Using Language: Kingston, Tannen, and Klass Show the Limits of Language Essay

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A woman who asks too many questions may be viewed as incompetent even though her questions are legitimate and she might be doing so simply to make her fellow employee feel better about himself by being able to answer such questions. Once again, Tannen's examples reflected my own personal experience at work. One of my most competent friends is a very nice woman who is always very concerned about doing the right thing. When she speaks, her voice frequently rises as if she is asking a question even if she is making a statement. Whenever someone questions her judgment, she always apologizes and no matter how silly the question she always rushes to answer it and make the other person feel better. Because she is so intelligent and sweet she is well-liked yet I know she has never been given a position of leadership in her work. I believe this is because of the way she uses language, not because of her knowledge of the language. This is not fair although I think that if she were more self-aware, she might be able to use language in a more effective way.

But it is important to remember that not all women use the language in the way outlined by Tannen. The physician Perry Klass' essay "Learning the Language" shows how Klass had to become aware of the unique vocabulary that physicians use when she became a doctor. The language of doctors is specifically used to distance the physician from the patient: "I knew a medical student who was referred to by the interns on the team as Mr. Eponym because he was so infatuated with eponymous terminology, the more obscure the better. He never said capillary pulsations if he could say Quinckes pulses" (Klass 1). Klass notes that when she started using the jargon like 'Mr. Eponym' the way she looked at patients changed.

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Before she began work as a physician she might have known what blood pressure was but the way in which she heard such terms discussed and by using terms in that way changed her as a person in her attitude. Before she might have known medical terminology but using these terms in a very impersonal way 'made' her into a physician and made her a part of a very unique professional culture. Of course, every job has its own language. I have noticed in my own life as soon as I take on a new job that I must be very careful of the way I speak, because there are certain unspoken rules and assumptions of the workplace. In some ways, this is necessary but after reading Klass' essay I must regret the way in which doctors are encouraged to see patients as a collection of symptoms. It can be very frustrating to go to the doctor and try to talk about why you are not feeling well and the doctor only focuses upon very specific aspects of your disease. This can result in a misdiagnosis. A workplace culture where people are not valued can hurt both employees and clients.

All three of these examples illustrate how learning a new language means much more than learning new words. Learning a language means learning a new culture; it means understanding how women and men communicate within that culture. Every language has different subcultures within it. Although cultural clashes may be the most obvious example of the limits of language, as demonstrated in Kingston's essay, when one group dominates the culture such as males or older physicians, even native speakers can feel lost or frustrated. These essays all show how sometimes people need to step back and evaluate how they are judging others by their own personal standards that may not be valid.

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