CHAPTER 5
LANGUAGE
Objectives
After studying the material in Chapter Five of Looking Out/Looking In, you should understand:
1. The symbolic nature of language.
3. That language can shape our perceptions
6. The manner in which a speaker’s language can reflect responsibility.
Specifically, you should be able to:
1. Analyze a real or potential misunderstanding in terms of semantic or pragmatic rules.
3. Construct a message at the optimal level of specificity or vagueness for a given situation.
5. Rephrase disruptive statements in less inflammatory terms.
6. In a given situation, analyze how gender and/or cultural differences may affect the quality of
interaction.
Notes on Class and Student Activities
A. Down-to-Earth Language (Skill Builder, text, p. 158)
Objective
To give students practice using lower abstractions.
1. How might communication outcomes change in each situation with the use of less abstract
language? Why? Explain.
1. Are there familiar syntactic rules that are commonly broken? Give examples.
2. What types of semantic misunderstandings occur frequently, and why?
5. Give examples of individualized sets of pragmatic rules that operate in some of your
relationships.
C. Conjugating Irregular Verbs (Pause and Reflect, text, p. 168)
Objectives
To give students some practice using emotive words.
Option
Conduct as a group activity and have students share answers.
Discussion Questions
Objectives
To give students practice using “I” statements.
To give students practice speaking descriptively rather than evaluatively.
Discussion Questions
1. Which parts were easy? Difficult? Why were some parts easier than others?
1. Bring in newspaper and magazine articles. Get a good variety so that you will have stories from
writers, quotes from politicians and comments from movie stars.
Discussion Questions
1. What were some common abstract phrases or words?
2. How did the words and phrases contribute to or take away from your understanding?
1. Make two columns on the board: Words that Hurt, and Words that Heal.
Discussion Questions
1. Which list was easier to come up with? Why?
2. What impact do these words and phrases have on us and others?
G. Sample Dialogues
Instructions
1. Create a few short sample dialogues illustrating problems that can occur as a result of gender
and/or cultural differences. Copy to transparency for display in class.
Ideas for illustration:
• Frustration between a husband and wife that occurs because she wants to talk about the
details of the day, and he doesn’t see the point.
• A business deal gone wrong due to high and low context style differences.
• Frustrations between class project group members due to culturally different verbal
communication styles.
2. Have students identify the specific communication style differences that appear in the dialogue
and describe how these differences led to problems.
4. Have students make suggestions about skills from earlier chapters that can be used to “bridge”
these differences and communicate effectively (e.g., perception checking, empathy, avoiding
thought fallacies, metacommunication, etc.).
Discussion Questions
1. What have been your experiences with swearing in the workplace?
2. What are the accepted practices in your past and current work situations?
I. Define That, Please
Objective
Instructions
1. Ask students to come up with a list of characteristics, attitudes, or behaviors that they think
2. They often give vague answers such as “respect.” Put “respect” on the board and then ask
3. Talk about how what they think might be clear in communicating a request to someone (e.g., “I
Discussion Questions
1. Which levels of abstraction were most common in our first responses?