The uniquely human ability to use language allows more precision and flexibility in communication and it seems this paradoxical duality is both a benefit and a disadvantage for the designer (if not for everyone).

The challenges, choices, dilemmas and opportunities of verbal communication are evident to everyone everyday because being misunderstood or poorly expressing something are constant features of interpersonal discussion.   

 

Krauss (2002) in his/her article The Psychology of Verbal Communication says that language includes various properties (semanticity, generativity, and displacement) and these features allow us to create an unlimited number of messages that are not tied to the immediate present. His view that the “a listener who has understood the utterance has gone beyond the literal meaning of the words and grasped the particular sense in which the speaker intended them to be understood” may be referring to the verbal communication methods commonly used by designers.

 

For example he claims that displacement makes it possible to communicate about things that are remote in space or time, or exist only in the imagination and this seems to be a relatively common method of exchange among designers who use a ‘language of examples’ as described by Eckhert and Stacey (2000).

 

Krauss (2002) identifies four models of the way language functions as a medium for communication and these models vary in describing the intricate ‘disco of words’ between speaker and listener and yet oddly almost say the same thing. 

 

In the first approach the speaker encodes their thoughts into words, phrases and sentences and listeners must decode these signals to recover the underlying ideas. In another approach, a listener who has understood a statement has grasped the particular sense in which the speaker intended the words to be understood. “Identifying another’s communicative intention is not always a simple or straightforward matter, in part because people do not always perceive the world in the same way.” I am uncertain how this differs from the third perspective which acknowledges even the most ordinary statement is riddled with a set of implicit assumptions about what the speaker knows, believes, thinks or feels because people experience the world from different vantage points.

 

The fourth perspective (known as dialogism) does not view the speaker and listener as “autonomous information processors” but instead says that the speaker makes statements that will convey a particular meaning and the listener must process the statement and identify the speaker’s meaning.

 

Who would have thought that one of the most common human practices could be so complicated?

 

Krauss (2002) says that one reason people are able to communicate well in challenging circumstances is that the responsiveness of conversation permits them to formulate messages that are closely attuned to each others’ immediate knowledge and perspectives.

 

This concept sits well with Eckert and Stacey’s findings (2000) when they looked at 25 European knitwear companies to focus on communication in design teams. They looked at the use of “shared cultural experience” or “sources of inspiration” (i.e. using existing designs or examples as the basis of verbal communication such as “I want to do a cardigan like the one in Vogue, but in pink mohair”) and question why it is so common, what can and cannot be said in a “language of examples” and when it is an effective way to communicate. 

 

As expected, they found the extent to which designers rely on verbal references rather than visual images is influenced by their conversation partners and by how much effort they are willing to invest in communication. An outsider may find the conversation hard to understand or even cryptic.

 

It is interesting to observe how syntax may operate in a ‘source-language’. The authors question whether verbs can play a role given ‘source-language’ is used to describe intended designs rather than procedures to achieve them.

 

They also looked at how ‘source-language’ was used to communicate with other people given that design teams have different concerns, expertise and frames of reference even though they share the same objective. Source-language provided a powerful, effective and efficient means of communication with fellow designers. Managers were found to have difficulty following the conversation and designers often had to rationalise their design choices. Customers were usually buyers for large retail chains and had some understanding of the ‘source-language’ (I know a person who works for an advertising agency specialising in catalogues and he constantly talks in this language of previous examples). Dong (2007) also says that the designer is always referring to past experience and others’ designed works.

 

It was interesting to read about parallels the authors see between the practices and languages of knitwear and those of helicopter design. They suggest that ‘source-language’ is used when the design concepts are too distant from objectively grounded terms and that communication by referring to other designs is a powerful way to express complex ideas quickly because the description inherits both details and context from the source of inspiration.

 

I wonder however when reading the following sentence from Eckert and Stacey whether the language can work to curtail creativity – “…the language of design biases new designs towards existing ones because the more a new design differs from the stock of old designs, the harder it is to imagine or express it” (2000). 

 

Rhetoric is a very interesting concept in language. Rhetoric is used to describe language or expression that is laden with intent or persuasion (I particularly like the Collin’s dictionary definition of ‘artificial eloquence’) however it appears that its original meaning may have been hijacked by politics, business or other parties with definite interests because the word is derived from the Greek word rhētorikós - “oratorical”, from rhḗtōr, “public speaker” which is related to rhêma, “that which is said or spoken, word, saying” (I think we must return to the original meaning so it can be practiced more than the hijacked meaning).    

 

Johnson (2001) argues that architecture and design are largely discursive practices because they include rhetorical components in their thinking, argumentation and delivery. He cites John Mackin’s three classical definitions of rhetoric. Apparently Socrates said it was the art of influencing the reasoned, decision-making mind through words. Aristotle defined it as observing the available means of persuasion. Aristotles view is considered to be broader by appealing to the moral sense and emotions instead of just reason like Socrates (and this may be the origins of the hijacking). Quintilian, a lawyer and professor in imperial Rome, said rhetoric was the science of speaking well – aiming to encompass reason, moral sense and emotion as well as moral use.

 

Mackin then identifies ‘modern rhetoric’ – that constrained by time, resources or circumstances and Johnson identifies this with how architects and designers carry out discussions with themselves and others. Johnson says that architecture and design are plagued by persuasive or rhetorical practices and uses a very cumbersome sentence* to say (as I understand it) that there is an obvious relationship between the language or argumentative style of designers and philosophical expression and tactics of rhetoric. I think, when I read this, of Rowe’s Collage City which is truly insightful but virtually undecipherable to the non-architect because it is laden with philosophical loftiness.    

 

* “When we look more closely at the process of designing, we see that many of the connections, alignments and disputes between philosophy and rhetoric, and the structures and tactics of rhetoric, have an affinity that become apparent in the language, argumentative style, notions and emphases adopted by architects and designers while they are designing and by critics and theorists in discussing their designs”         

Johnson applies Mackin’s ‘modern rhetoric’ for the remainder of his article and almost uses rhetoric and persuasion interchangeably and on one occasion uses the term “convince” (“those conversational moments spent trying to convince people about the efficacy of certain actions or decisions”). He concludes the article with a strong statement about design as a discursive practice – “the more I ponder how theory actualises itself in the moment-to-moment acts of designing, the closer I come to believing that a rhetorical structuring explains the process of design better than any visually-orientated cognitive structuring.”

   

This stands in stark contrast to Edward Robbins’ Why Architects Draw who says that “presentations almost always involve verbal communication, with the drawings serving to direct, order, clarify and record ideas that come out of the conversation …the drawings to a great extent serve to frame and structure the social interaction”.   

 

Ulusoy’s (1999) research effort shows that the interaction between verbal and visual conceptualization is quite complex. He used a very small sample of undergraduate students to assess the relationship between graphic representations and verbal expression and finds that students with different verbal and graphic abilities tend to reflect this difference onto various aspects of their studio performance. He (unsurprisingly) concludes that understanding design incorporates both visual and linguistic faculties.

 

His interpretation of the results is much more interesting. He considers the   processes of translation that occur between visual and linguistic faculties – because “designing requires the end-product to be represented in a visual medium, after a process of continuous translations between linguistic and visual faculties”.

 

He says that verbal analysis of a project involves a translation from visual to language while the visual analysis is more of an abstraction which occurs in the same visual ‘medium’. Ulusoy considers that design, compared to verbal and visual analyses, is a more complex process due to the many translations and due to the difficulties of expressing ideas visually. He seems, to me, to arrive at a rather predictable and somewhat unsubstantiated conclusion (unsubstantiated at least by his own results) that not finding a relation between verbal analysis and design does not necessarily mean that design is not related with linguistic thinking, but that those who are better designers can express themselves better visually than verbally. 

 

Andy Dong (2007) tangles language and its role in design even further but his argument has an obvious sturdiness. He opens with Schon’s metaphor of designing as a reflective “conversation with the materials of the situation” and suggests that this conversation with ideas is a series of dialogues in a larger performance – that designing is language on its own partly performing what cannot be said but can only be enacted through designing.

 

He says that we “take for granted that language is describing design, but probably not doing design”. He acknowledges that semantic and grammatical forms are not free of consequence – they reflect the potential of the designed work, a meaning which becomes inscribed in the work. I like his view that language becomes a constituent of design.

 

So Dong then questions to what extent design exists within language. I also like his perspective that effectively acknowledges the inevitable presence of language and how design works within it and his simultaneous use of the term “language of design”. The article constantly moves between the two sides of the coin because it “proposes that the connection between the way that design is accounted for in language and the way that design happened and the designed work actualized can be explained by expanding upon the concept that the language of design produces design.” I get it (and even support it) but I could not explain it to anyone. 

 

He develops what seems (to me) to be a lofty deconstruction of a naturally inherent process – that language does (rather than simply represent) design is basically a performance made up of three components:

 

• Aggregating or blending ideas and concepts
• Accumulating and scaffolding ideas and concepts
• Appraising or evaluating ideas and concepts.

 

His article examines these components and outlines ways that the ‘language of design’ is related to the production of a tangible reality. Ideas and concepts are collected (perhaps again acknowledging the role of previous examples) and explicitly and implicitly captured in language so that the language begins to structure its realisation. Appraisal is used to reflect-on and support the results of aggregation and accumulation. “Appraisal gives affect to the information processing operations and guides the materialization of design”.

 

Being misunderstood or poorly expressing something are constant features of interpersonal discussion – I question however that the design field experiences any more challenges in verbal expression than others where it plays an important role in descriptive or philosophical representation. Language is forever abused and misused, for example, in politics and the media. The design field does have the benefit of drawings or visual representations which does then introduce Ulusoy’s concept of additional “translations” and this is a struggle I can appreciate because I imagine the designer thinking and drawing to create a possibly sensational outcome and then contemplating how (or whether) it can verbally expressed to a client – but then can the drawings effectively say anything on their own. I would be very interested to see the results of a study where pairs of design teams are given the same task or objective however one pair is given visual medium as its only form of expression and the other is given verbal communication as its only means of expression. I am interested to see the different design products as well as the way that each team has in conveying their concept.       

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

References:

Dong, Andy 2007 The enactment of design through language Design Studies Vol. 28 Issue 1 January 2007 P5-21

 

Dovey, Kimberly 1990 The pattern language and its enemies Design Studies Vol. 11 Issue 1 January 1990 P 3-9

Eckert, C, Stacey, M, 2000 Sources of inspiration: a language of design
Design Studies Vol. 21 Issue 5 September 2000 P523-538

Johnson, Paul-Alan 2001 Designing as Discursive Practice Architectural Theory Review Vol.6 No.1 April 2001

 

Krauss, RM 2002 The Psychology of Verbal Communication International Encyclopaedia of the Social and Behavioural Sciences Columbia University

 

Luck, Rachael 2003 Dialogue in participatory design Design Studies Vol. 24 Issue 6 November 2003 P523-535

Parent, Anne 1997 Analysing design-oriented dialogues: a case study in conceptual data modelling Design Studies Vol.18 Issue 1 January 1997, P43-66

Robbins, Edward 1994 Why Architects Draw MIT Press

 

Schooler, JW, Ohlsson, S and Brooks, K 1993 Thoughts beyond words: When language overshadows insight Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 122 166-183

 

Searle, J R (2002) Consciousness and language Cambridge University Press, New York

 

Ulusoy, Zuhal 1999 To design versus to understand design: the role of graphic representations and verbal expressions Design Studies Vol. 20 Issue 2 March 1999 P123-130

Discussing – Jono

Introduction

 

When I get ready to talk to people, I spend two thirds of the time thinking what they want to hear and one third thinking about what I want to say.”

Abraham Lincoln

Definition

Discussing ¹: Verb

• to consider or examine in speech or writing
• speak with others about (something); talk (something) over in detail

Preface

The design and architectural professions tend to be a combination of passion, creativity and tenacity with the rigors of discipline, structure and order. Strong communication skills are vital in a service industry to present, explain, support, critique, defend and supplement design thinking through reasoned argument and dialogue.   

 

Discussing

 

“Language in all its forms is a most powerful tool in problem solving.”

                                                                         Rubenstein

Language

This posting will focus on how we as humans comprehend language and which forms of the English language influences our thoughts. What I am searching for is how those involved in a discussion extract meaning from thought, and how the form of language influences that form of thought.

Intra-personal discussion

As design professionals, we discuss our design thoughts and generating principles with ourselves, reframe problems and re-asses the implications of our own design thinking.

Inter-personal discussion

As design professionals, we use speech to convey complex mental representations from ourselves to others across dimensions of time and space. These could be with clients, approving authorities, sub-consultants, contractors or even the community at large and eventually the users. We cannot consider our course subject of ‘Design Thinking’ unless we consider language and its use whilst discussing design.

Brief History of Language

In classical Greece Plato and Aristotle considered language and its effects, as did St. Augustine in the later classical Roman period. In 1582 the Academie Della Crusca was formed with the specific task of defining the Italian language, eventually publishing a dictionary in 1612. Shortly afterwards Cardinal Richelieu established the Academie Francaise with a similar task of defining the French language and then the English Royal Academy published its own dictionary in 1755. All of these academies were given the task of setting a structure for the use of words and to define the nature of language itself, which was the start of formal linguistics.

Descriptive Language

Descriptive linguist theories dominated the early 20^th century, concerned with the differences between languages and how they developed through anthropological and historical records. Differences between the languages were believed to influence the thoughts of the speakers and general psychological ‘laws of learning’ would explain how people learned to use language to describe the external world and elements such as design, becoming the vehicle for thought.

Formalist Language

Formalists took a ‘top down’ approach to language dictated from theory, emphasising the universal features and rules found in the worlds languages. The description of language is recognised as a thing in itself, with the goal of developing an accurate empirical description of these language universals.

Opinions on Discussion

Bever [1996] promoted that in order to understand how humans use language we first have to understand what language is. We then have to understand how the brain and mind make language work.

Many linguists and psycholinguists assert that there is a single language of thought that is used to form ideas. External speech and writing is simply an expression of those ideas

Language is probably not the first type of representation thought of when considering design, rather visual forms such as sketches and drawings are a more obvious representation for architects or screen shots and story boards for web designers. However, these visual representations need to be supplemented by language-based descriptions, to give designers a vehicle to explain the basis of their design.

Michel Foucault [1994] suggests that the analysis of the language of design moves “towards the place where things and words are conjoined in their common essence, and which makes it possible to give them a name.” Language can be seen as expressing the possibilities of design

Donald Schön [1983] treated language use in design as the “elements of the language of designing” or descriptors of what takes place during design and the consequences of actions as described by the language. Schön studies the essence of “reflection” as a design professional and how this reflective process is put into action. Designers make numerous aesthetic and quality judgments during a working day, however cannot always state adequate criteria for these judgments. Schön uses the term “knowing-in-action” to describe the process of turning thoughts into actions such as sketching an idea for a building form, allowing further reflection on the understandings which have been implicit in the action of sketching and subsequently leading to further discussion.

Lloyd [2000] treats accounts of design in text as a type of story-telling process which can be analyzed and interpreted much as a novel or film is studied. The product is considered the ‘end’ of the story.

Eris [2003] suggests that asking ‘generative design questions’ during the design development process assists in facilitating cognitive processes and to associates creativity to the quantity of distinct noun phrases during conceptual design.

Austin [1962] distinguished between ‘locutionary’ speech which utter and ‘illocutionary’ and ‘perlocutionary’ speech acts which accompany or create actions. When the production of an utterance is the performing of an action, Austin called this type of utterance ‘performative’, which suggest that utterances produce through naming. That is, the action of writing concepts in a text is a form of design practice and representing the designed work linguistically, the language produces the designed work.

Linguistic Resources

There are a number of linguistic resources available to design professionals to communicate the design product and process.

·      Affect -      How the design professional describes cognitive and cognitive-behavioural environments which represent design thinking and how the designer is behaving in a cognitive behavioural sense.

·      Judgment – How the design professional appraises in relation to the accepted standards of society, industry best practices or accepted design methods.

·      Appreciation – How the design professional evaluates design in relation to personal experience, intuition and subjective interpretations.

·      Capability -        How the design professional describes capability or the implementation of design-related activities to others.

Language Techniques

These linguistic resources can take the form of many varied language techniques to persuade or change the minds of other people, or to be more convincing in the delivery of information, or simply to describe and appreciate the design, for example:

·      Spatial Action – attributing actions to elements of the design as though they were creating form and organizing the space. This technique also tends to assist in the consideration of how users may experience the spaces or design.

·      Implications – during the process of design development, actions tend to have ramifications on the design itself, hence the designers decisions tend to yield systems of implications, eg “if we do this, then that will occur”. Discussions here tend to be what those implications are and if future impact on the design, on balance, they are beneficial to the process.

·      Intensifiers – involves increasing the emotional impact by adding an adverb. This suggests to the discussion partner will how they might be feeling, causing them to consider this and subsequently be influenced by it – either to increase or decrease the natural emotional content of a verb, eg “this is extremely …”.

·      Object Focus – involves making the object of the sentence the focus with a subsequent de-intensification of the subject.

·      Final Impact – a verbal technique of putting the main impact of your discussion at the end. Tension before the Final Impact can be built through suggestions and promises to increase its effect. If the partner in a discussion believes that they know what you are saying and think that they understand the message, they cognitively ‘shut off’, even if the information has been misinterpreted. The tension that builds and the allure of the final information keep the partner interested and engaged in the discussion.

·      Hidden Commands – involves burying commands within a sentence or discussion. Straight verbal commands are often seen as aggressive and confrontational, as though the issuer is in the position of authority. Commands can be a persuasive in the discussion, so be less detectable, they can be softened by hiding them within other phrases which distract the discussion partner and temper resistance.

·      Power Words – involves using words which have a special meaning. These may include: jargon; ‘in’ words; socially accepted attitudes and values and ‘politically correct’ phrases; safety oriented words such as “guarantee, safe, strong”; greed –orientated words such as “cash, deserve, more, free”; control orientated words such as “simple, best, quick, learn, grab”; belonging-orientated words such as “you, good, love, favourite”; trust-orientated words such as “proven, sure, true, certain”.  

·      Pronouns – involves using pronouns to add power to a discussion and personally involving the discussion partner with words like “I, you, us, he, it”, creating a more personal bond.

·      Sensory Language – involves using language which evokes the human senses, seeking to stimulate and create more evocative messages.

·      Short sentences – work. Make an impact. Every time. With short sentences, the discussion partner gets the whole message in one easy to comprehend powerful piece of communication.

·      Pauses – adds gravitas to a discussion at places where an impact is desired.

·      Language domains – separates design language into a series of domains: program (use, function of design); siting (features of the site); building elements (components); organization of space (interrelationships); form (shaping, geometry, organization); structure (supports, technologies); scale (magnitude, relationship between elements); cost (financial relevance); building character (style or character); precedent (historical references); representation (language and notation); explanation (interaction between designer and others).

Conclusion

Drawing and talking tend to be a parallel or inter-connected way of designing, with the verbal and non-verbal dimensions closely linked and together forming the language of design. Unintended consequences of design development shape the situation and inform the ongoing process, where further drawing and talking allow a redefining of the problem, a strategy for further action.

As an active and functional mechanism of design, language becomes a constituent of design. By supporting other design processes, such as concept generation, language implicates itself as part of design thinking. Language has a role in shaping reality and reflecting the potential of the designed work that is intended by the designer. As reinforcement for design processes such as concept design, language implicates itself as part of enacting design and as such a performative process itself.

    

References

1         http://wordnetweb.princton.edu

2         Bever, T.G. (1996) Experimental Psycholinguistics: Then, now, and thence. Advanced Psycholinguistics: A Bressanove Retrospective for Giovanni Flores d’Arcais. Nijmgen, The Netherlands: Max Planck Institute

3         Foucalt, M (1994) The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences

4         Schon, D.A. (1983) The Reflective Practitioner. Basic Books

5         Hunt, E (2002) Thoughts on Thoughts. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates