I thought this reading was interesting. The dynamic ingroups and outgroups form by playing off each other reminds me of a catch 22 in some cases. In the case of an American who is fluent in Japanese, it seems like it is not possible to penetrate into the group because of the lack of the common group knowledge, but the only way to get that knowledge is to be a part of the ingroup.<\/p>\n
One of the most interesting factors for me was how much of an effect language has on creating and maintaining ingroups and outgroups. On a basic level it makes sense, because if you don\u2019t speak the common language of a certain group, it will automatically mark you as someone different. However, one factor that I didn\u2019t really consider is the fact that each language has specific markers and emphasis on how<\/em> it is spoken, the way <\/em>it is spoken, and what<\/em> is spoken. For example, I read an article recently called \u201cWhy the French Love to Say No.\u201d One of the points in the article explained that while the English language has over 500,000 words, French only has around 70,000. As a result, while English is rather explicit and direct in how it is spoken and not heavily reliant on context, French is much more reliant on context and other expressions to show meaning, and \u2018non\u2019 can have many different layers of meaning and not actually mean no. Considering the fact that different languages operate in fundamentally different ways can be very helpful in converging different groups.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I thought this reading was interesting. The dynamic ingroups and outgroups form by playing off each other reminds me of a catch 22 in some…<\/p>\n