Page 143CHAPTER PREVIEW1. 1 The Nature of Language2. 2 Appreciating the Power of Words3. 3 The Use and Abuse of Language4. 4 Improving Your Language UseWORDS CAN HEAL OLD WOUNDSHeartfelt words of apology can mend emotional wounds, restore relationships, and inspire change, even when those words come half a century after the fact. Such was the case when Elwin Wilson—a white southern man—apologized in 2009 for having attacked John Lewis—an African American—in the “whites only” waiting room of a Greyhound bus station in 1961. Lewis was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives in 2009, but at that earlier time he was a freedom rider in the racial equality movement ofMartin Luther King Jr., while Wilson was a young man aggressively opposed to racial integration.After the election of Barack Obama to the presidency in 2008, Wilson began a personal crusade to make amends to those he had wronged. When Wilson was reunited with Representative Lewis, thecongressman said, “For you to come here today, it's amazing to me. It's unreal. It's unbelievable. Maybe, just maybe, others will come forward because there needs to be this healing. Good to see you, my friend.”Page 144Finding the right words can be challenging under the most ordinary circumstances, let alone extraordinary ones. We may not always know what to say to make someone feel comforted, informed, entertained, motivated, or persuaded. If we know how to use language effectively, however, we can employ it to accomplish those goals in our personal relationships—and many others.1 The Nature of LanguageMany species communicate in one form or another, but we humans are the only creatures on the planet who use language. Although most of us are born with verbal ability, we have to learn the specific languages we use; and, like most learned skills, our language abilities improve as we practice and learn about them.In this chapter's opening story, Elwin Wilson communicated his sincere apologies to Representative John Lewis in words. Like Wilson, we use language as a way to represent or symbolize our thoughts and feelings.We can understand language as a structured system of symbols used for communicating meaning. Many scientists believe that language evolved from early humans' use of gestures to communicate.1 For instance, many of us hold out our hands when we ask for something. We share this gesture with other primates, such as chimpanzees. The human brain, however, appears to have a specific capacity for learning and using language that is not shared by other species. Researchers in the field of biolinguistics have proposed that our advanced cognitive capacity has allowed humans to develop the symbolic system we know as language.2The human brain seems to have a specific capacity for learning and using language that is not shared by other species. This scan of the left half of the human brain contrasts the different areas used in aspects of language activity, including generating words, hearing words, seeing words, and speaking words.You can probably think of many behaviors and items that represent or symbolize some type of meaning. Asmile often symbolizes happiness, for instance; a red traffic light symbolizes the need to stop. Many gestures also have symbolic meaning, in that they represent a particular concept or idea. For example, you probably wave to say “hello” or shrug your shoulders to say “I don't know.” Significantly, although traffic lights, gestures, and facial expressions all symbolize meaning, none of those behaviors or items qualifies as a language. Instead, a language is characterized by the use of a specific type of symbol: words.Words are the building blocks of verbal communication. As we'll see in this chapter, we use words to represent ideas, observations, feelings, and thoughts. Words have a profound influence on how we relate to others. One key point here is that the power of verbal communication isn't limited to the words we speak; it also includes the words we write. When we hear the term verbal, we sometimes think only of spoken language. In fact, written messages are also verbal, because they also use words. Keep that in mind as we take a look at some of the most important features of language.Page 145Language Is SymbolicLanguage is symbolic. That statement means that each word represents a particular object or idea, but it does not constitute the object or idea itself. For example, the word barn represents a structure often used for storing hay, grain, or livestock. The word itself is not the structure; rather, it merely symbolizes it. Similarly, the word five represents a specific quantity of something (one more than four and one fewer than six), but the word itself is not the quantity; it simply represents it.One way to understand the symbolic nature of language is to remember that different languages have different words for the same thing. The English word barn, for instance, is schuur in Dutch, celeiro in Portuguese, in Korean, and in Greek. Those are completely different symbols, but they all represent the same object or idea. If you were to invent your own language, you could create any term you wanted to represent the concept of a barn.As an illustration of the use of different symbols to represent the same idea, Figure 5.1 displays the word speak as represented in five different alphabets. These include (1) the Roman alphabet, with which you are already familiar; (2) Braille, an alphabet consisting of raised dots, used by people who are blind toread and write; (3) Morse code, a system of long and short sounds used to communicate by means of a telegraph machine; (4) American Sign Language, a system of gestures and body language used to communicate with people who have hearing impairments; and (5) Gregg shorthand, a symbolic alphabet used for rapid note taking. Notice how different those symbols look, even though they are all symbolizing the same idea.FIGURE 5.1Alphabet SoupMany forms of language have their own alphabets. Here is the word SPEAK according to several different language systems.We saw in Chapter 1 that the meaning of words—that is, what they symbolize—can change over time. Forinstance, awful used to mean “full of awe,” and neck used to mean “a parcel of land” (as in “my neck of the woods”). Those terms now symbolize something different, and it is entirely possible that they will represent something different in the future. This example