Watch the reading above, or read the written version below.
A small miracle
It is my belief that language is a small miracle, and the ability to communicate is an expansion of that.
So much of my belief as a writer is that the pen is mightier than the sword. I owe most of the successes in my life to my ability to lean into the written word, into language and into communication. It has helped me win, it has helped me avoid losses, and it has quite literally created new opportunities.
With an election taking place this week, I want to encourage you to remember your own unique abilities when it comes to critical thinking and consciousness. So I'm sharing a short reading from one of my favourite books, Language and Language Learning: Theory and Practice by Nelson Brooks. The passage is called "Analysis of a language event," and it is the clearest picture I know of what actually happens when one person speaks to another.
A knock at the door
Brooks starts with a warning: "A supreme difficulty in the stating of a theory of language lies in the fact that there are so many different fields of study involved." Then he picks the simplest scene he can find.
A is sitting at a desk in an office, writing a letter. There is a knock at the door. A calls out, "Just a minute." He opens the door to B, who says, rather apologetically, "I'm sorry to disturb you." A answers, "Not at all. Come right in."
That's it. Three lines most of us say every week without a second thought. And Brooks slows it all the way down.
One message, seven stages
When B knocks, the "kaleidoscope of consciousness" in A's head is given a sudden new configuration. Out of all the reactions and intentions that rush in, one wins: A wants B to know he's there, and to wait. From there, the message makes a trip. In Brooks's words, it "has passed through a number of easily distinguishable stages":
- A mental state. An intention takes shape in A's mind: let them know I'm here; ask them to wait.
- An encoding process. The intention is coded, almost instantly, into the English words available to A.
- A physiological reaction. The muscles of A's vocal apparatus move to produce and shape the sounds of those words.
- A purely physical event. Sound waves cross the air between A and B.
- Another physiological reaction. The waves strike B's eardrums, and nerve impulses travel to B's brain.
- A decoding process. B's brain interprets the impulses as words spoken by A.
- Another mental state. A meaning forms in B's mind, in a form similar to the intention that had taken shape in A's head.
Similar. Not identical. That one word holds the whole problem of communication.
Three fields, and the questions they leave
To analyse even this simple exchange, Brooks says, we need at least three full disciplines: physics for the sound, psychology for the minds at either end, and descriptive linguistics for the code in between. And when those three scientists are done, other questions are still waiting. Why does a speaker choose the word he uses? Where do the words come from? How does he come into possession of them? How do those choices shape the relationship between speaker and hearer?
Answering them means looking at the people speaking, now and in their history, and at the community whose speech they share. Before long you are dealing with the whole place of language in human affairs.
He also names three things the spoken model leaves out. The English code can be swapped for any of hundreds of others. The sound waves can be replaced, most of all by writing, the picturing of sounds on a page. And because language is everywhere and endlessly flexible, it becomes a medium for one of our most human activities: making art.
Inside the house, outside the house
I work in communications and complex systems, so here's how I use this passage with teams.
Every message your business sends makes the same seven-stage trip. Some of those trips happen inside the house, between colleagues. Some happen outside the house, with clients, customers and voters. The outside message is usually only as clear as the inside conversation that produced it. Three stages break most often:
- Stage 2, the words. If your team doesn't share a vocabulary, clients hear three versions of one promise.
- Stage 4, the channel. Five tools, five versions of the truth. The physical event has to be one place people can trust.
- Stage 6, the meaning. People fill every gap with their own meaning, so send the context with the message.
Complexity stays inside. Clarity goes outside.
Why this matters this week
When we go to vote this week, I want us to remember the small miracle that is language and communication. When we consider the complexity of going out to vote, or of relationships at work, or even of going to the grocery store and figuring out what to eat for dinner, language is a small miracle that is ripe for miscommunication and misunderstanding.
The language event we just analysed is small. It's somebody knocking at the door to have a conversation, and their intention is probably good.
But what about somebody who doesn't have the best intentions for you? Every ad, mailer, headline and post you'll see this week made the same seven-stage trip, and someone chose the words at stage 2 on purpose. That makes it just as important to lean into your critical thinking skills so you can develop understanding. Ask who encoded the message, what they wanted you to feel at stage 7, and whether that matches what you actually know.
Whoever you're voting for, vote, and read the message before it reads you.
Keep the conversation going
If you'd like to work with me, or just talk about language, communication and complex systems, visit terencelatimer.com. You can also get the Write On letter by email, or take the free 2-minute Digital Real Estate Audit.
Source: Nelson Brooks, Language and Language Learning: Theory and Practice, "Analysis of a language event," pp. 2–3.