Watch your language! Our words shape our world

“There are thoughts that belong to only one language”

With these words the Polish writer Stanislaw Jerzy Lec brilliantly underscores the appeal of learning a language that is not one’s own and highlights nicely how our world can be filtered by the language (and remarks) we use to communicate and, more importantly, to articulate our beliefs.

Knowing how to communicate, learning how to name our emotions, and understanding how to convey our thoughts to others in a defined and understandable way, defines us and has a powerful impact on our ability to truly and authentically identify what we desire. A reflection that is the basis of that happiness that the Japanese call ikigai, a specific goal that we are able and capable of achieving toward which we direct our life momentum while relating it to what serves the community and pleases others.

But it doesn’t end there.

As neurologist Doreen Kimura points out, the areas of the brain that control precise hand movements and language appear to be the same. This discovery, as trivial as it may appear at first glance, has shown over the years a direct correlation between our ability to build tools and our ability to articulate more or less complex words and discourses. The development of humankind, in a way, has — always — been strongly linked to the development of language: a very interesting concept that emphasizes the importance that language has played in the evolution of human beings.

There’s even more. The same reflection also extends to the world of organizations, Edgar Schein, in his famous work on “Corporate Cultures”, analyzes how in the formation of a company’s culture and modus operandi, language and the expressions that are employed play a crucial role. Thus, the language of a company represents one of the fundamental artifacts that influence the external environment and those who are part of it.

At an even broader level, provided more evidence is needed, sociolinguist William Labov has linked communicative potential to the social stratum. The power a group of people has in speaking is not a stable trait, but something negotiated with others and is always in flux, representing the influence one can exert on society and the world. The language that people use is the “practical consciousness” of their actions: it usually makes explicit what they do and directs the planning of their choices for the future.

In this sense, we can do an exercise: let us try to dwell for a moment on how many of our words are employed every day to describe negative states of mind or even to express a complaint. It is not difficult, for those who have been following the reflection on the importance of language, to understand how it can have an impact (obviously negative) not only on the way we work but on all the feelings and emotions that mark us out by clearly penalizing even our happiness or the pursuit of it.

Rethinking language, being more aware of the words we use every day and in our, every interaction, however naive it may seem represents one of the cornerstones on which to work to build a better personal and organizational well-being than we are used to.

Fritjof?Capra, in his “The Hidden Connections”, emphasizes the importance that language has in qualifying, orienting, and decisively defining the way we think (the reverse is also true).

Similarly, language based on the grievance, on negative terms penalizes personal well-being, and a hierarchical, bureaucratized way of talking about the organization with obsolete terms that insist on operational concepts rather than an overall search for meaning penalizes the adoption of more innovative and effective models.