Negotiating Meaning: Cross-Cultural Semantics in Everyday Life

We often assume that if our words are clear, our meaning will be clear too. But across languages and cultures, communication rarely works so neatly. In this six-part Word & World program, we explore what happens in the space between what we intend, what we say, and what another person understands. We look at the hidden work performed by familiar phrases, the ways tone and positioning shape interpretation, and how small differences in meaning can gradually affect relationships and trust. The series concludes with the live session, Negotiating Meaning in Real Conversations, where we move from theory into everyday interactions and consider how meaning can be recognized, tested, and adjusted as conversations unfold. This program is about learning to hear more than words. It is about becoming more attentive to how meaning is created between people, especially when they do not begin with the same linguistic or cultural assumptions.