A different kind of communication

Our astronomer has often found himself traveling on public transport and occasionally eating alone at crowded restaurants. This means he has overheard many a conversation, unintentionally to be sure (he lacks the gossip gene, or alternatively the instincts of the spy). Many of them have been very irritating to him, and at least he sat down to work out why.

Our astronomer writes:

Part of it is the lack of privacy, which works both ways (that is, I don’t want strangers barging into my life, and I don’t want to be thrust into theirs). But much of it is the incredible lack of content of many conversations. There are people who use the “quotative like,” which has no information content, as one-third to one-half the words in each sentence. (I’ve counted.) “I was, like, you know, and then he was, like, whatever,” says—nothing at all, and it’s not a parody of many of these conversations.

Why should that be irritating? Why should I care if people I don’t know say nothing, while making a low level of noise? I believe it’s because this kind of talk creates the illusion of communication, the false idea that something is actually being said. There is enough deception in our lives without adding more, intentionally or not.

But this is not quite fair. There is some communication going on; it just has nothing to do with the meaning of the words. A social scientist no doubt would have figured this out long ago. The fact of exchanging words, regardless of what they are, is a sort of emotional communication. There are more features of this kind of thing, tone of voice and such, but that’s getting far away from my areas of expertise.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with this—it’s part of being human. There are, however, consequences. When someone for whom words have been only the medium for emotional communication (to use my term) is tasked to convey a complex, subtle or precise message, they lack the tools. It’s like trying to assemble a bookshelf with a pillow instead of a screwdriver. Hence the frustration of teachers of writing and literature, and the prevalence of job ads requiring “ability to communication verbally and in writing” in addition to any other qualifications.

A more pernicious effect is the presentation of emotional-communication material when actual content is called for.   It has been pointed out that a phrase like “savings up to 15%, or more!” has no meaning, mathematically.  I personally find “changed history forever” annoying; as if history sometimes gets changed and then snaps back later. This is where the illusion becomes dangerous: I need only mention political advertising.

It’s easy for scientists to point at politicians (and others) as experts in deceptive emotional communication, feeling smug about our rationality. But look closely at your own presentations, for the public at least: what are you really trying to get across, and how are you doing it?  What do your words actually mean?