Hey, Hi, Hello

Well, Week 3 is already coming to a close, so here we are. It’s been a long week for me, as the school-stress

is already building up. But, guys, I (we) made it! It’s Friday!

Despite it feeling like a long week, it was actual a short one, due to Rosh Hashanah. (I hope you had a nice holiday, if you celebrated.) As a result, I only had my communication class once, rather than the usual two times. In the short hour and 15 minutes that we had together, we discussed components of verbal communication.

Something that stood out to me during our discussion was denotative versus connotative meanings. As a quick exercise, as a class, we analyzed different ways to say the word “happy.” Some words we came up with included elated, content, joyful, and the list goes on… We then placed the words on a spectrum, for lack of a better word, from words that conveyed the least sense of happiness to the most- if that makes sense. The point of the activity was to show how the connotation of the words vary, even though they have similar denotations. It made me think about when I was in middle school and high school, and I was learning French. There were multiple greetings or closings that we could use in our writing. Sometimes I found that I didn’t exactly know what the particular connotative meaning for each one was, I just knew that they generally meant “hello” or “goodbye.” It was probably more appropriate to use one over the other, but not being from the French culture, I was not accustomed to the specific connotations. (Although, it's even more important in the French culture to use the correct word because they have formal and informal, as well as feminine and masculine variations of words! It's quite tricky!)

One final note, which is actually an update regarding my post from last week: My team’s appeal was a success! We were able to gain a few points back on our quiz, which was a great way to end the class.

Happy weekend, everyone!