What is the Importance of Definition in Communicating with Each Other?
How do we understand each other? How do we understand reality?
Communication is required in some form. Verbally said, visually written, or body visual expressions that convey a limited subset of communication potential. Communication gets more powerful with symbols and language.
There is much variability, diversity and multiplicity in reality. It's not just "one thing" like the word universe would imply (turned into one). We create symbols, like pictographs or abstract letters, and join them in sequences to form different groupings in order to define them as a reflection of the differences in reality.
In a perfect linguistic construction, the language would have one word for each meaning and reference to something actual or imagined in reality. But, we often use the same word that is either identical in visual written form or verbal auditory form, yet mean different things.
This can add some confusion in communication, such as semantic misunderstandings that result from people having different definitions to the terms used in communicating about something real or imagined. When two people have different building blocks to form a conception about a conversation or topic, they end up walking two different paths even though they both think they are talking about the same thing. The result in not being on the same page or level of understanding in the end. To avoid conflict and misunderstanding, we need to remember that we may need to define our terms in order for clarity to be achieved.
I say anarchy, you hear anarchy. I mean one thing, you understand another.
I say socialism, you hear socialism. I mean one thing, you understand another.
I say basic income, you hear basic income. I mean one thing, you understand another.
Why?
Words can mean anything to anyone. They are sounds and symbols. We are to use specific sounds and symbols. Languages define symbols and sounds so that those who use a language can have a common ground of sounds and symbols that they agree to use for communication. But the meaning defined can vary.
Our words lack precision often. Layers of meaning and even opposite meanings can be applied to one single word. It can get confusing in itself to study the meaning of words and the etymological roots to their origins. When growing up and learning about things, we often adopt meanings other impose on us, unless we dig deeper ourselves to verify the meaning. There are conventional or colloquial meanings that applies in a society or region. Someone else using that same word, can be talking about a different, or more accurate, understanding compared to how you understand a word.
Language and definition is seen as a problem for some because we don't establish precise terms, don't define our terms when confusion arises, and then we can't communicate what we want to share, foolishly blaming language instead of ourselves for not properly using the tool. Laziness to define terms, or ignorance of it's importance, is what keeps many people from understanding more.
When arguments develop over a proposition, the premises need to be looked at, but also the building blocks of those premises which include the definition of words used. Ask someone to define a word, or define the word yourself, and see if everyone in the discussion is on the same page. Then progress in an argument can be made where we arrive at greater understanding of reality, together.
Truth takes time. Understanding reality takes time to learn. Communicating about what we understanding takes even more time. Establishing a common ground of definitions is required in order to talk about the same thing. Otherwise, you could say orange, and I think apple, human, or anything else.
@krnel
2016-11-15, 7:30pm
There is an old guideline in managing communication. All we need to do is answer this question: "Did message sent equal message received?"
Now we can do this by defining things that may be ambiguous. In my Jurisprudence Law classes we used to do this as an exercise (now 40 years ago). Every concept we used in a discussion had to be defined. "What do you mean by?" was the retort. What we soon discovered is that conversation became very long and inconclusive. So we needed to find other ways.
And of course my ambiguous is not the same as your ambiguous.
In two way communication it is easy. Ask the person receiving the message to play back in their words what they heard. In a social media conversation we can do this through comments - ask questions and respond by saying "when you said this did you mean that?" All this takes is a little time to reflect before shooting back.
In one way communication, you are right - some definition is needed. Media organisations work very hard at being consistent in the way they use terms and concepts - we could all borrow some of that.
That may be a bit obtuse, for every damn word... yes that's highly inefficient... wrong methodology. You only need to verify definitions WHEN a misunderstanding occurs. Being able to recognize when a misunderstanding occurs is required in order to interject with more precise definitions.
But it does take long to be on the same page. And this is why people don't do this work, because it's "long" and "boring". But... if we simply put in minimal effort to start off with, learn accurate definitions, and all be on the same page of terms, then we wouldn't have to deal with semantic misunderstandings, over, and over, and over, and over, and over... I think you get the point. We aren't correcting our misalignment in symbols, so we stay misaligned with each other, and then because it's so "complex" to fix, we just think we're going to find another "solution" while not dealing with the linguistic ignorance ? Ha!
But I agree, rewording something works. It's just another tactic to evaluate a common understanding. If you reword it, and show you understand it, then the person can agree that you are on the same page. It still doesn't deal with the original confusion in definition of terms. In rewording and find differences, then we can define more precisely. I support using both. Definitely trying to define each word like you did in your class is a waste of time. It's when it's required that the clarity of definition can be stated to get people back on track.
Thanks for the feedback. Peace.
It was a class in Jurisprudence - the theory and philosophy of law. It was deliberately obtuse
Excellent points. An example from a different perspective - the differences in potential interpretation between languages. I experienced this ambiguity early in my engineering career when one of my first assignments was to translate a feasibility study from English to French (junior engineers sometimes have to take what's dished out). I was amazed at how imprecise the English language version was, while nevertheless appearing valid and thorough - French simply doesn't permit the kind of slipperiness of expression which English does. As you can imagine, it made translating the text an interesting challenge, as I had to track down the precise meaning of some tricky paragraphs through discussion with the senior engineers who felt they had crafted clear work. Imagine a young female engineer challenging these senior, globally respected male engineers, telling them to express themselves better!
You made some excellent points on this topic in SteemSpeak once. You swayed my opinion. :)
Sweet ;)
Very well put. We all have to understand and believe in the concept of a word for it to mean what it does. We all understand things differently and believe different things. So yes I could say Socialism, and one could think "Parasite."
Thanks. You mention belief. We believe what we want when we don't choose to know from reality.
Ex: Socialism. To explain the word in reality would be to apply a two fold meaning:
When people agree to accept a definition, like we have with the conventional meaning in society about socialism as a political system of governance, most people think it's all good, but those who really study socialism honestly know it isn't. Since we already have multiple layers of meaning to words, the word good reflect more of an etymological root meaning related to social + ism (action, condition).
There is always a reality to tie back to when we are talking about reality. I do find adding meaning to words is problematic, and to be avoided. But it is valid in many cases, due to the root word meaning that has changed, and the word can also be bastardized over time. Like anarchy. Like liberal. And others.
Root meaning of words ties us back to the original meaning as it was created and imbued with. It's the original master of the name that reflects a part of reality. Changing the meaning of words changes or inner-perception of reality.
So words may be spells, day may be black, night may be white, and I don't know anything.
shared on twitter
Koo! Thanks @virtualgrowth :)
Disclaimer: I am just a bot trying to be helpful.
if you are losing the argument.
change the definition of the terms.
Another excellent post and food for thought. Namaste
Thanks @full-steem-ahead :D
Great article. I am teaching the idea of "definition" to my academic writing class at the moment.
Great! It's highly important to start from the ground of reality we are all connected to and live in.
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