1. In a typical interaction, the consequences of
miscommunication are grave.
2. Oral communication is the sole or primary way in which
information is exchanged.
3. The speech interactions are under high stress where time is of
the essence.
4. The interactions are typically the first and only exchange, so
that neither person has time to adjust in listening and
comprehension patterns.
5. There is no face-to-face contact. 6 There is “noise in the
channels,” such as a bad telephone connection, lots of
background noise, cross-talk.Matsuda suggests that there are some jobs that fit all of her points, such as
a 911 operator. On the other end of the scale would be a computer
programmer who worked alone. Most jobs would fall some place between
the two extremes, and there is still room for loopholes. Consider, for
example, a retired police officer applying for a 911 position in a large city.
The police officer is a native speaker of Spanish, and has a strong Spanish
accent in his oral communication. Would the hiring committee be acting
within reason if they rejected him on that basis? Under what
circumstances would they be wrong?
If ideology is most effective when its workings are least visible, then
the first step must be to make visible the link between the enforcement of
standard language ideology and social domination. Given the way the
schools, media and employers work together to promote language
ideology, the education of the public is both a lonely and a difficult – but
certainly not an impossible – task.
Linguists have hard-won knowledge to offer which would be of some
assistance in the difficult questions faced in matters of language policy,
but that knowledge is often not sought; if sought, it may be summarily
rejected; in either case, it is often hotly resented. Nevertheless, there are
good reasons to persevere. This type of behavior causes real harm to real
individuals, and it deserves attention.