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Good Communication 101: Mirroring, Jargon, Hifalutin Words | Alan Alda | Big Think
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May 31, 2017
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May 31, 2017
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Communication is more than a string of words that gets across static information. The language we use to converse does more than give facts—it can actually offer understanding. Take it from Alan Alda, a career actor whose craft thrives on effective communication through openness and emotional availability. When Alda isn't on set, he is working to help people communicate more effectively. Through the Alan Alda Center for Communication Science, he helps people understand techniques, like mirroring, that can be deployed to enhance communication. While certain tools of language, like jargon, can facilitate more efficient communication between individuals who share a specialized lexicon, they can also confuse the non-initiated. Alda has summarized his adventures in in the art and science of communication in his book, If I Understood You, Would I Have This Look on My Face?
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ALAN ALDA:
Alan Alda has earned international recognition as an actor, writer and director. In addition to The Aviator, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award, Alda's films include Crimes and Misdemeanors, Everyone Says I Love You, Flirting With Disaster, Manhattan Murder Mystery, And The Band Played On, Same Time, Next Year and California Suite, as well as The Seduction of Joe Tynan, which he wrote, and The Four Seasons, Sweet Liberty, A New Life and Betsy's Wedding, all of which he wrote and directed. Recently, his film appearances have included Tower Heist, Wanderlust, and Steven Spielberg's Bridge of Spies.
He helped found the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook University where he is a Visiting Professor, helping to develop innovative programs that enable scientists to communicate more effectively with the public. He originated The Flame Challenge, a yearly international competition for scientists in which they compete to explain complex scientific concepts so that 11-year-olds can understand them. Since 2008, he has worked with physicist Brian Greene in presenting the annual World Science Festival in New York City, attended since its inception by over a million people. He has won numerous awards for communicating science from the National Academy of Sciences, the American Chemical Society, and the National Science Board.
Alda was born in New York City, the son of the distinguished actor, Robert Alda. He began acting in the theater at the age of 16 in summer stock in Barnesville, Pennsylvania.
During his junior year at Fordham University, he studied in Europe where he performed on the stage in Rome and on television in Amsterdam with his father.
After college, he acted at the Cleveland Playhouse on a Ford Foundation grant. On his return to New York, he was seen on Broadway, off-Broadway and on television. He later acquired improvisational training with "Second City" in New York and "Compass" at Hyannisport. That background in political and social satire led to his work as a regular on television's "That Was the Week That Was."
His wife, Arlene, is the author of nineteen books, including her latest, Just Kids from the Bronx. An award winning professional photographer, her work has appeared in a number of magazines and books. They have three daughters and eight grandchildren.
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TRANSCRIPT:
ALAN ALDA: Jargon gets a bad reputation for good reasons. But there's something good about jargon, and I think it should be explored because jargon hangs on, I think, in our speech because it has a usefulness.
When people in the same profession have a word that stands for five pages of written knowledge, why say five pages of stuff when you can say one word? And if the other person understands it exactly the way you understand it then jargon has usefulness.
The trouble is we develop such specialized words that they're not understood by people with just a little distance from our expertise. For instance, even show business, which you wouldn't expect to have a technical jargon—or you might not expect it—even show business has it, movie making. “Take this gobo and put it on the Century over there, and hurry up because this is the martini shot. And while you're at it bring me a half-apple.” That's not understood to most people and it's crystal clear to somebody who's been on a movie set for a while. I guess I have to explain it or people will be writing you letters saying “what does all that mean?”
A gobo is a...
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