Why do language barriers happen?

Language and life-

The key to communicating effectively is language.  If two people don’t speak the same language, chances are, they won’t communicate very effectively.  If a person is traveling abroad, say in Japan, and they are lost, how do you communicate effectively?  You start asking those around you if they speak English, until you find someone around you who can help.

Will this eventually not be the case?  It’s hard to say.  If people become more interested in being bilingual, I think we can eventually communicate effectively.  With the amount of people who speak Spanish in the United States, we are becoming more bilingual each year.  In my high school, we had to take two years of a foreign language, and they really pushed Spanish on their students because we are becoming more of a bilingual nation.  I think as more people have to learn a language to ‘survive’ and communicate effectively, these are the steps to, in a way, bring us all together.

How do we construct this type of society?  I think this is all about multiculturalism and accommodating the rights of our minority groups.  If everyone was an ethnocentric, (having apathy towards all groups outside of their own) we wouldn’t have patriotism, we wouldn’t know what it’s like to being able to sacrifice for our own cultural groups.

Language and Sapir-Whorf-

This hypothesis stresses that thoughts and behavior are determined by our language.    That ‘one cannot think outside the confines of their language.’  This is divided in two different groups – linguistic determinism (how one thinks is determined by their language) and linguistic relativity (states that the difference in language reflect the different views of different people) 

Whorf thinks that the type of society where we all would understand and live together as we are cannot be done.  He believes that in our world view, people are so severely affected by their structure of language, therefore we can’t live in a cross-cultural society.

Language and technology-

But as the years continue, I believe that our gap is slowly closing with the help of technology.  With technology, many people demand things be translated in different languages.  Companies realize that their content should be visible in many languages.  This is also true with search engines.  If a web site operator couldn’t translate himself, he would pay to have it translated to another language.

People will always want to translate what they find interesting.   I think that over time, when something is google’d, there will eventually be sites that will come up in different languages, or have the option to select a language when you enter a site.  I think this will also interconnect us because it will have a larger audience.

Language and non-verbals-

Non-verbals also come into play when talking about language barriers.  There are many many things that mean the same thing in other countries.  We don’t always have to speak to get what we want or to get our point across.    In the article titled ‘The Whorf Hypothesis Examined,’ Amy Stafford states that ‘there is no question that the lexicon of a specific language mirrors whatever the nonverbal culture emphasizes.’  Like the author, I agree with the statement.  If we have enough describing words for the word snow, we can get a point across.  We can make phrases to get people to understand them as well.  I would agree in saying that this doesn’t make our ‘cognitive world perception’ any different than, say, someone who lived in Japan.