Perhaps the commonest of the media used is language. In itself language brings
benefits in that it can help clarify thought. A young child replied to her father who had
scolded her for ‘speaking out of turn’-‘But Daddy, how can I watch what I’m saying until
I’ve seen what I’ve said?
This difficulty in visualizing words, objects, phrases, etc., diminishes as an individual’s
vocabulary increases. Miller describes experiments which demonstrate that colours
become more distinguishable as they are given
names. Similarly, Arabs have only one .word, tilage, for the English equivalents of snow,
ice, and frost, while Eskimoes have five words for snow alone, each one desbing a
slightly different kind of snow, recognizable to Eskimoes but not to English-speakers.
The transmission of concepts is also more difficult to explain when a language has a
limited vocabulary. While in
translation beneath the message ‘high voltage,. It read roughly as follows: ‘sipos man e
holdim disfela, disfela bagarap man, em e dai fmis’.
Gestures also can create communication problems. To primitive people a handshake
may mean ‘I carry no weapons, my hand is open, and not clenched to strike you’.
Between friends or politicians, however, the handshake can mean vastly different things.
The meaning attached to this gesture will depend on the frame of reference of the
person concerned. Not only can the¬significance of gestures .vary with the degree of
civilization but also with the type of culture-Arabs speak in a loud voice when sincere; to
them a soft voice indicates weakness and deviousness.
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