Comments on: Where language comes too short…

By: Bas Reus

Bas Reus — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 20:39:24 +0000

Tom, you’re absolutely right that novelty is occurring more often when we misunderstand each other, or, when we look in the ‘wrong’ direction. Look at subtle jokes, where double meanings of words are being used to fool or confuse someone, and soon afterwards the joke is understood. That can be hilarious, and is one of the great powers of language. Of course language can be used and misused is many ways, such as some political propaganda.

What I will try to accomplish in future posts is to get the concepts of systems right, or at least try to get the ambiguity out. I really believe many of us don’t differ that much in our understanding, but getting the concept more clear helps us in being more productive while having a dialogue. I have good hope this will work out in written text, by understanding and misunderstanding.

By: Tom Gibbons

Tom Gibbons — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 19:09:41 +0000

I actually think one of the good things about the ‘written’ element of many social media or KM frameworks is that there is greater tolerance for the idea of being misunderstood. This is especially true of Twitter where you are almost guaranteed to be misunderstood quite often with your 140 characters. Written language and literacy have dramatically changed the way we communicate and how we understand language. We have come to expect that what we say, especially in written form, should be perfectly understood by anyone reading it. One manifestation of this is that most management training and management processes deal with getting the message ‘right’. In terms of Mead’s Gesture/Response concept this means that by getting the gesture right you should be able to predict the response……. a big problem but sells lots of training…

If we weren’t so afraid of being misunderstood we might be able to better realize that it is actually the misunderstandings that occur in language where the novelty and innovation occur. The probability of novelty occurring in a perfectly understood message is remote.

Walter J. Ong’s work on orality and literacy is excellent in capturing how literacy has changed our thinking about language and its use.

By: Tweets die vermelden Where language comes too short… « Bas Reus' quest on self-organization and online collaborative spaces -- Topsy.com

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 00:10:08 +0000

[...] Dit blogartikel was vermeld op Twitter door John Tropea, Bas Reus. Bas Reus heeft gezegd: The shortcomings (and advantages) of written text and language, resulting in a new blogpost: http://wp.me/pzezV-7Z @johnt @sourcePOV #km [...]