Inquiry Argumentative Essay

Say What You Mean, Mean What You Say

 Growing up as a young lady I have always been told that women are hard to understand because they do not always say what they really mean. Women will tell their boyfriend that it is okay for them to hang out with their friends but deep down they do not really want them to. They will even say that they are “just fine” when in reality they are not. I can admit that I am guilty of these things myself.  However, I have realized that women are not the only ones who have a hard time communicating how they truly feel, it happens to both sexes.

            The main reason why we have a hard time communicating is because of what we do not say. What we do not say leaves room for the other person to imply another meaning to what has already been said. For example, when a guy tells a woman that they are trying to chill, all kinds of things go through their mind. They are left questioning themselves as to what did the guy really mean by trying to chill. Do they really want to chill or are they expecting more than that. A linguist named Paul Grice defines this situation as implication. To prevent this from happening, the guy should have stated what his intentions were. This is also known as Grice’s maxim of quantity, which is when someone tries to be as informative as possible and give as much information that is needed but no more than necessary. Saying that you are trying to chill is too broad of a statement. However, you should not make your statement more informative than it is required.

            Another reason why we tend to misunderstand each other is because we are not clear with what we say and we do not avoid ambiguity.  If we are not sure of what we mean when we make a statement, it does not come across clear and it leaves the other person just as confused as you may be. We also do not avoid giving tedious and unnecessary explanations. For instance, if a guy is not confident about wanting to ask a girl out, he tends to beat around the bush (ask all kinds of questions before asking his true question he intended to ask). Then by the time he actually asks his true question the girl is no longer paying attention and has no clue what the guy is talking about. To actually avoid these things is known as Grice’s maxim of manner. According to Grice, you should know what you want to say and it should be clear, orderly and almost straight to the point. (Levison 11-72)

            Making false statements also causes miscommunication between people. For example, if you are in a relationship with someone and you really do not love them (it may be more of strong “like” situation), you should not tell them that you love them because if you end up cheating on them they are left trying to figure out why you even told them that you love them in the first place. Grice’s maxim of quality states that you should make statements that you know is true in order to have positive communication with someone. If you never say that you love the person that you are in a relationship with, they will not be as confused if you cheat on them, for the simple fact that they will know that you never loved them in the first place.

            Most importantly, we have to be relevant when we are communicating with someone, which is also known as Grice’s maxim of relation. Sometimes when we are asked a question that we do not want to answer or a topic is brought up that we do not want to talk about, we tend to change the subject. One example of this would be when your friend asks you are okay because you look kind of sad and instead of saying no, you respond saying “You know it is pretty outside.” That statement has nothing to do with how you feel, which leaves your friend wondering what is really wrong with you.

            However, some people believe that your gender has to do with miscommunication and mostly women have this issue. This is not a strong point because it is extremely biased. There is no way that only women have problems getting their point across. We are all human and we all struggle with saying what we really mean and getting the other person to understand us. No gender is better at communicating than the other. We are all guilty of pretending that we are okay when we not or saying that someone’s food is good when it is actually disgusting.

            On the other hand, I believe that we say things that we do not mean because we do not know how it will affect the other person. We either do not want to hurt their feelings or we do not want them to worry about anything. Therefore, we feel as if some things are better left unsaid. This causes miscommunication because the other person will never know exactly what is going on. For example, if you know everyone has been saying that your friend has a horrible body odor and when he or she asks you if it is true you lie and say that it is not, your friend will never be able to fix their body odor problem. What we do not realize is leaving things unsaid can hurt worse than being honest about a situation.

            We also tend to think that people should automatically know how we truly feel about a situation. This is the main reason why ladies may say that it is okay for their significant other to hang out with their friends even though they do not really want them to. The response the woman wants is “No it’s okay, I would rather spend time with you;” however, that is not the response that they get. It is like the woman is testing their significant other to see if they will take the time to figure out if they really meant what they said. In reality, we should just be honest with our intentions and should not mislead someone. If the woman would just let her significant other know that she want to spend time with him, there would not be any miscommunication.

            Sometimes we may not know how we feel about a situation. This causes us to make statements that may be misleading. The most common misleading statement is telling someone that you are “okay” when you really are not sure. Your friend may believe your statement at the time but sooner or later they may find out that you really were not “okay”. By that time it may be too late to give you the support you needed.

            Overall, men and women have a hard time saying how they truly mean no matter the situation. This makes it hard for both genders to understand one another. If we would be clear and make true statements when we express ourselves, it would be less miscommunication between the genders and even among each other in general.

Reflection:

During the process of completing my Inquiry Argumentative Essay, I learned a lot of different things. One of the things I learned was the definition of rhetoric, which is the art of speaking or writing effectively. From this the rhetorical triangle was formed. It must include a message (argument reasons, evidence, information, structure), a communicator (ethos, authority correctness, appearance), and an audience (belief, values, knowledge, experience). I also learned the definition of ethos, pathos, and logos and how it is created. These things influenced my writing and helped me learn how to write an effective argumentative essay. In the beginning, I did not have the best luck finding research to support my argument. However, once Ms. Andrews introduced the idea of implication I was able to find a lot of research. This project also taught me how to use the resources in the universities library and what resources are available.