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Richard L. Lanigan
From a communication discourse perspective, Table 2 summarizes the
comparative characteristics that come into play when bilingual comparisons are
being made between (1) English and Navajo, and, (2) Navajo and Japanese.
Keeping Figure 3 in mind, we have an encoding problem when making the
Code because Navajo must be made compatible with American English. The
opposite decoding problem occurs for the Japanese as they attempt to understand
(much less decrypt) the Navajo.
Table 2. Comparative communication features
The communication features in Table 2 depict the basic interpretive problems
confronting the respective users. Recalling Figure 2, the langage problem
is illustrated with the issue of syntax in sentences. Word order in English is
Subject–Verb–Object whereas Japanese is Subject–Object–Verb, not a difficult
issue for any code-breaking analyst. However, Navajo has no preferred word
order; is has “free order” chosen by the speaker (Crystal 1997: 98); that definitely
is a cognitive problem for a listener expecting consistent word order! As
we move down the hierarchy of discourse structure to Langue (Figure 2), we
may take the interpersonal register as an exemplary issue. As described in Table
1, English is essentially egocentric in orientation meaning that communication
is direct with the goal of understanding oneself through one’s expression. By
comparison, both Navajo and Japanese have a sociocentric orientation wherein
communication is indirect and has the goal of understanding others through
perception. Obviously, the comparative cultural orientations to communication
are conflicting process of encoding versus decoding as the point of interpretation
(Figure 3).