Brain, Language and Communication
Hi, Today's
topic is about language and communication. I would like to write about an
incident that happened in my life.
I was doing
research in organic and inorganic food. I collected the required literature and
I had to do a pre-survey before I could proceed further in my research. I spoke
to few people around, discussed with my supervisor, and framed few questions.
When I was working on my research I found that not many people included organic fruits or organic vegetables in their regular diet. There were a number of reasons for them not
using organic food and we will not be discussing the reasons here. In the beginning of
the survey, I did use the terms organic and inorganic but as I became more
confident about my survey, I started using the term organic and normal food. I
used normal because a large population consumed inorganic food and hence I
termed inorganic food as "normal food". For example, when I asked people what they
preferred, my question was framed as "What kind of vegetables/fruits do you buy?" And the options I gave them was "Option: A)
Organic Vegetables/fruits or B) Normal Vegetables/fruits". And the next question would be, "So, in general, you prefer organic food or normal food (please tick the right option)".
In differentiating between "organic" and "inorganic" food, I used the term "organic" food and "normal" food.
I always
had this idea that I was good at communication and so nothing could go
wrong. I did not think to consult my Professor on using the term normal as I did not think it was wrong, and just went ahead and did the
pre-survey. Once done, I happily went to my prof. and discussed the results with
her. I showed her my pre-survey and was pretty sure that she would be very happy
with what I have done.
She looked
at everything and she asked me three questions, the first one was, "Why
have you classified food as "organic" food and "normal"
food?" and "Was it difficult for people to understand the term
"in-organic"?". I replied saying "No, people largely prefer
in-organic food and so I thought, inorganic was the norm and hence I used the
term "normal" food instead of "in-organic food". She then asked me her third
question, "So you mean to say that people who consume organic food are all
abnormal?"
Wow…. I was
dumbstruck. Until that day I had not realized that something that was not
normal would mean abnormal. Yes, I knew English, I knew the opposite of normal
was abnormal but never did I understand that when I keep using the word normal
for a day today occurrence or a majority phenomenon, anything not within that scope
could mean abnormal. It just shook me.
I just
stood there without an answer. She then told me "Words play a major role.
When you use a word be careful about how and where you are using it".
Excellent right. By the way, My Professor spoke good English but she was a
native of Austria and her mother tongue was German. Interesting!!!
I now understood
how carefully our language has evolved and developed over the years. We think
we are very good at English because we have inherited the language from our so-called English rulers. And we tend to think we have specialized in our mother
tongue because we speak our native language all the time. But this was an example
of how carelessly we use a language. I am not a lover of the English language
but I have started respecting not just English but any language after this
incident in my life, especially the usage of words.
So where do
these words come from…
It has been
reported that babies learn melodies of their mother tongue even before they are
born and just about in a few years after the birth they start talking and
become good at verbal communication, click the link "The Brain and the Language 2014" to read more on this research. The research finds
that the intensity of the cry of a baby is similar to the melodic pattern of
the mother tongue which the babies start to speak later on. This happens
because babies when still in their mother's womb hear the language
their mothers speak. The development of
the hearing system and the simultaneous development of the brain facilitates language
learning and this process begins even before we are born!
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