"Lovely Lady? no, that's my wife"

Excuse me for sounding like a miserable cow, but what is the whole 'lovely lady' thing that seems to have sprung up on the internet and in texts?

"Happy Birthday lovely lady!"
"It was really good to see you yesterday, lovely lady".

Bleugh! It makes me cringe every time I see it.

There are a couple of girls I know who use it, and when they call me that I want to scream "aaghh don't CALL me that, it makes me want to vomit!"

I just wanted to say that, thank you.

No, I didn't mean it like that, honestly!

So, you think that language and talking and understanding what people are saying is simple?

Nah.

Every time you open your mouth (or put pen to paper, or finger to keyboard) you are constructing what you want to mean, and entering into negotiation with the person listening to you or reading what you write. 

Mel for some reason I am thinking of you as I write this... haha!

Take a conversation.  The meaning of what is said is not merely a neutral interpretation of the words and sentences, taking into account context etc.  Oh no, the meaning is all about what the speaker wants to achieve from the conversation. Their goals, purposes, underlying intentions and other underhand-sounding ulterior motives.  These will vary depending on the other party(s) in the conversation, what you know about them, what you know they know about you, the context, the expectations, and the history of your relationship.

Obviously, for those on the receiving end the same applies, which can and does end up with 'what was meant' being contested.  "Just because I said 'are you ready to go out?' doesn't mean that I don't like your dress." or "I don't like the tone of voice of this e-mail!" when you and the writer are interpreting the same words in completely different ways, depending on your individual goals.

It is argued that the whole point of language is achieve a goal.  For instance relaying information, receiving information, giving a good impression of yourself, finding out about other people to decide whether you want to be friends, or sounding people out for business. Or just making small talk, the aim of which is to pass the time as quickly as possible.

Garfinkel (great name) looked at groups of people (or whole cultures) and how they arranged things to make life run smoothly.  He found that groups created their own 'Code' which consists of unwritten but understood rules about roles and conduct within the group which define the boundaries of behaviour.  I have not managed to infiltrate a group of teenagers (I think they'd be suspicious!) but I have no doubt that such 'Codes' exist amongst them. "No way! I can't believe so-and-so did that!" - whoever it was went against the unspoken rules.

As far as we individuals are concerned, we use language for our own devices.  We portray things (and ourselves) as we wish to be portrayed, we tailor what we say and write to achieve the ends we want.  We give our own particular version of events which suits our own goals.  That's not to say we aren't telling the truth, but there are lots of ways to say the same thing.

We also use language to create the identity which suits us best at the time, and which might serve a specific purpose. Each of us has many different identities or 'subject positions', which we create by comparing ourselves to popular descriptions. For instance we might think "I am a Caring Friend". But one person's idea what qualities a caring friend has will differ from another's, so we can pick out the one that fits us best, and pat ourselves on the back.  We keep all these available subject positions in a handy folder called our interpretative repertoire, from which we pick the most appropriate one for the situation.

If all this sounds very negative don't worry, we all do it, mostly without thinking, all the time.  The fact that we change the way we talk and vocabulary we use depending whether it is our mother or our best friend.  That we try and think of the best way to put something (even when writing a blog) so that we come across as the person we want to be today.

However, it's probably not particularly conducive to friendly relationships if every time you are talking to somebody, you look at them suspiciously wondering what their particular angle is....

How did we end up doing all this talking?

This morning I sat in bed reading a New Scientist article about the evolution of language.  Not only does this link in with my studying, but I've mentioned before that I'm interested in language.  According to the article, (which concentrated on spoken language rather than writtten) there are three main theories behind it, what are known as 'protolanguages' ie. systems which have some of the components of language but not all of them.

Musical: an explanation first offered by Darwin in 1871, roughly saying that to start with vocalisation in animals/birds was just to say "Hey, I'm here, and I want to mate."  Darwin reckoned that early human vocal learning more closely resembled song than speech. which later started taking on more meanings.

Gestural:  ie. communication was originally by gesture rather than speech. This is supported by the fact apes and chimps can be taught gestures and some sign language, but no-one has managed to teach them to speak.  One suggestion is that gestures originally referred to whole thoughts or events, rather than individual things or actions.   I can just imagine the gestures used to convey "So, fancy coming out to watch me hunt, then back to my place for some rumpy pumpy?"   The various possiblities of why this would develop into speech include the need to communicate in darkness, or with their hands full of spear heads perhaps?

Lexical: ie. the use of individual words before this developed into forming complex sentences.  This parallels with how children initially learn, gradually building up the number of words they can string together to make sense.  Well, they make sense to their parents anyway.

Another section of the article explained the physical differences in larynx position in different animals, and how this affects the ability to speak. However, it's not that simple, since lions and tigers have low larynxes like we do, yet they cannot speak (I'm excluding The Lion King here, ok?).   So it really comes down to how the brain is wired up and how that evolved over time.

I ended up sitting in bed, with a finger held lightly either side of my larynx (where the Adam's Apple is) and discovering that when I spoke I could feel the vibrations; and if I made different sounds, at different high or low tones, I could feel it moving up and down etc.   I daresay this is obvious, but personally I have gone 44.5 years without ever trying it.  If the neighbours were listening at the bedroom wall they must have wondered what the hell was going on!