“Good communication is as stimulating as black coffee and just as hard to sleep after.”

—Anne Morrow Lindbergh

“The meanings of words are not in the words; they are in us.”

—S. I. Hayakawa

Getting Started

We often associate successful business communication with writing and speaking well—being articulate or proficient with words. Yet, as the famous linguist S. I. Hayakawa wisely observes in the quote above, meaning lies within us, not in the words we use. In this text, communication is defined as the process of understanding and sharing meaning.^[1] When you communicate, you’re sharing meaning with one or more other people—whether that’s members of your family, your community, your workplace, your school, or any group that considers itself a group.

How do you communicate? How do you think? We use language as a system to create and exchange meaning with one another, and the words we choose influence both our perceptions and how others interpret what we mean. What words would you use to describe your thoughts and feelings, your preferences in music, cars, food, or other things that matter to you?

Imagine you’re using written or spoken language to build a bridge—one you hope will carry meaning, like a gift or package, to your receiver. You want your meaning to arrive relatively intact, so your receiver gets something like what you sent. But will the package look the same on their end? Will they interpret the package, its wrapping and colors, the way you intended? That depends.

What’s certain is that they’ll interpret it based on their own framework of experience. The package represents your words arranged in a pattern that both you (the source) and your audience (the receiver) can interpret. The words try to contain the meaning and deliver it intact, but they themselves aren’t the meaning. That lies within us.

So is the package empty? Are the words we use empty? Without us to give them life and meaning, the answer is yes. Knowing what words will match the meanings your audience holds within themselves will help you communicate more effectively. And knowing what meanings lie within you opens the door to understanding yourself.

This chapter explores the importance of delivering your message in words. We’ll look at how the characteristics of language interact in ways that can both improve and undermine effective business communication. We’ll examine how language plays a significant role in how you perceive and interact with the world, and how culture, language, education, gender, race, and ethnicity all influence this dynamic process. We’ll also explore ways to avoid miscommunication and focus on constructive strategies for getting your message to your receiver with the meaning you intended.

Opening Case Study: The Asheville Recall

Tamsin Okafor had thirty-eight minutes before the conference call, and three drafts spread across the reclaimed-oak table that served as the production office. Through the window, the brewhouse hummed with its usual Friday rhythm—the hiss of the steam jacket on Kettle Two, the clatter of a pallet jack rolling past the walk-in cooler, the radio in the packaging bay playing something bluegrass. From outside, Blue Ridge Brewworks looked like any other afternoon in Asheville. Inside her head, it didn’t.

“You’ve got to pick one,” Paz Bellanger said. He was still in his rubber boots, the cuffs dark from where he’d been hosing down the transfer lines. Paz was the head brewer, and when he was worried he stopped shaving; three days of stubble told Tamsin everything. “Dev’s going to walk in here any minute and want a decision.”

“I know.”

“And whatever you pick, I’m the one who has to explain it to the guys on the floor. So I’d rather we picked the one that doesn’t make me a liar.”

She nodded. She didn’t blame him.

The problem had started Tuesday morning when quality control flagged twelve pallets of their flagship Nantahala Haze IPA. Most of it—about three hundred and eighty cases—had come back with elevated diacetyl, which wasn’t dangerous but tasted like movie popcorn butter in a beer that was supposed to taste like mango and pine. Off-brand for Blue Ridge. Embarrassing for the team. Recoverable. You dump it, you take the hit, you move on.

Then Wednesday, Paz had walked into her office with a cleaning crew incident report.

One of the kegs from Batch 402—maybe four kegs, maybe as many as nine, the cleaning log was ambiguous—had possibly been filled before the caustic rinse cycle completed on the filler. Possibly. Nobody could say for certain. Forty-two kegs of Nantahala Haze had shipped from that run. Half had gone to a distributor in Charlotte; the other half had split between four taprooms in Asheville and one sports bar up in Boone. If a customer drank residual cleaner, the worst-case outcome was a burned mouth, a bad night, and maybe a call to Poison Control. Not lethal. Not nothing.

And now it was Friday, three o’clock, and Tamsin had the North Carolina Department of Agriculture on the call list, plus the distributor, plus every taproom manager whose phone number she’d saved. And three drafts.

The first draft, the one Devlin McKay had pushed under her door at noon, was titled “Voluntary Consumer Advisory — Batch 402.” Tamsin had read it twice. It was smooth. It mentioned “a precautionary quality review” and “consumer flavor concerns” and “as part of our ongoing commitment to craft excellence.” The word “recall” appeared nowhere. The phrase “cleaning agent” appeared nowhere. “Batch 402” appeared only once, buried in the fourth paragraph. Dev’s note at the top, in the green marker he used for everything, read: Tamsin — this is the one. Don’t scare anyone. We can handle the floor internally. — D.

The second draft was Paz’s, and it read like a lab report. Elevated vicinal diketones in fermentation vessel F-04 due to early transfer; possible caustic carryover in kegs K-402-014 through K-402-022 pending investigation of CIP log anomaly. Tamsin had smiled the first time she read it. It was exactly, painfully accurate. It would also mean nothing to the guy pulling a pint at Thirsty Monk on Biltmore Avenue. Paz had scrawled at the bottom: Tell the truth, T. We’ve got a good shop. People will forgive us if we don’t lie.

The third draft was her own. She’d been up until one in the morning working on it. It wasn’t one document—it was four. A technical service bulletin for the distributor, written in the kind of half-scientific shorthand Paz would approve of. A plain-English retailer notice for the bars and taprooms, the kind you could read out loud in a shift meeting. A customer-facing announcement for the website and the Instagram feed, short and direct, with the phrase “we made a mistake” written in her own handwriting in the margin. And a regulatory statement for the Department of Agriculture, formal, specific, with timestamps.

Four documents. One event. Each audience, a different package.

The problem was that Dev had texted her twenty minutes ago and said, very politely, that Legal wanted consistency. One message, one version, one language. Legal’s argument was that any variation between documents could later be framed as inconsistency—as telling one group one thing and another group another. That kind of thing had ended careers at breweries twice Blue Ridge’s size. It made Zuri Whitfield, their outside counsel, nervous. Zuri was not a nervous woman.

But Tamsin knew—she knew in the same way she knew the tasting-room playlist by heart—that if she sent Dev’s draft to the retailers, Paz’s brewers would read it on social media by Sunday night and start updating their résumés. She knew that if she sent Paz’s draft to consumers, panic would outpace facts before the weekend was out. And she knew that if she sent her own four-version set, Legal would have a legitimate, unhappy point about doublespeak cutting two ways. Same facts, different words, different emphasis. Was that tailoring to audience, or was that the exact thing she’d been trained her whole career to resist?

Paz tapped the drafts with one knuckle. “Thirty-four minutes.”

“I’m counting.”

Her phone buzzed face-down on the table. She turned it over. It was Dev. The text read: In the parking lot. Coming up.

Outside, a delivery truck backed away from the loading dock, and somebody in the packaging bay cheered because a song had come on they liked, and the steam jacket on Kettle Two cycled off with a sigh that was almost, Tamsin thought, sympathetic.

She picked up the green marker and uncapped it.

2.1 What Is Language?

Are you reading this sentence? Does it make sense to you? When you read the words I wrote, what do you hear? A voice in your head? Words across the internal screen of your mind? If it makes sense, you may hear the author’s voice as you read along, finding meaning in these arbitrary symbols packaged in discrete units called words. The words themselves have no meaning except what you give them.

For example, I’ll write the word “home,” placing it in quotation marks to separate it from the rest of this sentence. When you read that word, what comes to mind? A specific place? Maybe a building that could also be called a house? Images of people or another time? “Home,” like “love” and many other words, is quite individual and open to interpretation.

Still, even though your mental image of home may be quite distinct from mine, we can communicate effectively. You understand that each sentence has a subject and verb, and a certain pattern of word order, even if you’re not consciously aware of that knowledge. You weren’t born speaking or writing, but you’ve mastered—or, more accurately, are still mastering as we all are—these important skills of self-expression. The family, group, or community where you were raised taught you the code. And the code came in many forms. When do you say “please” or “thank you,” and when do you stay silent? When is it appropriate to communicate? If it is appropriate, what are the expectations, and how do you meet them? You know because you understand the code.

We often call this code “language”: a system of symbols, words, and/or gestures used to communicate meaning. Does everyone on earth speak the same language? Obviously not. People grow up in different cultures, with different values, beliefs, customs, and different languages to express those cultural attributes. Even people who speak the same language—like speakers of English in London, New Delhi, or Cleveland—speak and interact using their own words that are community-defined, self-defined, and open to interpretation. Within the United States, depending on the context and environment, you may hear colorful sayings that are quite regional, and may notice an accent, pace, or tone of communication that’s distinct from your own. This variation in how we use language is a creative way to form relationships and communities, but it can also lead to miscommunication.

2.2 Messages

Parts of a Message

When you create a message, it often helps to think of it as having five parts:

1. Attention statement
2. Introduction
3. Body
4. Conclusion
5. Residual message

Each of these parts has its own function.

The attention statement, as you might guess, captures your audience’s attention. While it can be used anywhere in your message, it’s especially useful at the outset. There are many ways to attract attention from readers or listeners, but one of the most effective is the “what’s in it for me” strategy: telling them how your message can benefit them. An attention statement like, “I’m going to explain how you can save up to $500 a year on car insurance” is quite likely to hold an audience’s attention.

Once you have your audience’s attention, it’s time to move to the introduction. In your introduction, you’ll make a clear statement about your topic; this is also the time to establish a relationship with your audience. One way to do this is to create common ground, drawing on familiar or shared experiences, or by referring to the person who introduced you. You might also explain why you chose to convey this message at this time, why the topic matters to you, what kind of expertise you have, or how your personal experience has led you to share this message.

After the introduction comes the body of your message. Here you’ll present your message in detail, using any of a variety of organizational structures. Regardless of how you organize your document or speech, it’s important to make your main points clear, provide support for each point, and use transitions to guide your readers or listeners from one point to the next.

At the end of the message, your conclusion should give the audience a sense of closure by summarizing your main points and relating them to the overall topic. On one hand, it’s important to focus on your organizational structure again and incorporate the main elements into your summary, reminding the audience of what you’ve covered. On the other hand, it’s important not to merely restate your main points, but to convey a sense that you’ve accomplished what you stated you would do in your introduction, giving the audience psychological closure.

The residual message—a message or thought that stays with your audience well after the communication is finished—is an important part of your message. Ask yourself:

• What do I want my listeners or readers to remember?
• What information do I want the audience to retain or act upon?
• What do I want the audience to do?

2.3 Principles of Verbal Communication

Suppose you were raised in a culture that values formality. At work, you pride yourself on being well-dressed. It’s part of your expectation for yourself and, whether you admit it or not, for others. But many people in your organization come from less formal cultures, and they prefer business casual attire. You may be able to recognize the difference, and because humans are highly adaptable, you may get used to a less formal dress expectation, but it won’t change your fundamental values.

Thomas Kuhn makes the point that “paradigms, or a clear point of view involving theories, laws, and/or generalizations that provide a framework for understanding, tend to form and become set around key validity claims, or statements of the way things work.”^[10][11] The paradigm, or worldview, may be individual or collective. And paradigm shifts are often painful. New ideas are always suspect and usually opposed, without any other reason than because they aren’t already common.^[12]

Consider the earth-heavens paradigm as an example. Medieval Europeans believed the Earth was flat and that the edge should be avoided, otherwise you might fall off. For centuries after people accepted the idea of a “round earth,” the planet was still believed to be the center of the universe, with the sun and all planets revolving around it. Eventually, someone challenged the accepted view. Over time, despite considerable resistance to protect the status quo, people came to better understand the earth and its relationship to the heavens.

In the same way, the makers of the Intel microprocessor once thought that a slight calculation error, unlikely to impact 99.9 percent of users negatively, was better left as is and hidden.^[13] Like many things in the information age, the error was discovered by a user of the product, became publicly known, and damaged Intel’s credibility and sales for years. Recalls and prompt, public communication in response to similar issues are now the industry-wide protocol.

Paradigms involve premises that are taken as fact. Of course, the Earth is the center of the universe, of course no one will ever be impacted by a mathematical error so far removed from most people’s everyday use of computers, and of course you never danced the latest TikTok dance at a company party. We can now see how those facts, attitudes, beliefs, and ideas of “cool” get overturned.

How does this insight help your understanding of verbal communication? Do all people share the same paradigms, words, or ideas? Will you be presenting ideas outside your audience’s frame of reference? Outside their worldview? Just as you might look back at a viral TikTok dance you performed at an office party, try stepping outside your frame of reference and think about how best to communicate your ideas to an audience that may not share your experiences.

By taking into account your audience’s background and experience, you can become more “other-oriented”—a successful strategy for narrowing the gap between you and your audience. Our experiences are like sunglasses, tinting the way we see the world. Our challenge, perhaps, is to avoid letting them function as blinders, like those worn by working horses, creating tunnel vision and limiting our perspective.

2.4 Language Can Be an Obstacle to Communication

Slang

Think for a moment about the words and expressions you use when you communicate with your best friends. If a coworker hung out with you and your friends, would they understand all the words you use, the music you listen to, the stories you tell and the way you tell them? Probably not, because you and your friends probably use certain words and expressions in ways that have special meaning to you.

This special form of language, which in some ways resembles jargon, is slang. Slang is the use of existing or newly invented words to take the place of standard or traditional words with the intent of adding an unconventional, nonstandard, humorous, or rebellious effect. It differs from jargon in that it’s used in informal contexts, among friends or members of a certain age group, rather than by professionals in a certain industry.

If you say something is “phat,” you may mean “cool,” which is now a commonly understood slang word, but your coworker may not know this. As the word “phat” moves into the mainstream, it will be replaced and adapted by the communities that use it.

Since our emphasis in business communication is on clarity, and a slang word runs the risk of creating misinterpretation, it’s generally best to avoid slang. You may see the marketing department use a slang word to target a specific, well-researched audience. Still, for the purposes of your general presentation introducing a product or service, stick to clear, common words that are easily understood.

Sexist and Racist Language

Some forms of slang involve put-downs of people belonging to various groups. This type of slang often crosses the line and becomes offensive, not only to the groups being put down, but also to others who may hear it. In today’s workplace, there is no place where sexist or racist language is appropriate. In fact, using such language can violate company policies and, in some cases, antidiscrimination laws.

Sexist language uses gender as a discriminating factor. Referring to adult women as “girls” or using the word “man” to refer to humankind are examples of sexist language. In a more blatant example, several decades ago a woman was the first female sales representative in her company’s sales force. The men resented her and were certain they could outsell her, so they held a “Beat the Broad” sales contest. (By the way, she won.) Today, a contest with a name like that would be out of the question.

Racist language discriminates against members of a given race or ethnic group. While it may be obvious that racial and ethnic slurs have no place in business communication, there can also be issues with more subtle references to “those people” or “you know how they are.” If race or ethnicity genuinely enters into the subject of your communication—in a drugstore, for example, there’s often an aisle for black hair care products—then naturally it makes sense to mention customers belonging to that group. The key is that mentioning racial and ethnic groups should be done with the same respect you would want if someone else were referring to groups you belong to.

Euphemisms

In seeking to avoid offensive slang, don’t assume that a euphemism is the solution. A euphemism involves substituting an acceptable word for an offensive, controversial, or unacceptable one that conveys the same or similar meaning. The problem is that the audience still knows what the expression means, and understands that the writer or speaker is choosing a euphemism to sound more educated or genteel.

Euphemisms can also be used sarcastically or humorously—”H-E-double-hockey-sticks,” for example, is a euphemism for “hell” that may be amusing in some contexts. If your friend has just gotten a new job as a janitor, you might jokingly ask, “How’s my favorite sanitation engineer this morning?” But such humor isn’t always appreciated, and can convey disrespect even when none is intended.

Euphemistic words aren’t always disrespectful, however. For example, when referring to a death, it’s considered polite in many parts of the United States to say that the person “passed” or “passed away,” rather than the relatively insensitive word “died.” Similarly, people say, “I need to find a bathroom” when it’s well understood they’re not planning to take a bath.

Still, these polite euphemisms are exceptions to the rule. Euphemisms are generally more of a hindrance than a help to understanding. In business communication the goal is clarity, and the very purpose of euphemism is to be vague. To be clear, choose words that mean what you intend to convey.

Doublespeak

Doublespeak is the deliberate use of words to disguise, obscure, or change meaning. Doublespeak is often present in bureaucratic communication, where it can serve to cast a person or an organization in a less unfavorable light than plain language would.

When you ask a friend, “How does it feel to be downsized?” you’re using a euphemism to convey humor, possibly even dark humor. Your friend’s employer was likely not joking, though, when the action was announced as a “downsizing” rather than a “layoff” or “dismissal.” In military communications, “collateral damage” is often used to refer to civilian deaths, but no mention of the dead is present. You may recall the 2020 U.S. Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), which some officials referred to as “small business relief” while others called it a “corporate subsidy.” The naming framed perceptions of who benefited—even though the underlying program itself was the same. This change of terms, and the attempt to change the meaning of the actions, became common material in comedy routines across the nation.

Doublespeak can be quite dangerous when it’s used deliberately to obscure meaning and the listener can’t anticipate or predict consequences based on the (in)effective communication. When a medical insurance company says, “We insure companies with up to twenty thousand lives,” is it possible to forget that those “lives” are people? Ethical issues quickly arise when humans are dehumanized and referred to as “objects” or “subjects.” When genocide is referred to as “ethnic cleansing,” is it any less deadly than when called by its true name?

If the meaning was successfully hidden from the audience, one might argue that the doublespeak was effective. But our goal continues to be clear and concise communication with a minimum of misinterpretation. Learn to recognize doublespeak by what it doesn’t communicate as well as what it communicates.

Each of these six barriers contributes to misunderstanding and miscommunication, intentionally or unintentionally. If you recognize one, you can address it right away. You can redirect a question and get to essential meaning, rather than leaving with a misunderstanding that damages the relationship. In business communication, our goal of clear and concise communication remains constant, but we can never forget that trust is the foundation for effective communication. Part of our effort must include reinforcing the relationship between source and receiver, and one effective step toward that goal is reducing obstacles to effective communication.

2.5 Emphasis Strategies

Learning Objectives

1. Describe and define four strategies that can give emphasis to your message.
2. Demonstrate the effective use of visuals in an oral or written presentation.
3. Demonstrate the effective use of signposts, internal summaries and foreshadowing, and repetition in an oral or written presentation.

One key to communication is capturing and holding the audience’s attention. No one likes to be bored, and no communicator likes to send boring messages. To keep your communications dynamic and interesting, it often helps to use specific strategies for emphasis. Let’s look at some of these strategies and how to use them to strengthen your message.

Visual Communication

Adding the visual dimension to a document or speech can be an excellent way to hold your audience’s interest and make your meaning clear. But be careful not to get carried away. Perhaps the most important rule to remember when using visuals is this: the visuals are there to support your document or presentation, not to take the place of it. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but it’s the words that really count. Make sure your communication is researched, organized, and presented well enough to stand on its own. Whatever visuals you choose should be clearly associated with your verbal content, repeating, reinforcing, or extending the scope of your message.

Table 2.1 “Strategic Use of Visuals” lists some common types of visuals and gives examples of their strategic uses.

Table 2.1 Strategic Use of Visuals

Type	Purpose	Example(s)
Photograph, Video Clip, or Video Still	Show an actual person, event, or work of art.	Historic photo of U.S. troops raising the flag on Iwo Jima. Source: Wikimedia / Public Domain
Diagram	Show the visual relationships among two or more things; a shape, a contrast in size, a process or how something works.	Diagram of a process or series of relationships.
Bar Chart	Show the amount of one or more variables at different time intervals.	Different colored bars show the monthly dollar amount of sales closed by each of six sales associates for six months.
Pie Chart	Show the percentages of the whole occupied by various segments.	“Pie slices” illustrate the market share held by competing products or companies.
Line Graph	Show the change in one or more variables progressively across time.	A line graph illustrating a marketing trend over time.
Actual Object	Show the audience an item crucial to the discussion.	In a presentation on emergency preparedness, hold up a dust mask. In a presentation on auto safety, hold up a seatbelt.
Body Motion	Use your body as a visual to demonstrate an event.	Hold up a model of teeth to show proper brushing technique.

Signposts

Signposts are keywords that alert the audience to a change in topic, a tangential explanation, an example, or a conclusion. Readers and listeners can sometimes be lulled into “losing their place”—forgetting what point is being made or how far along in the discussion the writer or speaker has gotten. You can help your audience avoid this by signaling to them when a change is coming.

Common signposts include “on the one hand,” “on the other hand,” “the solution to this problem is,” “the reason for this is,” “for example,” “to illustrate,” and “in conclusion” or “in summary.”

Pro Tip: Earn Your Signposts

Signposts are promises. If you say “in conclusion” and then keep talking for four more minutes, your audience will note the broken promise and trust you less for the rest of the meeting. If you say “for example” and then give something that isn’t actually an example, you’ll lose people even faster. The fix is simple: treat every signpost as a contract with your audience and don’t make one you can’t keep. When in doubt, cut the signpost and let the structure of your sentences do the signaling.

Internal Summaries and Foreshadowing

Like signposts, internal summaries and foreshadowing help the audience keep track of where they are in the message. These strategies work by reviewing what’s been covered and by highlighting what’s coming next.

As a simple example, suppose you’re writing or presenting information on how to assemble a home emergency preparedness kit. If you begin by stating that there are four main items needed for the kit, you’re foreshadowing your message and helping your audience watch or listen for four items. As you cover each of the items, you can say, “The first item,” “The second item,” “Now we’ve got X and Y in our kit; what else do we need? Our third item is,” and so forth. These internal summaries help your audience keep track of progress as your message continues. (The four items, by the way, are water, nonperishable food, first aid supplies, and a dust mask.)^[18]

With this strategy, you reinforce relationships between points, examples, and ideas in your message. This can be an effective way to encourage selective retention of your content.

Repetition

Saying the same word over and over may not seem like an effective strategy. Still, when used artfully, repetition can be an effective way to drive home your meaning and help your audience retain it in their memory. Many of history’s greatest speakers have used repetition in speeches that have stood the test of time. For example, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill gave a speech in 1940 that’s remembered as his “We Shall Fight” speech; in it he repeats the phrase “we shall fight” no fewer than six times. Similarly, in his famous “I Have a Dream” speech, Martin Luther King Jr. repeated the phrases “I have a dream” and “let freedom ring” with unforgettable effect.

Another form of repetition is indirect repetition: finding alternative ways of saying the same point or idea. Suppose your main point was, “Global warming is raising ocean levels.” You might go on to offer several examples, citing the level in each of the major oceans and seas while showing them on a map. You might use photographs or video to illustrate the fact that beaches and entire islands are going underwater. Indirect repetition can underscore and support your points, helping them stand out in your audience’s memory.