Personal Filter Affects on Communications

Another theme brought up early in The Fifth Limb is the limits of communications across cultures. These cultures may be industry specific, such as how a New York real estate mogul speaks vs. how an ambassador speaks. I sat in on meetings with PhD physicists when one was presenting his work. I had never heard such foul language being lobbed in public before. One was not called just a dumb f, one was called the dumbest f to make a presentation since the discovery of the Higgs bozon.

These cultures may be due to people being from different planets (men are from Mars, women are from Venus…) or different countries, even when we speak the same language. I’ve worked from programmers from both India and Russia, and the confusion caused by different languages is nothing compared to that caused by different cultures. To try to pretend such things don’t exist is foolhardy.

In her brilliant autobiography “Infidel – My Life”, Ayaan Hirsi Ali talks about the troubles she had translating from Somali to Dutch. A teach had called the parents into a conference to complain about how aggressive there son was while playing with other children. The parents said (and I paraphrase), thank you, he’s a strong man. Ayaan told the teacher there was not even a word in Somali to convey that this aggression was a bad thing.

What we can do is strive to make sure our meaning is understood and to realize that sometimes this is difficult. We aren’t all trained as ambassadors, who are carefully trained about the nuances of the words they use, but that sure would help.

This Post Has 4 Comments

  1. turkce

    Way cool! Some extremely valid points! I appreciate you penning this post and the rest of the website is really good. Martynne Toddy Jessamine

  2. turkce

    Thanks in support of sharing such a nice thinking, piece of writing is fastidious, thats why i have read it entirely Nolana Byran Bowen

  3. turkce

    Yet another issue is that video games are generally serious naturally with the most important focus on mastering rather than amusement. Although, it has an entertainment factor to keep the kids engaged, every single game will likely be designed to work on a specific group of skills or programs, such as math or scientific research. Thanks for your write-up. Trudey Dorie Compton

  4. turkce

    Nice blog here! Also your website loads up fast! What host are you using? Can I get your affiliate link to your host? I wish my site loaded up as quickly as yours lol Dehlia Ferdy Singband

Comments are closed.