Issue 4: Language and Communication
How do language and communication shape information and vice versa?
Study Questions
- To what extent are the conventions of text messaging and tweeting altering spoken and written language?
- In what ways has the 24-hour news cycle had an impact on the reliability of information?
- To what extent do public figures and celebrities have a right to privacy? To what extent does the media have the right to cover them?
- Why has “spin” become a pervasive part of mass communications? What roles do public relations professionals and publicists play in mass communications?
- What are the standards and responsibilities of citizen journalists and the media outlets that use their material?
- Why have “fake” and satirical news gained popularity?
- To what extent has mass communications increased or decreased literacy in the world?
- How has media affected language and culture around the world?
- How can newspapers remain relevant in a digital world?
- What role does the author’s anonymity play in the context of discussion boards and blogs?
- To what extent do appearances on YouTube and reality television lead to lasting careers?
- How and why has technology such as email and texting affected conversation arts, journaling, and formal letter writing and why does that have an impact?
Honors in Action
It’s All Greek to Me
Investigation of the Honors Study Topic (Research): Languages are a natural part of cultures and typically reflect the realities and needs of their host culture. With exploration, colonization, and modernization and technology, some languages have begun to disappear. Some groups are making concerted efforts to preserve languages and to promote their heritage (i.e. “Cajun” French, Gaelic languages, transcribing verbal languages to written formats, etc.). Likewise, certain technologies that were once cutting edge and then the norm for communication are disappearing—reel-to-reel tape, celluloid films, punch cards, early floppy discs, photographs, paper tapes, amateur radio, analog systems, and so on. As a chapter, study the history of communication and storage forms. What were the technological advances of previous years? Which of these technologies are no longer used, and which are virtually impossible to find?
Leadership Role(s): Determine your leadership team for the project. What limitations are there in putting together a display or lecture series? Which groups and individuals can be invited to participate in the project? Determine the preferred venue for presenting your research and do so. Invite local organizations, historical groups, amateur radio relay leagues, local schools and the like to participate in the presentation.
Leadership Development: Organize a workshop on speaking with community members and groups. Invite a speech/communications faculty member to work with members to hone their communication skills.
Action: Invite retirees and others who worked with these earlier technologies to discuss how they were used and the impact these technologies had at their time. Search local shops, museums, and collections for examples of these lost or rare mediums. As a chapter, prepare a plan for presenting information on the history of these communication mediums. As a part of the project, look at questions of how to best present these items.
Collaboration:
- Chapter members
- Students on your campus
- Community members from a variety of organizations
Reflection: What were the successes of your project? What were the challenges? Make plans for future events based on the ways in which you have grown as scholars and leaders who serve your community.
Generations
Investigation of the Honors Study Topic (Research): Every generation has its stories, and as the populations age, the number of these stories declines. As a chapter, select a group from whom you’d like to chronicle (for example, men and women who served during the Korean War, former faculty at your college, faculty preparing to retire, local political or civic figures, etc.). Look to family members, friends, local people in the community, veterans groups, retiree groups, local care homes, and so on who would agree to speak with you. In what ways has language usage changed over time? How does language affect the way stories are communicated? What are the non-verbal ways generations communicate? What stories and themes transcend generations?
Leadership Role(s): Identify local or regional groups who may be working on similar programs, or groups who may be interested in sponsoring the project or working with your team. Prepare a plan to present the collected information, inviting the participants to be a part of a seminar series. Identify other organizations at your college who might be interested in working with you on the project.
Leadership Development: Invite a speech/communications faculty member to help members learn to effectively articulate a vision and a historian to conduct a workshop for members in creating oral histories.
Action: Work with a faculty member or local history group to develop an effective oral history project. Determine which types of media to use, how the collected information will be stored, presented, and displayed (self-published booklet, video display, airing on local television or radio programs, etc.), and who will have future access to the materials. This project may include workshops on public presentation, ethical responsibilities to the interviewees, their families, and to the community, archival work, copyright, fundraising to offset costs, and similar topics.
Collaboration:
- Chapter members
- Faculty on your campus
- Community members willing to share their stories for your oral history project
Reflection: Reflect on the project’s successes, problem areas and solutions, and impact to refine potential future collections. What have you learned about other generations? What do you hope other generations learned about you?
Bibliography
Bohannan, Laura. Shakespeare in the Bush. 1966.
A classic in anthropology and communication studies, this piece by anthropologist Laura Bohannan discusses her attempts to discuss Shakespeare’s Hamlet with a group of Tiv elders during her fieldwork in West Africa. For many, this piece opens the dialogue on language and meaning. What we think we mean and how we communicate those meanings are not universally consistent, and are good starting points for discussions on language and cross-cultural communication.
Curtis, Drew. It’s Not News, It’s Fark: How Mass Media Tries to Pass Off Crap As News. 2007.
FARK website founder and editor Drew Curtis takes a critical look at news media in the 21st century, with a special focus on how 24/7 coverage has watered down content. In a time when anyone can be a journalist, and when news channels are on continuously, who decides what is important and what is not?
Glassner, Barry. The Culture of Fear: Why Americans Are Afraid of the Wrong Things. 2010.
Do we really live in more dangerous times? In the updated revision of this text (originally released in 2000), sociologist Barry Glassner looks at perceptions of fear endemic in many groups, particularly in America since 9/11. Glassner discusses the agencies and agents of fear and their manipulations of information, and the notion that it is our perceptions that have changed, not the actual levels of threat.
Pinker, Steven. The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language. 1993.
In this solid discussion of how we create language and grammars, Pinker discusses how language development is based on instinct. At each level, he notes, we are “experts” in our language development and rules. Pinker also discusses how language development plays a role in the varying ways in which cultures view the world and plays a part in cultural and technological development. Pinker also discusses how so-called “language experts” typically grossly underestimate the language skills and prowess of the average individual.
Ravitch, Diane. The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn. 2004.
A noted educator and former Assistant Secretary of Education, Diane Ravitch examines the forces and groups who determine what is and what is not appropriate for students in our public and private schools. Ravitch notes “that educational materials are now governed by an intricate set of rules to screen out language and topics that might be considered controversial or offensive.” Her review of how these governing rules came about and the groups that produced them offers an important insight into how communication can be, and is, manipulated to produce unclear or inaccurate presentations, and how this impacts society as a whole.
