The Language of the Table

Talking for Content, Coercion, or Connection

Over the next month, I’ll sit, eat, and talk with an extended family that’s quietly grown over the past decade. My wife is the oldest of four siblings, all of whom are now married, and the holiday table has stretched a little longer each year. Our two children, ten and seven, are the eldest of eight cousins.

In the past year alone, I’ve twice experienced the familiar joy of becoming an uncle, to the sweetest little niece and nephew. Holding them from time to time, I’m struck again by the potency of human connection they make without intelligible words.

While we grown-ups intellectualize about the news, weather, sports, and politics, these brand new humans connect deeply, first with their parents and then with the rest of us, using nothing more than babble.

What sounds like nonsense holds great meaning. Their small sounds carry longing, desire, comfort, angst, and joy, all wrapped up in a non-syllabic mess.

Every few years, I circle back to Eugene Peterson’s pastoral series, and each time I do, a section in The Contemplative Pastor recenters me. I found myself there again recently. Peterson writes about what he calls Language 1, 2, and 3, which he describes this way:

“[Language 1] is the language of intimacy and relationship. It is the first language we learn. Initially, it is not articulate speech. The language that passes between parent and infant… in the exchange of gurgles and out-of-tune hums, trust develops.”

“[Language 2] is the language of information. As we grow, we find this marvelous world of things surrounding us, and everything has a name: rock, water, doll, bottle. Gradually, through the acquisition of language, we are oriented in a world of objects.”

“[Language 3] is the language of motivation. We discover early on that words have the power to make things happen… to move inert figures into purposive action.”

Put another way, “Language 1 is… the basic language for expressing and developing the human condition,” “Language 2 is the major language used in schools,” and “Language 3 is the predominant language of advertising and politics.”

Though written specifically for pastors, these distinctions have something important to all those who mediate relationships through words, which is to say, all of us.

Up until about 600 years ago, almost all words were spoken. In the pre-literate world before the printing press, very little was written down. Knowledge was passed on through oral language, which meant in part that knowledge was passed on relationally. To know a thing was to know it from and through another person, typically one with whom there was ongoing relationship. But print changed that.

Walter Ong writes, “Sight isolates, sound incorporates. Whereas sight situates the observer outside what he views, at a distance, sound pours into the hearer.” There is a different sort of connection that takes place when words are spoken to us versus when words are read by us.

This is not to say that written words can never have a similar effect as spoken ones. Think of a handwritten letter received in the mail; there is a sense of relational depth in this experience, though sadly it feels like the gift of a bygone era.

But in a similar way, spoken words can also take on the experiential nature of written ones, especially in our age of textual overabundance. The visual word litters the landscape of modern life. Words are everywhere, from flyers to feeds and from streets to screens.

Just as the shift from a pre-literate to a literate world unfolded with the advent of the printing press, a similarly if not even more seismic shift is unfolding in the digital age.

From the beginning of human history until about 1500, language was primarily a relational experience—think, stories and songs by the fire.

From 1500 until the turn of the most recent century, language expanded to become an informational experience—think, books and newspapers.

Now, for the past quarter century, language has expanded (or, some would argue, devolved) to become an instant (and, many would say, shallow) experience—think, social media and messaging.

The German sociologist Hartmut Rosa, in his book The Uncontrollability of the World, argues that as the modern world becomes increasingly customizable and personalized—think, your Netflix queue or having groceries delivered to your door with the push of a few buttons or a quiet Waymo ride without the risk of awkward conversation with a real person—our experience of an increasingly controllable world is forming us to expect similar controllability of others.

Rosa writes of what he calls Four Dimensions of Controllability:

We desire to to make the world knowable (“I’ve figured this out.”)

We desire to to make the world accessible (“I can have this.”)

We desire to to make the world manageable (“I can control this.”)

We desire to to make the world useful (“I can use this.”)

Maybe this is all well and good when it comes to binging a tv show, ordering food, or catching a ride to the airport. But when applied to other humans, control is the path toward coercion. Which brings us back to Peterson’s three “languages.”

In the digital age especially, I fear we’ve grown adept at language 3, “the predominant language of advertising and politics,” the sort of language that “makes things happen.” Almost everything you read on your smartphone is intended to persuade you toward a particular action, whether you know or want it or not.

As we’ve already seen, the various technologies of any era tend to have an embodied effect on the humans who live in that era, and the ways those humans understand and engage their fellow humans. So, we’ve come to think of and leverage language primarily as a means of persuasion, or put more sharply, coercion.

But language 3, the language of advertising and politics, is not language fitting of the table, in those moments and places where we gather with other flawed, fragile human beings who want to belong, just like us.

We’d do better to, at minimum, lean into language 2, “the major language used in schools,” the language of “information” and “orientation.” This is language born of the print age, a world of insights and the interesting.

Language 2 can be a beautifully connective experience between people when entered in and shared with mutual curiosity, respect, and empathy. “Tell me more about that” is the posture of language 2. It is language that is drawn to the content of the conversation. But there is of course an even deeper language, truly fitting of the table.

Language 1 “is the language of intimacy and relationship. It is the first language we learn. Initially, it is not articulate speech. The language that passes between parent and infant… in the exchange of gurgles and out-of-tune hums, trust develops… the basic language for expressing and developing the human condition.”

Language 1 is not about coercion nor content but about connection. It says, “Tell me more about you.” It is not speaking for persuasion’s sake nor learning’s sake. It is certainly not speaking for speaking’s sake. Language 1 doesn’t waste a word. Every syllable and sound matters.

My niece and nephew will not babble forever. Someday they too, like me, will speak to share and seek content. Someday they too, like me, will be often tempted to speak in order to persuade, and even worse, to coerce. But for now, they speak only language 1. Every coo, every cry, every giggle and smiley sigh means something meaningful.

Longing. Desire. Comfort. Angst. Joy. All wrapped up in a non-syllabic mess.

But it’s possible to speak language 1 even once our syllables make sense. There is a beauty in speaking language 1 with clarity and maturity. It’s rare. But it’s possible. And when it happens, we connect again.

So whatever table you sit at in the coming days and weeks, and whoever sits at that table with you, may you speak language 1.