite communicate.  A good example, I think, of the complexities of a bilingual society.

And lest you should think I am being overly critical, let me confess a serious language mistake I made when I was young, trying to communicate in my second language, Spanish.  I was still in college, teaching Spanish at an institute run by a elderly, refined gentleman.  I had occasion to write him a note about a visitor who had come to see him, and I used the word 'hombre' instead of 'señor'.  It was the equivalent of calling the person  a 'man' instead of a 'gentleman'.  I didn't lose my job, but I did get sufficiently chastised to not make that mistake ever again.

Have you had similar language experiences with something that got lost in translation?  I would love to hear about them.