Exam 4: Clarify Ideas and Concepts

Explain why written communication is generally a "poor messenger" as compared to face-to-face conversation.

Suppose you are talking to a friend and you make a gesture that the friend does not understand. So the friend asks you what you are intending to communicate by that. In this kind of a situation your friend is ________.

Professor Smith informed the students of her intention to be a "fair" teacher. One student thought she meant that her approach to grading was going to be objective and just. Another student thought that the professor meant that she had quite modest aspirations for the quality of her teaching efforts. This is an example of ________.

Jerome asks his colleague the following questions: "Who said that? Where were they when they said it? To whom did they say it?" What is Jerome trying to do?

When the TV sports announcer said that 2015 marked the first time that there was a "real college football champion," the donkey cart word real was being used in order to ________.

Explain why the word cause is problematic in this statement "Everything and everyone has a cause."

Professor Wilson tells his students that only the most important concepts from the chapter will be on the next test. Student A and student B have different ideas about just which concepts are the most important. This is an example of ________.

George argued that the film Jurassic World did not deserve to be nominated for any science fiction awards because it was not "authentic sci-fi." George's argument depends on stipulating that the boundary of the concept "science fiction" does not include or apply to that film. To do this George uses which of the following devices?

Almost every word in the dictionary has more than one meaning. Why then do we not become confused constantly by this ambiguity? The multiple meanings of most of the words we use do not confuse us because ________.

The priority humans give to efficient communication should give way to concerns about problematic vagueness and problematic ambiguity only if miscommunications have occurred or are likely to occur.

Describing a word or expression as vague means that the word or expression ____________.

Why do we not consider people who use critical thinking to be a special language community?

The reason for using the image of both parties to the negotiation sitting on the same side of the table is to illustrate that interest-based negotiation ________.

In colleges and universities there are many different disciplinary language communities. When a professor from one discipline uses the same technical term as a professor from another discipline, it can be confusing to undergraduates who may not realize that the same word may mean different things in those two different academic language communities. This is why making a correct interpretation of what each professor means requires that the students learn ________.

What is one reliable way to identify different language communities?

Describing a word or expression as ambiguous means that the word or expression ____________.

The book uses the example about "No animals are allowed in the airport terminal except assistance animals" to illustrate the point that ________.

What is a language community?

When does vagueness or ambiguity become problematic?