COMM 490 Communication, Culture & Society

Assignment 7

VERBAL COMMUNICATION

Purpose

To gain awareness of the relationship between language, thought, culture, and communication.

To evaluate the impact of verbal communication on thought and culture.

Directions

This assignment requires two steps, first you will answer a series of questions about your experiences with another language, and then you will read other students’ experiences and select one to evaluate.

First, you will make comparisons between two languages you have learned to speak. One will be English, and the other will be either your first language (if English is not your first language) or a second language you have studied. If you have no experience with a language from another country, you may choose the argot of your cultural group.

BEFORE NOON on the day of the next class meeting, log on to the CourseInfo site for the class, click on Communication, then click on Discussion Board, and select the Forum called Verbal Communication. Click on New Thread to add your answers (please keep each one short, about a sentence in length) to the following questions:

1. List any words or phrases from the other language that are not translatable to English

2. Do you think differently when you speak in your second language?

If you answered yes, please respond to the following two questions (if not, go to the next question):

a. How do you describe the difference in your thought?

b. What do you think causes the difference?

3. When you speak your second language, is there a different emotional context to the language use? If you answered yes, please describe it.

4. What cultural assumptions (list and describe) do you see embedded in the grammatical structure of the second language?

AFTER NOON on the next day of class, go back to the Forum and read through the other students’ answers (give yourself about an hour for this task). Select the thread (student response) you find most interesting, compelling, or otherwise worthy of analysis, and write a reply WITHIN that thread, addressing the following question:

5. Why did you decide to respond to the thread?

6. What is the biggest impact of language on thought and culture that you noted in the thread?

You are not required to turn in your answers because they will be recorded on line. There is no paper due.

Outcome

In the next class meeting, come prepared to report on the most interesting or unusual things you learned about second languages and their impact.