1/7/10 Readings

Context and Meaning

I found there to be a lot of truth in this article about context and meaning. I started thinking about how many words or phrases there are in the English language that are dependent on the context of the conversation, not necessarily the linguistic code. For example, a phrase that can be meant several different ways is "Shut up". It can either be meant as a joke or as a command, but you can't tell unless you know the context in which it's said. This also got me thinking about how inefficient something like texting can be (yet we use it so often in US society) because it is hard to understand the context in which it the text is written. Another interesting part of this reading was how the author suggests that culture designates what we pay attention to and what we ignore. This can be very important in trying to communicate with someone from India. We both have different cultures and therefore pay attention to different details, different things are important to us therefore coming together and understanding each other will be more difficult. Also, part of preparing for India would include figuring out if they are a High context society or a Low context society. I would suppose that India would have more of a complex, high context communication system as opposed to the US's low context system. However, even though the author stated that the US has a low context system, I feel that we do have aspects that are high context. For example, within a family I would imagine children tend to have a high context, whereas in the workplace in order to be "efficient" you are expected to have a low communication system so that nothing is misinterpreted. So although we may be more comfortable, I think that most people have experience in both styles and are able to transfer between the two.