Diversity in communication

"She sounds very grumpy."
"Be careful while talking with him, he doesn't like to talk with people."
"You have a very strong Indian accent."

Many of us either make such statements or hear them daily during our day-to-day interactions with people around us. We all expect to have some homogeneity in our surroundings as far as communication styles are concerned. Most progressive societies welcome diversity of race, gender, and socioeconomic background; but when it comes to communication they want some homogeneity. Maybe this desire comes for the sake of maintaining clarity or making sure that the message is delivered effectively. In my family, my parents and I spoke different languages with each other. We perfectly understood each other, but never felt the need to communicate in the same language. I know this is not very common, but we managed to do it seamlessly. Actually, I never realized we were doing this until one day I realized this unique aspect of my family. My parents never forced their mother tongue on me, I also didn't insist that my kids should speak my mother tongue. My mother tongue is Marathi, and my wife's Bhojpuri, but our kids speak Hindi and English. They don't know either Marathi or Bhojpuri. Diversity in communication is not only a noticeable fact in today's world, but it is a need of today's world. Mobility of people has increased a lot, people move around the world for their education and employment, in search of a better and safer place. This results in a formation of very diverse societies. Such societies are not only diverse in race, culture, and religion but also in the ways people communicate with each other. 

Different people have different styles of communication. Some like to talk a lot, and some are very stringent with their speech. Some people are loud, and some are very soft-spoken. Everyone has some sort of accent, either it is a local accent or a nonlocal one, therefore, I never considered having an accent a barrier in communication. Our accent is our identity, that's the unique way we speak. I never tried to change my accent and never expected that someone else should change their accent just to sound familiar to my ears. In a same way, different people have different ways to express themselves. Some might appear aggressive, and some really mild. But, this doesn't mean that one way is better than the other. These all are different ways in which people choose to communicate with others. Each way has its own flavor and its own specialty. We should learn to enjoy this diversity rather than trying to bring forced homogeneity. Try to understand others, be patient, recognize the beauty of diversity in communication, and then you will start enjoying every accent and every style of communication. Diversity in communication is a very beautiful thing, as beautiful as diversity in opinions and diversity in population, let's embrace it.

Thanks for reading and please share your views on this topic.

[Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing]