Friday 2 April 2010

Do you say what you mean?

Do you say what you mean? It might seem a strange question, but a huge amount of human communication takes place when people say the opposite of what they actually mean.

No, we're not talking about the "men are from Mars and women are from Venus idea", an idea based on the fact that men and women communicate differently. We're talking about the fact that most human communication is a co-operative effort where we deduce meaning, as much from what isn't said as from what is said.

It might seem a bit confusing at first, but think about it: you walk into a room and say "It's hot in here!" What do you expect other people in the room to do?

a)Turn the heating down?
b)Open a window?
c)Reply "Yes it is isn't it" and continue doing whatever they are doing?

In most cases we would expect someone to suggest a) or b) or at least explain why it is so hot in the room, and that's probably why we said "It's hot in here!" in the first place. So our comment was designed to elicit a response on the basis that our listeners can work out what our intention is.

In linguistics this is described as:
1. The locutionary effect - the literal meaning of our utterance
2. The illocutionary effect - what we actually mean by the utterance ie. will someone open a window please
3. The perlocutionary effect - what we want our listeners to do ie.get up, go to the window and open it.

So, what about you, do you say what you mean?