Ambiguous Language Essay

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During the core 01 course, one of the strongest connections learned was how language and gestures are ambiguous. Our body language, and gestures allow us to express ourselves uniquely. However, it can also be confusing for others as different cultures and different societies can also have different ways of expression. It is a wonderful thing to be able to express ourselves in the way we desire, we have so many options such as metaphors, art, written word, and so on. With metaphors we can express how extreme or strongly we feel about something. With other forms of expression, such as dance and art, we can express ourselves in ways that words cannot. Although our ways of expression are very diverse, there is also conflict and confusion. Confusion …show more content…
Something we do often in everyday life that we don’t really think about is significance of communication. One form of communication is language, and we never really think about how,” ambiguous it is.” (Matlock) We never think about how broad it is, and how many different meanings there are. An example is when Professor Teenie Matlock head someone say, “ dude that car is sick,” she thought the person meant that there was something wrong with the car. However, the term,” sick”, had another meaning to it. This is where the conflict and confusion comes in. The person actually meant to say that the car is cool. Culture and society are always changing. This reflects on a culture that is usually for young people, and connects with the language of slang. Because we are fortunate enough to have developed so many different ways to express ourselves, today we can be creative about how we choose to present and send our messages. Another example from this lecture is, an advertisement from a company called, Enterprise. Their advertisement slogan is, “We go the extra mile, going above and beyond.” ( Matlock) One of the company’s advertisements is about, a hockey player and a sales person from Enterprise. The sales person from Enterprise was going, “ the extra mile, above and beyond,” (Matlock) by playing goalie for the hockey player. He was willing to go beyond his responsibilities in order to satisfy

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