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Chapter 5
Verbal Communication
CHAPTER OUTCOMES
In this chapter, students will learn:
• The four defining features of language
• Strategies for creating understandable messages and taking responsibility for their words
CHAPTER OUTLINE
THE NATURE OF VERBAL COMMUNICATION
Whenever you write, speak, sign, tweet, or text, you’re using language to convey meanings to others. But
the words you choose also communicate powerful messages about who you are in relation to your
listeners. Understanding how verbal communication works will help you use language more competently
in every area of your life.
• Verbal communication is the use of spoken or written language to interact with others. Language is
the basis of verbal communication; therefore, understanding the nature of language is the key to
LANGUAGE IS SYMBOLIC
• Items used to represent other things are considered symbols.
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• In verbal communication, words are the primary symbols used to represent people, objects, events,
and ideas.
LANGUAGE IS GOVERNED BY RULES
• Constitutive rules define words’ meanings and tell you what words stand for what objects.
LANGUAGE CONVEYS MEANING
• Denotative meanings are the literal meaning of your words, as agreed upon by members of your
culture. Denotative meanings are those found in dictionaries.
• Connotative meanings are the meanings you associate with words based on your life experiences.
LANGUAGE AND CULTURE ARE INTERTWINED
• Members of a culture use language to communicate their thoughts, beliefs, attitudes, and values with
one another, and thereby reinforce their collective sense of cultural identity.
• The language you speak, the words you choose, and the grammar you use all announce to others who
you are and what culture you represent.
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o Dialects reflect the shared history, experiences, and knowledge of people who live in a particular
geographic region, share a common socioeconomic status, or possess a common ethnic or
religious ancestry.
VERBAL COMMUNICATION SKILLS
Even though people use language all the time to verbally communicate, not everyone does so skillfully. To
communicate competently, you must know the difference between words that are understandable,
inclusive, and respectful, and those that aren’t. And you need to know how to put this knowledge into
action when speaking with others.
• We can harness the power of our language in four ways when we communicate verbally: (1) create
CREATE UNDERSTANDABLE MESSAGES
• Tailor your messages so that others can understand you by using philosopher Paul Grice’s
cooperative principle, which includes:
Be Informative
Be Honest
• Being honest by not sharing information you’re uncertain about and not presenting information as
true when you know it’s false. Honesty is the single most important characteristic of competent
communication.
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Be Relevant
• Being relevant by presenting information that’s responsive to what others have said and is applicable
to the situation.
Be Clear
Misunderstandings
• A misunderstanding occurs when one person misperceives the meaning of another’s verbal
communication; this can occur even when you use informative, honest, relevant, and clear language.
USE “I” AND “WE” LANGUAGE
• Avoid using “You” language, which places the focus of attention and blame on other people. For
example: “You let me down,” or “You make me so angry!”
• Strive to build solidarity through “We” language with phrases that emphasize inclusion and enhance
feelings of connection and similarity.
AVOID GENDER-BASED PRESUMPTIONS
• Avoid gender-based assumptions by recognizing that research has found that men and women are
actually more similar than different when it comes to language.
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o Research has found that only about 1 percent of people’s verbal communication behavior is
caused by gender, yet many believe that men and women have different verbal communication
preferences and practices. For example, people believe that women use and prefer “indirect” and
“flowery” language and that men use and prefer “direct, clear, and concise” language.
BE MINDFUL OF CULTURAL DIFFERENCES
• Be mindful of cultural differences by remembering that different cultures often have different ideas
about what constitutes competent verbal communication. Consider the following guidelines:
1. Adjust your verbal communication to match others’ speech rates and desired balance of turn-
taking. Monitor any feedback while you’re conversing to see whether your conversation partner
wants you to continue or stop.
VERBAL
COMMUNICATION
CHALLENGES
“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me.” Nonsense. The words you choose
have the power to cause grievous injury to the emotions and esteem of others. But by learning to identify
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PREJUDICED LANGUAGE
• Prejudice means presuming negative things about other people based on their group affiliation; it is a
negative form of stereotyping.
• Prejudiced language is speaking in ways that display contempt, dislike, or disdain for a group or its
members.
o There are as many types of prejudiced language as there are groups. Examples include sexist
language, homophobic language, racist language, ageist language, and classist language.
o Consider the following suggestions when another person’s language is prejudiced and offensive:
1. Determine the risk of confrontation. Is the person likely to be open to your point of view? A
friend, family member, or peer may be willing to listen. However, if it’s a stranger or
someone with power over you, it might be best to ignore the comments or to leave the
situation.
2. For a confrontation, avoid an approach that causes the person to lose face, creating
embarrassment. Instead, talk with the person privately, and open with an affirming statement.
VERBAL AGGRESSION
• Verbal aggression is the use of language to attack someone’s personal attributes, such as their
weight, looks, intelligence, or physical ability.
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• The attack targets unique personal attributes rather than group affiliation.
• The messages often include profanity.
• Verbal aggression is sometimes triggered by a temporary state of stress, anger, or exhaustion, and at
other times, it’s in reaction to real or perceived slights.
• To manage verbally aggressive individuals, consider these three suggestions:
1. Avoid communicating in ways that may trigger aggression in the first place, such as teasing,
baiting, or insulting others.
DECEPTION
• Deception is the deliberate use of uninformative, untruthful, irrelevant, or vague language to mislead
others. Its forms may include the following:
o Being overly vague or trying to “veil” the truth.
• Deception is especially commonplace online, where people can easily hide and distort information in
chat or email messages and where recipients of messages have little opportunity to check accuracy.
o Yet most people provide accurate information on social networking sites like Facebook or
Instagram, because close friends will hold them accountable for what they post.
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• Both face-to-face and online forms of deception are
o Unethical because they deny others information that may be needed to make personal or
professional decisions, and they demonstrate disrespect.
Defamation
• Defamation is intentionally false communication that harms a person’s reputation. In written form,
defamation is called libel; in spoken form, it’s slander.
• When communicating with others, especially online (which is permanent) or in a speech (which is
public), don’t write or say anything that could harm a private citizen’s reputation.
o Although you have free-speech rights to fairly criticize public figures, you do not have the right
to publicly assail private citizens in ways that damage their reputations.
CLASS DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. Explain connotative meaning and give an example from your life of a “misunderstanding” that
can be attributed to different connotative meanings.
• This question can spark an interesting discussion among students once they grasp the concept.
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2. Why do you think honesty is considered the single most important characteristic of competent
communication?
• Students may find this statement hard to believe. To assist them, as you discuss the importance of
honesty, help students understand the far-reaching effects of dishonesty. Have them think of
3. Do you agree that sensitive material is best delivered face-to-face and not by email or text? Why
or why not? Give an example to support your opinion.
• Students may prefer delivering unpleasant or sensitive messages through email or text. Help them
realize that although it may be the “easiest” way to deliver the message, using this method often
4. Explain why it is best to avoid using statements like “that’s so gay” and “don’t act like a girl.”
Provide your own example of subtle prejudicial language.
• Many students will see nothing wrong with these types of statements and may use them often.
Students may also point out that members of a particular group, such as the LGBTQ community,
5. Why should we avoid “You” language? Write a short exchange that demonstrates the negative
effects of “You” language. Now rewrite the exchange using “I” and “We” language.
• Encourage students to share their examples with the class. Point out how this simple change from
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CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
1. Can You Draw What I Draw?
Goal: To demonstrate the challenges of conveying meaning through language.
Time: 20 minutes
3. Explain that the pairs are going to try to draw the same picture by using effective verbal
communication. Have one student draw a picture. As he or she draws, they must describe what
they are drawing. For example, “I am drawing a one-story house. I am adding a chimney to the
roof.” At the same time, the other person is to try to draw the same picture.
4. Once the first student has completed the drawing, have them compare their pictures.
2. How Would You Say It?
Goal: To demonstrate how important attempts at communication are often best accomplished with
face-to-face communication.
Time: 20 minutes
1. Divide the class into four groups.
2. Assign each group one of the following messages:
a. You are dating someone else and need to let your longtime girlfriend or boyfriend know that
your relationship is over.
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d. You just saw your best friend’s fiancé clearly cheating, and you want to tell your best friend
what you witnessed.
3. Ask each group to write a script for a text, an email, and a face-to-face communication to show
how they would deliver the same message in each format.
5. Discuss with the class the importance of delivering high-stakes messages face-to-face.
3. Understandable Messages Search
Goal: To help students identify messages that are informative, honest, relevant, and clear.
Time: 30 minutes
1. Bring several newspapers or magazines to class or have students use their electronic devices.
2. With the selected materials ask students to find examples of written communication that they feel
are informative, honest, relevant, and clear; ask them to find examples that do not meet these
criteria, too. Students can use articles and advertisements for their examples.
4. What Is Sexist Language?
Goal: To have students recognize what terms are sexist.
Time: 30 minutes
1. Divide the class into two groups.
2. Have each group compose a list of twenty words they consider sexist.
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Mankind Craftsman Broad
Postman Man hours Man candy
Manhood Male nurse Male chauvinist pig
4. Discuss with the class whether they noticed any differences between the two groups’ lists. Help
students identify why the terms they came up with might be considered sexist and offensive and
Examples might include the following:
5. Celebrity Slander
Goal: To help students understand the harm caused by defaming someone’s reputation.
Time: 15 minutes
1. Ask students to bring in information about a celebrity, politician, or famous athlete who has been
a victim of slander. The information should include the nature of the slander, who was
2. Ask students to share their findings with the class. Ask them to imagine what they would have
done in a similar situation. How easy would it be for a joke to turn into slander?
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MEDIA RESOURCES
1. How Language Transformed Humanity
This 20-minute video by biologist Mark Pagel uses biological evolution as the basis for a discussion
2. “Not What I Meant”
This is an audio recording of an episode of This American Life that shares three stories about how
3. Frasier Episode, Season 10, Episode 12, “The Harassed”
Ask students to watch this episode of the television show Frasier to identify communication
misunderstandings, prejudiced language, and verbal aggression. You can find the episode on Netflix.
4. Be Mindful of Cultural Differences
This five-minute video by the Kellogg School of Management features Professor Jeanne Brett
5. Verbal Communication Skills: Honest Communication
This five-minute video discusses the importance of honest communication in personal relationships.