Language and Communication in the Workplace
Have you thought how people used to communicate before the languages were invented? Have you imagined how hard it had been to express your ideas, your fears, or even your needs while building relationships and communities? Can you fantasize the high moments in which people could accomplish a step forward in understanding each other using “Language”? Do you think it was a distinguishable clear breakthroughs or it was gradual, incremental, and imperceptible accomplishment?
As far as the language bring people closer to each other, it can also separate people and obstacles their communication while they are not aware of that, especially if they are in a diversified workplace, from different backgrounds, talking different languages, thinking differently, and are asked to achieve challenging targets together that require mutual supports.
What is a language and what are its functions?
Language has always been the main way of communication among Human beings across all the ages, since it was invented.
The functions of language, as per Britannica1, include communication, the expression of identity, play, imaginative expression, and emotional release. Every physiologically and mentally typical person acquires in childhood the ability to make use, as both sender and receiver, of a system of communication that comprises a circumscribed set of symbols (e.g., sounds, gestures, or written or typed characters. By means of these symbols, people are able to impart information, to express feelings and emotions, to influence the activities of others, and to comport themselves with varying degrees of friendliness or hostility toward persons who make use of substantially the same set of symbols.
1 Robert Henry Robinss 2020, Britanica, accessed 15th of January 2021,
For more about this topic, download our latest book "Cultural and Language Barriers of Communication in the Workplace" for FREE:
