Scattered thoughts on Oral Communication

Sarcasm is definitely in between oral and domestic knowledge.  If you don't grow up with it, you will probably have a hard time understanding it, but you learn it purely to listening to others speak.  My family uses a certain intonation when we are being sarcastic.  I could demonstrate what it sounds like in person, but its impossible to communicate without inflections of speech.  Just as Shuan demonstrated in class, Chinese is a language not only made up of the sounds made by consonants and vowels, but the meanings of words are also determined by the inflection used.  In Chinese, a word may change from mother to horse, and in Sarcasm a statement usually becomes the exact opposite of what the vowels and consonants imply.



The history of sarcasm is hard to trace.  Shakespeare used it a lot.  It's even in the Bible.


Exodus 14:11 And they said unto Moses, Because there were no graves in Egypt, hast thou taken us to die in the wilderness? wherefore hast thou dealt with us, to carry us forth out of Egypt?


Intonation is an enhancement to language that can't be fully described in written words, but makes a big difference in oral communication.  My mother has this tone of voice that is pretty scary and/or demoralizing.  My sister describes it as meaning “why are you so stupid?”  When I was little, my mother would use this voice, and I would ask here why she was yelling at me.  My mother was reply that she wasn't yelling, but as my sister says, the “voice” is worse than yelling.  This tone of voice makes you feel completely worthless.  It’s a very effective means of communicating.  It’s not about the words used, but the way they are said.

A very integral part of oral knowledge is that of names. 

What someone calls us may help us know who that person is.  If I am called by first name, Catherine, I really don’t know much about who is talking to me, unless they pronounce it wrong, then they have never met me before.  If someone refers to me as “Frennie,” I know that they are either a family member or a very close family friend.  If they pronounce it “Franny,” they are part of the Brady family.  Those who call me Cathy were probably in my PE class freshman year, and the only person who calls me Katie is my friend Steven.  My Aunt is the only person who calls me “Caseroles,” a nickname that remains from by chubby years, and my friend Kevin calls me C Hawk.  I am known my many names, but I am still the same person, allow they may get an odd impression if they hear my little brother call me Funnybut. 

I have seen some very interesting results of name mispronunciations.  My niece was born about a month ago.  While she was born, my brother was deployed across the globe.  It took my sister-in-law several hours to reach him.  My sister-in-law named the baby and told my brother the name over the phone.  He had heard “Say,” so he told all the guys he worked with that his daughter’s name was “Say.”  A couple weeks later, he saw a post on Facebook about his daughter “Faye,” and then called his wife to clarify.  The conversation went something like this

My brother: “So our daughter’s name is “Faye.”  With an “efff.”

His Wife: “Yeah…”

My brother: “ Oh.  I thought it was “Say.”  I thought that was kinda weird, but I didn’t want to say anything.”

( You have to understand that the phone calls we have with my brother never have good reception, and we rarely pick up the whole conversation.)

When my cousins were younger, Rowan could only pronounce the E and A of her sister’s name.  As a result, the entire family called her “E-ah,” and it wasn’t until a couple years ago that I learned her name is actually Aleta.