Example of analyzing the negative use of language: lost in translation essay

Communicating with people is a day to day affair, sometimes it happens in person, sometime over a phone call or text and through emails on others. In fact, human beings communicate so much that information technology and communication services have become one of the most important sector. All this apart, there are so many options to communicate that to choose one gets confusing at times. Whether an email or text would suffice or should meeting in person be the best option? A person in a fix of choices between these two is definitely lost in trying to translate and send his or her idea across. This essay discusses the dilemma of what medium to choose when one has to communicate either formally or informally.
There is a plethora of ways to communicate that one can use when getting in touch with others. The most frequent ones are phone calls, phone texts, emails and the age old method of face to face correspondence. Every different situation demands a different mode of contact. Depending on how, what and where to communicate a person must choose according to his or her convenience the medium that fits into all the requirements. Now the question arises as to why choose a medium? Why not just simply say it in the first and the handiest possible way? The answer requires a little bit of explaining.
Language is a very delicate art and requires a lot of that when it has to be used in communication. Language is the method to convey one’s thoughts, feelings and ideas and when done correctly leads to satisfactory communication. Language is written, spoken and conveyed through ones physical attributes, it is formal, colloquial or commonly spoken and, to some extent, personal when talking to near and dear ones. The best form of conveying oneself is the one that gets the message through clearly without any misunderstandings created between the two communicating persons. Although a perfectly understood communication happens only in a perfect world, and misunderstandings happen often. Communication breakdowns and mends happen often too, because in a world that moves fast one needs to communicate fast too. But why at all does communication break down? Why is it difficult to convey one’s thoughts freely to someone else? There can be many reasons for this kind of shortcoming, from different character traits of the two communicating people, different motive, different cultural background, wrong tone and physical poise or even different mood. No two people are at the same mental state at the same time and that is the reason that the right kind of language needs to be used to convey one’s idea, otherwise the message is lost in translation.
Modern technology offers many new forms of communication, the most popular of which for both official and personal purposes is email. It is cheap, almost free with an internet connection; saves time and paper; can be sent globally across time zones; relieves one from the cacophony of ringing telephones; and serves as a record of all the communication. But email itself has a disadvantage. Although it is very cost effective, it does not completely convey the human aspect of the message, the emotion involved, and hence the receiver has to guess the tone and intention of the message in the email. There is a fair chance, and it happens too often, when the receiver interprets the message or the tone wrong and a good natured email conversation turns into a headache. Heated arguments on email include capitalized words and emoticons that simulate the feelings of the sender but become completely useless in case the receiver does not know what these expressions stand for. Words may speak one’s mind but not everyone is an avid reader or an extraordinary writer to make an email ‘ sound’ like a real conversation.
Meeting people face to face has been nature’s way since humans discovered the art of language and speaking. Different people talk differently, using different languages and dialects depending on where they come from or what kind of life they lead. A very important aspect of face to face conversation is that it depends on a lot of factors. It not only depends on the language the person uses but voice of the person, the appearance, physical poise, facial expression and so many other aspects that constitute the non-verbal side of communication. Hence, face to face communication is in a way an ideal form of communication, as it provides so many options to help people to communicate with each other. Though face to face conversation may seem a bit of a hard work, because the person needs to be there to be able to talk, it is by far the most accepted form of communication for many people. Being able to communicate face to face brings all a sense of belonging and a sense that the person can “ be there” to listen and to share when he or she is needed.
However, talking face to face has its disadvantages to. It requires a lot of time, money and travelling to be able to talk to someone directly. It requires patience and skill, especially when it concerns formal communication and must be done in a perfect manner every time if the messages to be conveyed are crucial. Hence, talking face to face with someone may be the best way to get the idea through it cannot be committed to everyone because of the tremendous amount of effort it requires. Although modern technology allows facility like Live Video Calling and Web Cam chat but these facilities lack many aspects of a natural face to face conversation and requires a lot more effort and more importantly a high speed internet connection.
The central point is this that there is no perfect language or method to convey the best version of one’s thoughts and intentions, but there is a choice of the way in which one can best communicate one’s thoughts or ideas. Face to face conversation scores over email from the humanly perspective but email is much more economical and legally valid than the word of mouth. However, each of them is useless if not used at a proper time and place with the proper language and content that the conversation demands.