Communication is Hidden in Plain View

Hidden (from me) in Plain View (of others)

In the game of hide and seek it is difficult to hide yourself in plain view of the person doing the seeking. The goal, after all is said and done, is to hide and not be found. Yet in the game of communication, where we want people to discover our meaning and we want to be plain, it is too often the case that our meaning is hidden from the person seeking the meaning. The goal, after all is said and done, is for our plain meaning to be found. Our meaning is not to be hidden. It is not to be a game of hide and seek. If it becomes that, then people get tired of communicating, just like they would get tired of a prolonged game of hide and seek. Sometimes in hide and seek, you just tell the person hiding to come out and that it is safe, rather than continue to try to find them. I think too often in the teaching of communicating, our method has hidden things in plain view.

Let me explain. Some things are hidden from me that are in plain view of others, or vice versa. The question for communication is: What makes things plain and what makes things hidden? Or more to the point: Why are so many things hidden from us in communication? Or in the Christian context, why so many interpretations of the same text in the Bible?

I think there is an explanation, one at least hinted at by my professor in college, Dr. Don Larson. He used to say he was mad. What was he mad about? He was upset about the stark contrast between learning at home and studying in school. He called the first learning and the second studying. He wasn’t against either one, but he felt the balance of the two had been lost in schools. He saw the dominance of studying over learning as harmful and he was trying hard to bring back a balance by re-inserting learning into schools with a focus on studying.

I want to take this a step further. I want you to do an experiment for me following in the tradition of the studying you have done in school. I want you to find a few things for me in the place you are right now within 2 seconds. The rule is that you cannot find words, but only things. If you do find words, then you are cheating and in school that means a zero for your score. Find for me a noun. Your two seconds are up. The result, if you followed my rules strictly, is that you found none.

If you want, you can go a little further. I want you to find an adjective. Next, I want you to find a conjunction. Finally, find a verb. Your next 6 seconds are up. The result, if you followed my rules strictly, is that you still found none of them. Don’t feel silly, if you thought you found one. I know now that you will never try to find these things again, unless you are allowed to look for words.

Now I want you to do another experiment for me following the same set of rules and you must find them within 2 seconds. Again, the rule is that you cannot find words, but only things. Again, please do not cheat. Find for me a thing. Your two seconds are up. The result, if you followed my rules strictly, is that you found at least one thing. If you are in your office, it might be a light or obviously your computer.

If you want, you can go a little further. I want you to find an amount. Next, I want you to find a relationship. Finally, find an action. Your six seconds are up. I would imagine you got 2-3 more right. If you are in your office, you could have found one phone, a cord connected to your computer and the light shining in your window. Don’t feel silly, if you didn’t get them all. I know on the next try you would get all four without breaking a sweat.

These two experiments are meant to demonstrate one main thing. The most important thing is to notice that in the first experiment, the words I used hid from you things. They did not take you directly to them. These are categories of words, not things. Also noticeable is that in the second experiment, the words I used were plain to you, when it came to things. Well, at least now that I gave you some examples. These are categories for things and not just classifications for words.

The problem is seen at its height, when we try to teach language in school whether it is native or foreign to us. The typical approach in the United States is that in about the 5th or 6th grade, we teach a thing called grammar through the parts of speech. This is meant to help us with at least two elements of communication, reading and writing. The one problem I am trying to point out here, is that the method is about words and studying, not things and learning.

In total, I think there are at least five weaknesses in our grammatical method in the United States: (1) it follows a one-dimensional approach to language versus a multi (five)-dimensional approach to language, (2) it has too great of an information load for our brains with eight parts of speech versus having an information load of only four to five things in a set, (3) it deals with later development of language skill rather than earlier development of language skill, (4) it focuses on words and study, a grammar of words, rather than on learning and things, a classification of things and words or word uses and (5) it makes things hidden rather than plain. We need to bring the things we need out in the open. It is this last problem that I am dealing with here.

The problem is that words have become more important than things as education has expanded into universal education in places like the United States. We need instead to keep words and things side by side. We need to teach and study alongside of know and learn. In our earliest development as children, we were concerned with needs related to the things that would satisfy our basic needs. We also though needed to relate to parents for what we needed. So we used some rather simple ways to get what we needed like food for our stomach. I’ve seen crying work effectively. Later we studied words with our parents, who also taught us those words, in the context of things we needed.

In the approach I take to communication, one of the great advantages it has is that it is plain, because it applies to things and words. It ties together both learning and studying. In a chart form of categories , it appears like this:

Communication (Whole)
1. Amount (Part)
2. Relationship (Part)
3. Action (Part)
4. Thing (Part)

When I first studied this method of learning communication, there was a problem with it. It was that a few items were not plain on the thing level. In place of amount, they had the concept of attribute, which I think is harder to find in the world of things. In place of action, they had the concept of event, which I think is also harder to find in the world of things because of its limitations in the realm of things. They both seem to apply better in the realm of words.

Because these words apply better to things than the words of grammar, I think they enhance our ability to make things plain. I know for me personally, this has been a major benefit. Recently, I took an online course and I aced the final exam. If I remember correctly, this may be the first time I didn’t get a single answer wrong on a final. The reason, I recall, for not getting every answer right on a final exam previously is, that I would typically misread at least one question. What this method has done for me is to make things plain or clear. If I get stumped, then I can go back to basic things to put words into a plain context.

Let’s go back to the earlier questions and look at some answers. The first question for communication was: What makes things plain and what makes things hidden? An answer is that grammar hides things, because it is only about word categories and not about thing categories. Or more to the point of the first question: Why are so many things hidden from us in communication? An answer is that it is because we rely on a method that favors words over things, rather than joining them together like two sides of a coin. Or applying the second question in the Christian context: Why so many interpretations of the same text in the Bible? An answer is that too often our method is limited to language, words and their rules and does not look enough at the things in the context. Again, because the questions asked are often only about language and not about things, things are hidden that otherwise could be plain.

So using categories of things and words has helped make things hidden from me in plain view of the communicator, to become plain also for me. I want the same thing to be available to others, including yourself. We need to work from categories of things, not just categories of words. Remember our earlier experiment. We need to change education in the direction that my linguistics professor, Dr. Donald Larson, wanted to take it. Things are in plain view, if only we will change our basic approach to communication and talk about things and not just words. Is the thing I'm saying plain and not just my words?


Sincerely,

Jon