The gift of language in the workplace
Credit to Author: TERESITA TANHUECO-TUMAPON| Date: Thu, 05 Sep 2019 16:25:39 +0000
“FOR all its power to wound and seduce, speech is our most ephemeral creation; it is little more than air. It exits the body as a series of puffs and dissipates quickly into the atmosphere…. There are no verbs preserved in amber, no ossified nouns, and no prehistorical shrieks forever spreadeagled in the lava that took them by surprise.” <http://www.thoughtsco.com › Humanities › English › English Grammar> Indeed, our speech as human beings is unrestricted in what we can communicate. Through the language we are born into or through a language learned, we are enabled, through symbolic function of knowledge, “to express our wishes, feelings, likes, dislikes.” Language achieves this by “encoding and externalizing our thoughts.” <http://www.why socialscience.com/blog/2017/12/5/because-language-is-essential-to-human-interaction> “No area of experience is accepted as necessarily incommunicable,” though it may be necessary for us “to adapt one’s language in order to cope with new discoveries or new modes of thought.” <http://books.google. com.ph › books> Animal communication systems, compared to human speech, are “by contrast very tightly circumscribed in what may be communicated.” <https://www.exampleessays.com › viewpaper-amp>
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The gift of language. The gift of language has its origins 500,000 years BCE when we humans began to communicate with one another and with others not our kind. There was supposed to have been one language that all of us humans spoke, but the story of the Tower of Babel explains why there came to be many different languages across the world.
There are many theories on how language began. I would suppose that the evolution of language, the medium of human speech, came hand in hand with our evolution as humans — into what humans are — distinct from the non-rational of God’s creation. Language helps us to articulate reason and emotion in a very different kind of way from creatures without language. Through language, we articulate what reason dictates as worthwhile to fulfill our personhood. Oppressive language dehumanizes our personhood.
Hence, we avoid it. Sorry, but there are among us, and we ourselves at times, losing reason, who use this gift of language to insult, offend or blemish the reputation of our fellow human beings. For these offenses we ask forgiveness from Him who made us all. But whence came language? We leave to linguists to talk of the theories on how language began. Let us dwell, besides on other functions of language, reflect instead on its goodness.
Other functions of language. Over the years, the function of language has been accepted to facilitate “communication through transmitting information from one person to another.” This ability to connect with others is “one of the most rewarding aspects of human experience.” Infinite productivity and creativity is considered as the most important feature characterizing human language.
<https://www.britannica.com › topic › language> As studies on language continued, linguistics, the science of language, has become “a highly technical subject.” Linguistics has embraced “descriptively and historically such major divisions as phonetics (including syntax and morphology), semantics and pragmatics.” <https://www.britannica.com › topic› language> Other disciplines too, have studied language, contributing to noting a range of other functions of language. Social science and psychology have drawn attention to such uses of language as expression of a national or local identity (as a country’s official language, as the script of a national anthem, etc.)…which, in a multiracial country could spawn conflict. Another important function of language besides its official use in governance, trade and commerce and in education, is what psycho linguistics and sociolinguistics refer to as the “ludic” or playful function of language. We encounter such use “in such phenomena as puns, riddles and crossword puzzles” and “the range of functions seen in imaginative or symbolic contexts,” such as the different figures of speech in literature — “as in poetry, drama and religious expression.”
<https://www.britannica.com/topic/ language>
Proficiency in English for a better future. As of the present, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) has chosen English to be its official language, just as English, French and German are the most frequently used official languages of the European Union (come Brexit or not). As reported, we rank second among Asia-Pacific countries in our proficiency in English, per the 2018 EF English Proficiency
Index; but in another report, in general, we are not getting any better in our command of English while other countries are improving. <https://seasia.co/2018/12/12/ranked-asia-pacific-countries-in-english-proficiency -index-2018> The function of human speech depends so much on its use of a language as the medium of what we mean to communicate. Hence, we need to master the medium to carry out the multifunction of communication such as “the expression of identity, play, imaginative expression, and emotional release.” <https://www. britannica.com/topic/language> It would be to our advantage if we all nurture our proficiency in English even as we give due value on improving in our own national language.
After all, in this global village, learning a second and even a third language could reduce borders among nations. Travel would be more exciting and fulfilling.
This gift of language, as Malinowski suggests, is “the necessary means of communion; it is the one indispensable instrument for creating the ties of the moment without which unified social action is impossible.” Thus, language, the medium of human speech, can be said “to be at the core of humanity… the key to human lives.” <http://shod hganga.inflibnet.ac.in › bitstream> Using this extraordinary gift in our workplace anchored on the principles of truth, justice and kindness make us feel like home in our workplace — secure, valued and loved.
Email: ttumapon@liceo.edu.ph