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Language & Communication: Assumption and Misunderstandings - Coggle…
Language & Communication: Assumption and Misunderstandings
2/3 of misunderstandings occurred with patients who had limited English skills.
The interaction can cause serious health problem if it occurs between patients and health professional.
Can also cause failure in obtaining services to which they are entitled to. i.e. social rights, healthcare
However, difficulties in communication vary depending on both the particular immigrant group and the linguistic, ethnic, and racial backgrounds of caseworkers.
Example: Haitian clients had significantly more difficulty communicating with their caseworkers than did Hispanic clients.
Haitian clients also perceived their caseworkers as more biased than did the Hispanic clients
Happens mostly in immigrants.
Conversational indirectness
The difference between sentence meaning and the speaker's intended meaning.
May depends on the social context within cultures.
An individual who tends to speak more directly may perceive someone who speaks indirectly as being evasive.
On the opposite, individual with a more indirect style may perceive a direct speaker as rude.
4 maxims for successful communication of intent
Maxim of Quality - speaker makes every effort to communicate only accurate information
Maxim of Quantity - speaker provides enough information to make his/her meaning clear, but not more information than necessary.
Maxim of Relevance - providing information that is relevant to the topic being discussed
Maxim of Manner - speaker avoid ambiguity in language
The use of figurative language
Similarity in appearance was more important than similarity in function in predicting ease of translation
Metaphors are harder to translate the more the native speakers perceived a target language as different from their own
Use of humour in conversation between native and non-native speakers in English
Native speakers tried to avoid idioms and other usages that they thought might be difficult for their non-native conversational partners to understand
Differences among dialects
Dialects of any language differ from each other in features such as vocabulary and patterns of syntax.
Standard American English (SAE) is assumed to be the correct dialect because it is spoken by a dominant majority
One misconception in this area include the belief that Black English Vernacular (BEV) speakers tend to be lay in their speech: leaving out words and words ending.
i.e. 'She swimming' instead of 'She is swimming'
Language systems that differ significantly must be learned in very different ways
This is because there is a difference in the writing systems used in different languages
May make methods of reading instruction different too
Children in Hong Kong are taught to read by sight and associating characters with the words they represent
Children in the US are taught to read primarily with phonics instruction, learning which letters represent which sounds
However, it was found that predictors of early reading were quite similar between children learning English and children learning Cantonese