The Meta Model of Language

The Meta Model of Language

Today I thought I would write about something that is not only quite interesting but also that I also find useful in my everyday life. It is about the way that we express ourselves. Most times in casual conversation we say things that are meant to express our feelings but due to our need to leave out certain details, or draw importance to others we speak in ways that are vague, generalized, or even incomplete. In NLP we use certain filters that restore the meaning of our communication in order to best understand these details that can make a big difference in our ability to understand the nature of our communications with other people.

Below is a listing with descriptions of certain “filters” we use while communicating followed along with the type of question you can use to recover the missing or distorted information from just about any statement.

These are examples of common Distortions we use in conversation:

1.)    Nominalization: This is a word that is use to freeze a process in time.

Example: “We just can’t communicate.” 

Response: “How would you like to communicate? If were talking now, how is it we have failed to communicate?”

(* This is my favorite, I hear nominalizations all day every day!)

2.)    Mind Reading: This is claiming to know a persons internal state.

Example: “You have a problem with authority.”

Response: “how do you know….? What lets you know…?”

3.)    Cause – Effect: Someone or something is causing something without an adequate                           

      description.

      Example: “You make me angry.”

      Response: “How does what I’m doing cause you to feel angry?”

4.)    Complex Equivalence: Two experiences interpreted as being similar.

Example: “The look he is giving me means he doesn’t like me.”

Response: “Has anyone you ever know given you a look like that and liked you?”

                 “How do you know he doesn’t like you because of how he looked at

                   you?”

     

5.)    Presupposition: Presupposes something in the statement is assumed true.

Example: “If she knew the importance of  school. She would study harder.”

Response: “What makes you believe that she doesn’t know the importance of                         

                    school?

                              “How do you know that statement is true?”

These are examples of Generalizations used in conversation.

6.)    Universal Quantifiers: Universal generalizations such as all, every, never, no one, Etc…        

      Example: “Everyone lies to their parents.”

      Response: “Everyone? No one tells their parents the truth?”

7.)    Modal Operators: Words that describe reasons for doing something:

a.)    Operators of necessity / desire given as should, shouldn’t, must, must not,     

      have to, need to, it is a necessity, etc…

Example: I have to take car of her.”

Response: “What would happen if you did? What would happen if you didn’t?     

                   Or?”

                  

                 b.)Operators of possibility / impossibility as in can, can not, will, wont, may, 

                      may not, possible, impossible.

            Example: “I can’t tell him the truth”

            Response: “What stops you? What would happen if you did?”

8.)    Lost Per formative: a statement that makes reference to something that was said by another person with out identifying the source.

Example: “Her book was highly acclaimed.”

Response: “Acclaimed by whom?”

Finally these are simple Deletions in witch and important element is missing from a statement.

9.)    Simple Deletions:

Example: “This is really important to me.”

Response: “What is important to you? How important is this exactly? What is                    

                    this?”

    10.) Comparative deletion: This is a statement where a comparison is made but the    

                                                   basis for comparison is unstated.

            Example: “This is so unfair.”    Response: “How is this unfair?”

                            “I feel worse that ever.” Response: “Worse than before what?”

11.) Lack of referential index: Is to the use of personal pronouns (they,                      

                them, you, he, she, men, women, ...) when the context is unknown.

      Example: “They don’t listen to me.”

      Response: “ Who doesn’t listen to you?

12.) Unspecified Verb: This is a statement where the person doing the acting or                            

                                        desired action is left out of the sentence.

      Example: “You don’t care about me.”
      Response: “How specifically do I not care about you?”

The English Language can be very confusing and frustrating to understand. But for all the work we have done in our lives to learning to express ourselves through this language form where every word has atleast 2 menings, we do have some added benefits to show for our efforts. Our minds have learned to use it so well that right now, you’re reading this and you can do nothing but understand the words and not have to think about it. When we were young we worked very hard in school to practice, practice, practice, so that we could learn our letters, and sentence structures and pronunciations and now its so automatic its second nature to us But. to me the most unique thing about it all is this:

No mttaer how I tpye tihs you can raed tish as lnog as the frist and lsat lteter of evrey wrod is corerct tihs is our brians intreprtieng egenislh for us in its msot craetvie way! But tihs is aotnher sjbucet for anthoer tmie.

Now to me... the fact alone that you can read that, is very cool!