 In this video, we want to discuss the concept of language, specifically where it intersects with effective listening, how language impacts and really enhances our ability to listen effectively. Now, as you've been following along, you know we're using the Hurrier model of listening to kind of explore listening, the H-U-R-I-E-R, which of course stands for hearing, understanding, remembering, interpreting, evaluating, and responding. We are squarely right now in the understanding component of the Hurrier model. So that's what we're replacing language is, you know, in our ability to really understand what the other person is saying and has an effort to make meaning out of that. So when we look at this in the placement of the Hurrier model in a graphic sense, you can see that we started with hearing. Now we're in the midst of that understanding, interpreting, evaluating part where we are processing what we are hearing, trying to make meaning of it and decipher what the meaning is behind what that person is saying, which starts really with understanding the ability to understand what they are saying. So as we look at understanding, we've mentioned before that we're going to look at it in the context of language, context, and intention, those variables that really play into understanding. So again in this video, we're going to take a look at where that falls in the Hurrier model and the understanding area and specifically at language then. So when we think about language and listening and understanding language, first of all, we need to understand that language is symbolic. Language is not magical, doesn't hold special powers or anything like that. It wasn't handed down from on high. Language is this thing that was created by people over centuries and centuries and continues to evolve, but it really just represents something else. It's very much like the flag. If we think about the flag of the United States or of any nation, you know, what is the flag really? Well, in a literal sense, it's fabric, right? That's arranged in particular ways and the colors are sorted in a particular way and it has different imagery on it. It's really just pieces of fabric, though, right, that are arranged in that particular way. But the flag represents a great deal more for people here in the United States. It represents freedom and represents the ability to to live our lives the way we want to, right, within certain bounds and so forth. So the flag has great symbolic meaning to it. Well, language is the same way. The language is just randomly thrown together symbols, you know, collections of letters, which are really symbols themselves into ways that are arranged in particular ways that we've agreed. We understand we have the shared meaning of what they mean, but they're really just symbolic. So remember that language is symbolic. It represents something else. Remember also that language is arbitrary, as we just said, it's not handed down from on high. For the most part, language is just randomly put together in a way that somebody has decided that why do we call this animal a cow? Why do we refer to it as a cow? I don't know. Somebody at some point decided that's what it was going to be called. It probably evolved from some different language. And but eventually we just all, you know, those of us who speak English and especially in the United States, we've just determined that when you see this animal, it's a cow. Now there's specific breeds and different things like that that differentiate different cows, but, but, you know, most of us, when we look at this, we just say cow. It doesn't sound like a cow, right? Well, the word cow doesn't sound like what it represents here or have anything to do really. It's just an arbitrary collection of letters that represents this idea. Now, there are occasions where you have words that aren't as arbitrary like what does the cow say? Well, for where I grew up, the cow says moo, moo, right? Now, moo is what we call an onomatopoeia. Now that's not arbitrary. It's intended to sound like the thing that it that it represents. So the word moo, when we say moo and the moo is intended to sound like what it sounds, you know, there's other things you see on these old Batman shows, too, like boom and splash and bang and pop. And those types of things are onomatopoeia. They're intended to sound like the thing that they represent. But the vast, vast majority of language is not that. It is just arbitrarily put together. It's just a random collection. It only has meaning because we give it meaning. And because of that, and as an extension of that, language is subjective, language is subjective, meaning it can have multiple interpretations, depending on who you ask about a particular word. So now language does have two types of meanings. The first is what we call denotative meaning, which is pretty much the same for everybody. It's what we would call the dictionary meaning. If we looked up that word in the dictionary, what would we find? And so we do have this kind of collective shared understanding of what a word means through the denotative meaning. But every word also has what's called a connotative meaning, which is more subjective. It's individualized to that person. What does that mean? And to kind of represent this, we have what we call Ogden and Richard's semantic triangle. This is one way of representing the idea of the different meanings of words. And they said, Ogden and Richard's came up with this kind of framework that said, there are really three, every word has three different representations. So let's take a look at that. First, we have the word home, for example. This is the symbol itself. It's that random collection of letters, H-O-M-E, and when we put them together, they spell this word and it's pronounced this particular way. And it has a particular meaning, right? A connotative meaning and a denotative meaning. So the denotative meaning, the dictionary definition of the word home, if we looked it up in the dictionary, we would see that it's a structure, right? It's a building that has walls and a door and probably windows and things in the East United States. This is a fairly stereotypical home, what we would think of as a home. That's the denotative meaning. Again, if we looked it up in the dictionary, it's no matter who you ask, if you said, is this a home? They would probably say, yeah, it's a place where it's a dwelling. It's a place where people live, right? But some people, when you say home, are gonna think, you know, their connotative meaning is gonna take them to a meaning of home is where the heart is, home is where my family is, home is this pleasant place, it's wonderful, it's safe, it's warm, it's where my food is, it's just all the good things in life, right? Are at my home. So home has this really pleasant connotation for them, this positive connotation for them. But if we also, we could take that same word, home have the same collection of letters, spelled the same way, the same denotative meaning, right? The same kind of dictionary meaning for that word, the same denotative meaning we looked up, would be this, you know, the structure as residents where people live. But for some people, when they think of home, it's not that pleasant, lovely, warm space, it's a place where there's argument and there's confrontation and there's fighting and there's, you know, all kinds of bad things. So maybe home isn't such a pleasant place. So you could say home to one person and it brings up all these warm and fuzzy feelings. You say it to somebody else, it brings up all these other types of feelings, these negative kind of connotative feelings. So we need to remember that every word has both a denotative meaning and a connotative meaning. So as listeners, we need to understand that just because we associate a particular meaning with a word may not be the way that that person is using it when they say it, when they speak it. So we have to really kind of try and interpret and what does this person mean by using that word in particular or that, you know, over a different word or what meaning do they attach to that particular word? So language takes on a different experience in listening because of that. And one other example we could use if we said baseball. It's this collection of letters, right? And that's what it is. If we looked it up in the dictionary, we would find that it's a, the ball itself is a baseball. You would have a description there of the ball and we'd also have a description of the game with one player at bat and nine in the field and so forth, right? And that's what, you know, regardless of whatever else you think of baseball, that's what baseball is. Denotatively, that's what baseball is. That's the dictionary definition. But if we were to ask, you know, everybody who happens to watch this video, what do you think of with baseball? What does it bring up for you? We're gonna get all kinds of different answers. We're gonna get people first of all who love baseball, people who can't stand baseball, people who don't really care baseball about baseball, people who don't know what it is maybe at all. You're gonna get people who think about, you know, baseball as playing it when they were a kid or going to the ballpark with their family or going to watch games at a major league park or going to watch their kids play baseball. We're gonna get all kinds of connotative meaning and definition connected to that word baseball. So again, as a listener, I need to determine, okay, what does this person, not only what does this word mean to me, but what is this person that's saying this? What does it mean to them? What's their connotative connection to this word and why did they choose that over other words or, you know, why did they use that word for me regardless rather than other things? And so all kinds of things we need to pay attention to with language in terms of meaning and understanding that language is subjective. Language is also, it's important to remember that it's bound by context and culture. A word may mean one thing in one context and a different thing in another or the same with culture. It may be appropriate in one culture and not in another. And that these things are in particular created by and specific to a particular culture and they are time bound as well to that. So for example, if we look at these words pop slang from the 2000s, most of these are words we don't use anymore. They were very popular in that, you know, 2010 to 2010, or sorry, 2000 to 2010 era in the early 2000s, but your words come and go. English is a living language. We use words for a while and then they fall out of favor. Some of them stick around, but most words, a lot of words will go away over time. And so if you continue using the same word, it's gonna really date you because it's really bound to that particular context and that particular culture. So we need to be aware of that, that language changes from context and culture and be aware of who our audience is, who speaking to us as listeners. Again, what words are they using? How does that affect the way that we understand them? Our ability to understand people? How they're using culture and context or they're using words appropriately in those terms. So you can see that language has a lot to do with listening. Language isn't just about, you know, looking things up in a dictionary. It has a lot to do with subjective meaning. It has a lot to do with the culture and context in which that word is used. So we need to be aware of that as listeners and also be aware of that as senders of communication that the people who are listening to us may have difficulty understanding if we aren't using language that connects with them. But as a listener, we really have to be able to have that shared language and understood language with the person who's speaking. Otherwise we're gonna have a very hard time listening. It's hard to pay attention when you don't really understand what that person is saying or don't have a real connection to the words that they're using. If you have questions about the intersection of language and listening or anything else related to listening, please feel free to shoot me an email. Love to hear from you there. Otherwise in the meantime, I hope you will really deeply consider the impact of language on listeners both as you as a listener and others who are listening to you and just really work to relate to the idea that language has a large role to play in the way that we understand things as listeners.