Sunday, February 22, 2015
Importance of Mediating Language
A real life example I wintessed that related to this class involved my shadowing a neonatologist at Cardinal Glennon Hospital. The physician I shadowed works with a team of nurse practitioners, residents, and fellows. Therefore, it is a group effort when it comes to diagnosis and discussing the health of the patient. Because of this, there are many opinions and views regarding a patient and the method in which to proceed the diagnosis. I observed many cases in which a resident believed that a 28 week old premature newborn should increase on her feeds but the attending on the case disagreed. Due to the different perspectives involved, I also noticed that the language the physicians use is an important tool in communication with each other. When the attending disagreed, she kindly stated, "I understand what you're saying but I believe that...". This is an example of the mediating language we had discussed in class earlier. It is a polite way to acknowledge the view of someone else while also sharing personal ideas as well. This stuck out to me because it showed me that this kind of language is not only important in writing papers but verbally as well. It is important to be eloquent and fluent in a conversation with an individual because many of the times communication occurs through social media these days. It also showed me that mediating language is seen in a variety of aspects throughout society. It can be seen in different occupations, professions, and fields of interest. It is especially apparent in occupations that involve a group of people. This is because in order for a team to be effective, there has to be collaboration and respect for one another's ideas.
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I agree with Manali that language should not just be mediated in written form. I feel that rhetoric in verbal communication is an aspect we have not delved on in class. Even though words on paper have a great deal of power, I feel words spoken out loud carry even a greater weight. I feel that there are many factors that play into speaking out loud such as body language, tone, words, conciseness, etc. that can make what an individual says very persuasive or very bad.
ReplyDeleteI agree that mediating language is important when writing but equally as important when communicating with one another. Mediation can help two people come to agreement in a calm and cooperative way. It allows one person to show their point of view without negativity or the feeling of tension from the other side. Mediating language is an important skill to have.
ReplyDeleteMediating language is extremely important, and this actually reminded me of linguistic variation that I am currently studying in my Anthropology class. In your example the resident and the attending had differing views on the feeding of an infant and you explained how they shared their opinions respectfully, but ultimately the attending knew best. In our study of linguistics in Anthropology, we looked at how different types of speech can reflect gender, ethnic and socioeconomic differences. Your example reminded me of our discussion of indirect versus direct speech, and how it is shown in the workplace. Indirect speech is generally heavily suggestion and commentary based, coming from people with less workplace power. Direct, on the other hand, is more often an order or specific instruction from whoever is in charge. An example we looked at was a discussion between a pilot and a copilot, in which the copilot noticed something wrong with the airplane, but was too indirect in his speech to really concern the pilot, who did not notice. This resulted in a crash and many deaths. Do you think that mediating your language TOO much can result in not getting across what you need to?
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