“In the Church, we want everyone to feel welcome, safe, and valued, and of course, there is room to ask questions. But how we ask is just as important as what we ask.”
–Ally Isom

In this statement regarding communication in the Church, Ally Isom makes a distinction between the “how” of questioning and the “what.” To begin with, I’d like to address the interpretation that what we ask or say is less important than whether the message conforms to a contextually appropriate how. Most people, I think, can feel the untruth of this. As one friend put it, “Saying it sweetly don’t mean you’re sweet.” Some refer to this as the “bless your heart” phenomenon—the idea that linguistic venom can somehow be alleviated by adding a little semantic sugar. But even under sugar, bitterness can still be tasted. The what matters, and being sweetly or jokingly mean is still being mean.

The second aspect of Isom’s statement, the how, has frequently been reduced to one word: tone. Often, tone is understood to mean the emotional characteristic of voice, either written or spoken—whether we sound happy, upset, depressed, angry, contemplative. Some may also understand it as referring to register—formal, casual, direct, etc. (speaking differently with our friends than we do with our boss or colleagues or our children). Tone can also involve language features such as word stress, pitch, volume, and speech rate, all of which contribute to meaning.

In all of these instances, tone is an aspect of pragmatics, which is a branch of linguistic study dedicated to explaining “how language users are able to use context to interpret utterances, to ‘do’ things with words, and to ‘say’ things without actually uttering them” (Parker & Riley; emphasis added).

Language philosopher John Austin described speech acts as having two elements: a locutionary act (what is said) and an illocutionary act (what is done; also referred to as illocutionary force). John Searle, a student of Austin’s, created a taxonomy of illocutionary acts, or descriptions of what types of things can be done with language. Some of these include:

Representative: a description of some state of affairs
Directive: a speech act designed to get the hearer to do something
Question: a speech act used to get the hearer to provide information
Commissive: used to commit the speaker to do something (promising, volunteering, pledging)

There are times when the syntactic form of the locutionary act (the words) and the illocutionary force (the expected action or result) are mismatched. For example, the question “Could you be quiet?” takes the syntactic form of a question but the illocutionary force is a directive (“Be quiet.”)

As syntactic forms of locutionary acts become more removed from the illocutionary force (i.e. more implied and indirect), they are often perceived as being more polite. Increased politeness is a result of greater distance between form and force. As important as it is to understand cultural influence on perceived politeness, the concept of distance is also important, in part because it is less generally understood. Take for example the distance between the form and force of the following statements:

1. Get me some water.
2. I need a drink of water.
3. Can I have a drink of water?
4. Do you happen to have any water?
5. It’s really hot.

The first example has the least distance between the words and the action–it clearly states what the speaker wants to have happen. The second is a representative (a description) with the implied illocutionary force of either a question or a directive. The distance between what the words say and what the speaker wants to have happen is greater.

The third directly questions, but because it is a yes/no question, the directive for the hearer to actually supply water is still implied. The fourth is an even more indirect question, with the desire for water implied.

The fifth is a representative statement that does not address water explicitly, relying heavily on the listener’s ability to intuit any possible directive or question. It demonstrates the greatest amount of distance between what the words say and what the speaker actually wants to have happen. As the distance and subsequent politeness increases, the speaker takes an increased risk of misinterpretation (both unwitting and malicious) by the hearer. This risk is one reason why speakers may be hesitant to change tone in the direction of politeness.

With each statement, emotional tone may also convey meaning. If the speaker in the first example is intense or angry, it might signal desperate need or frustration. The emotions are part of the message. The form also implies a power difference between the speaker and hearer, as it would be unlikely for a speaker to use such a direct imperative to anyone other than a subordinate (unless context came into play–finishing a marathon, for example). If the same words are phrased as a question, the message changes. The urgency and sense of demand are gone, which actually changes the content of the message.

This is part of why a request to modify tone is worth discussing–because when the how is modified, the unspoken aspects of the what change as well. It is nearly impossible to change one without changing the other. For those who have a precise concept of their what, there is often little room for negotiation on the how because of this alteration in unspoken meaning. Anger, frustration, serenity, sarcasm, even an awareness of power and relationship–they are all part of the message encoded in the how that materially affect the what.

While there are arguments over whether it’s fair for an institution, culture, or individual to impose standards of appropriateness that may inhibit expression among less-empowered members, the reality is that how a message is framed has always been an issue. The old cliché “You catch more flies with honey than vinegar” is a relic of this reality. However, recognizing the interconnectedness between tone and content allows us an alternative to changing tone–it enables us to consider the varying effects of changing the message instead. Changing content alters the effect of tone, particularly when it involves providing context, or the why. Showing people the flies may help them get on board with any method of killing them, be it honey or vinegar.

Trying to make a message more palatable by changing tone may feel disingenuous because of the increased distance between form and force, but helping an audience effectively understand the why can often go a long way toward enabling them to also understand content and accept tone. The why illuminates both and helps to mitigate the tension between force and form, distance and honesty, the how and the what.

Parker, F., & Riley, K. (2010). Linguistics for Non-Linguists. Boston, MA: Pearson.

Note: Since writing this a couple of weeks ago, I have started reading the book Quiet. Chapter one frames the idea of knowing “what to say and how to say it” in a historical, economic, and even geographic context–turning from a 19th century culture of character to a 20th century culture of personality. This sociocultural shift was fueled in part by increased business and urbanization, and demonstrated in one way by the meteoric rise of Dale Carnegie and his book How to Win Friends and Influence People.

There are so many ways to look at how we perceive others and are perceived ourselves–why we choose to speak and how/what we choose to say. What is your take?