'Use of language often influences the perceptions we form of other people'.

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INFLUENCES ON PERECEPTION

 

‘Use of language often influences the perceptions we form of other people’.

At some point in our lives, every single one of us has stereotyped an individual or a group of people before we have even met them, be it a negative or positive perception.  Then after communicating with them we find ourselves asking ‘how the hell did I ever assume they would act in that way?’  Often they don’t act in a way that is a good fit with our original perception

Even when we communicate with a person, we are often too busy analysing their dialect, social class ethnicity etc. to even notice the message they are actually trying to put across to us.

Before we get to know a person, we can usually actually see their age, ethnicity, gender (hopefully) and sometimes their social class (unfortunately).  When we consider someone’s age we usually assume that the younger they are, the more energetic they are.  We also assume that an older person is wiser and more conservative than a younger person.

This is because society views the young as vibrant and fresh with ideas but the elderly as wise because they have gained more experience through life.  Therefore these ‘ideas’ of how we should behave according to our age directly influence our perception of the people we meet.  For example we would not expect an 80 year old to dance at a club, or an 18-year to play cards and reminisce old times on a Friday night.  

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These ideas influence the way we respond to people; a young person would never address another young friend in a very formal accent.  This is hypercorrection as we are altering our speech and what we say to suit our audience and this does not just apply to the stereotypical view of age.

We are often influenced by social class, for example we would usually address someone from a rich boarding school in a different way to someone from a local rough school in the middle of the city.  We would also make assumptions about their lives, the way ...

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