The workplace is a diverse place where people not always know what is going around regarding other employees. Employees will engage in gossip or informal dialogue to learn about the latest news regarding other employees and in the process the information gets distorted. Most of the time people will talk about other employees without having a notion of the whole truth and perhaps they will never know the exact truth of all these stories in the workplace. But one thing is for sure, communication is a complex subject. If you are given a word you don't understand. the whole concept of the story presented to you will come down like a ton of bricks. In order to understand any kind of story, you must understand the meanings of each word in that story.
I went to a conference awhile back, the speaker told a phrase to one of the persons in the conference and asked to pass the exact same phrase to the person next to her. After the phrase was told secretly in the ear by everyone in the ear, the last person had to say what the phrase was out loud and when the speaker showed on a poster board what the phrase was, it was totally different. This proved that the phrase had been changed because everyone did not hear the same phrase. I guess, everyone perceives comunication differently.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Stories get disoriented because people see things differenty. What effect do you think that has? Do you think stories change for reasons other than "lost in translation?" Do you think people ever change stories on purpose?
ReplyDeleteI think it is a good thing when people see stories differently because we can analyze them in different ways and that will expand your capacity to view the world in many aspects. Stories do change because of "lost in translation" but, also because of their state of mind at time of reading it or being exposed to it. I think it requires extensive critical thinking in order for stories to be interpreted.
ReplyDeleteExcellent interpretation of the reading, especially given how complex and in-depth I thought it was. I really like that you mentioned the importance of understanding each word in a story in the over-all effort to deconstruct a story's meaning. I completely agree, and wrote about it a bit in my blog, too. I also enjoyed hearing about your personal experience at the conference...great support of your main idea!
ReplyDeleteThis post makes me think about the word "gossip." Gossip has a negative meaning but it is really just narrative.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Tim that people do change the story on purpose but it is difficult to know whether the change was accidental.