Communication Between Cultures

CHAPTER 8

Verbal Messages:

Exchanging Ideas

Through Language

A language is a part of a culture, and a culture is a part of a language; the two are

intricately interwoven so that one cannot separate the two without losing the

significance of either language or culture.

DOUGLAS BROWN

We look around us, and are awed by the variety of several thousand languages and

dialects, expressing a multiplicity of world views, literatures, and ways of life.

DAVID CRYSTAL

Whether clear or garbled, tumultuous or silent, deliberate or fatally inadvertent,

communication is the ground of meeting and the foundation of community. It is, in

short, the essential human connection.

ASHLEY MONTAGU AND FLOYD MATSON

A

s is the case with many everyday activities, we seldom pause to appreciate the

significance and power of language for human existence and survival. Schultz

and Lavenda call attention to the importance of language in our lives when they

write,“All people use language to encode their experiences, to structure their under-

standing of the world and of themselves, and engage one another interactively.”^1

Language gives meaning to humans by allowing them to symbolize their feelings and

the world around them. That ability permits you to transmit to others your beliefs,

values, attitudes, worldviews, emotions, aspects of identity, and myriad other personal

features. In addition, as Newman writes,“Language can also pack an enormous emo-

tional wallop. Words can make us happy, sad, disgusted, or angry, or even incite us to

violence. Racial, ethnic, sexual, or religious slurs can be particularly volatile.”^2 A very

specific example of the power of words occurred when the French foreign minister

urged the international community to no longer refer to the terrorist group ISIS as

an Islamic state. His argument was simple: Those two words grant credibility to ISIS

as both Islamic and a state. The foreign minister’s point was that ISIS is neither.

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