i know i said that emotion skews meaning when it comes to communication. i was thinking about that, in particular, and i decided i should say more.
to clarify and to add to that statement, several more ideas should be pointed out. emotion should not be looked at negatively in relation to communication. yes, emotion can skew the message and the interpretation of that message. however, emotion can also inspire communication in the first place--which is usually a good thing. for instance, you love your mother, so you want her to know that. or, your co-worker makes a racist comment, and you want to let her know that that is unnacceptable and stupid. et cetera.
so, emotion can lead to communication.
by communication, i mean all languages--not just spoken or written, but body language and intonation and all the other ways we communicate with other people. i'm also including all the made-up words/sounds/images and altered word/sound/image meanings people have between each other. those kind of things are what many relationships are comprised of, arguably. for example, when i say or write, "i am not a monkey. do not feed me bananas," it sounds like nonsense, right?
why would i say or write something like that to you?
however, when i say or write it to my sister, it is to remind her of one day, ten years ago, when i was walking around the house with a video camera, referring to my family as different zoo animals. between us, we know that those words were her reply to my designating her a monkey. they remind us of our shared past, of our sisterhood. they remind us that we are two very silly people. they signify our bond. something that seems to convey somewhere between nothing and a minimal amount of ideas is actually saturated with meaning--but only to certain people. thus, emotion is linked to communication. emotion being, in this case, nostalgia? love? general good feelings? something like that.
this is difficult to explain, but it's something like the idea of music as a combination of emotion and reason. music inspires emotion; emotion inspires music. music is an exercise in logic, since it is completely mathematical. it has a language, a notation system that attempts to describe what is happening on the instrument when you hear a piece.
anyway, my main point was that the relationship between language and emotion is not just one of foul-ups.