COM 111 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Linguistics, Ingroups And Outgroups, Political Correctness

• School: Pace University
• Department: Communications
• Course: COM 111
• Professor: Klein

Document Summary

Language is very cultural, especially in terms of a generation. By definition, language is the system of symbols that we use to think about and communicate experiences and feelings: words and the way they are used reveal: cultural norms, values and taboos. Language reveals culture: eskimos have 17 words for snow" while floridians only have one snow, in america, we have lots of different terms/phrases for describing the stages of a romantic relationship, Bae : in the business world, prevalent words like achiever and go-getter shows how individualistic this country is (as opposed to being a team- player or a good contributor in other countries) Communication acquisition requires not only learning words, but their appropriate use: we learn from our parents, teachers, babysitters, the people around us when we"re younger. Alonso 2: we also learn from the media, learning to speak teaches us that things come in a sequential order and gives us a certain identity.