I have borrowed the title of Deborah Tannen’s book on communication between men and women because my 66 college students recently wrote narratives about people who, literally or figuratively, speak a different language.
Daily we are misunderstood, in trivial and important ways. Narrating an account of one such interaction shouldn’t be hard, but I knew my students would find the analysis of its significance challenging. But they always surprise me with their inventiveness, and these papers tackled the subject in more subtle ways than I expected.
There were the obvious literal language snafus on trips abroad, or with non-English-speaking employees of local businesses. A few wrote about roommates who had different political beliefs, relatives with intolerant attitudes or significant others with unreasonable expectations. All that I expected.
What I didn’t expect was Felicia’s subtle paper on euphemisms she had to use speaking to family members about her college work, but no longer needs now that she’s more serious and on the dean’s list. Or Rachel’s humorous paper about her grandmother’s use of old-fashioned phrases like “gravy train” and “on the mend,” set against her own use of terms foreign to her grandmother, like “suck it up” and “spit it out.”
Others were aware of ironies in situations of missed communication. Sean had to translate an African-American’s slang for another member of his rugby team who had been brought up in Kenya and spoke with a British accent. “The irony not lost on us was that while two African American guys couldn’t understand each other, their suburban white friend understood them both.”
And Kristen’s parents, who joined Facebook to lessen the generational divide, still used capital letters and punctuation in their posts, something their children would never do. “They could learn to speak the language and play the part, but ultimately the generation gap represented something much deeper. … But we let them linger. Our generation is polite enough for that.”
Many of the students wrote about technical jargon — the bane of any of us who have had to explain what’s wrong with our computer to a tech expert, or who have attended a conference of academics, doctors, Realtors or any profession with idiosyncratic vocabularies.
Hunter is a drummer and was shocked at first by how many terms were foreign to him. “Rumbas, ruffs, and Roeller strokes had my head swimming.” But like any good professional, he learned the vernacular, “the slow, subtle type of learning that happens with most jargon, the kind where one day you wake up and can understand a technical document without batting an eyelid or remembering a time when you couldn’t.” He ends the paper, “Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to brush up on my triple ratamacues.”
Hunter and the rest of my students skillfully illuminated a few of the ways that people don’t understand one another, on many levels, but in their conclusions they often found ways to overcome that language barrier. Ultimately, there was more understanding than misunderstanding, but, as Hunter observes, only after a “slow, subtle” process. If only it were as easy to apply that wisdom to our relationships as it is to write about it!
What kids are reading
This weekly column will look at lists of books kids are reading in various categories, including grade level, book genre, data from libraries and data from booksellers. The following list comes from the March 15, 2009, New York Times Book Review.
New York Times best-selling children’s chapter books
1. “The Graveyard Book” by Neil Gaiman (Ages 10 and up)
2. “Scat” by Carl Hiaasen (Ages 9-12)
3. “Thirteen Reasons Why” by Jay Asher (Ages 14 and up)
4. “The Hunger Games” by Suzanne Collins (Ages 12 and up)
5. “Seekers: Great Bear Lake” by Erin Hunter (Ages 10 and up)
6. “The 39 Clues: One False Note” by Gordon Korman (Ages 8-12)
7. “Fade” by Lisa McMann (Ages 14 and up)
8. “3 Willows” by Ann Brashares (Ages 12 and up)
9. “The Underneath” by Kathi Appelt (Ages 9-12)
10. “The 39 Clues: The Maze of Bones” by Rick Riordan (Ages 8-12)
