Houston we have a problem, speech can easily be far too mitigated

When talking about the reason for the Avianca 052 plane piloted by Klotz and Caviedes, Gladwell discusses how Klotz used plenty of mitigated speech. Mitigated speech is, as Gladwell explains means “any attempt to downplay or sugarcoat the meaning of what is being said. We mitigate when we’re being polite or when we’re ashamed or embarrassed or when we’re being deferential to authority.” (p. 194)  Mitigating speech is an easy way to get misunderstood, and to misrepresent your self in communications but sometimes that is necessary to save face and show all earned and thus due respect. Gladwell quotes experts and specialists on communication as well as some people in the new aviator training field which helped strengthen his argument. 

Gladwell writes about how mitigating speech is abundantly present in certain societies that have low uncertainty avoidance. As Hofstede suggested, there is strong evidence for a correlation between nationality/culture and different communication styles one aspect being the uncertainty avoidance that is such a apparent major issue in aviation as is power distance. Geert Hofstede’s idea of creating a power distance index is very valuable even today. Power distance is the amount of deference you give to authority in communication. Hofstede’s methods and measurements give us a measure for how communication styles differ between individuals as well as between cultures.  I see only possibilities for Hofstedes research! I see all the possible different populations, communities and subcultures that Hofstede’s methods and measurements could help us understand more accurately. 

Gladwell, M. (2011). The ethnic theory of plane crashes. In M. Gladwell, Outliers: The story of success(pp. 177-223). New York: Little Brown & Company. Retrieved from https://sjsu.desire2learn.com/d2l/lms/content/viewer/view.d2l?tId=1353956&ou=158593

mitigating speech

why do we need to praise 
undeserving authority with 
deferential speech
false pretense to a gentle servitude 
when we aren't the ones who have seen 
this leaders qualifications, abilities, personality, characteristics
and skills, we weren't the ones who gave them any authority
why must we serve them nothing but mitigated, and perhaps entirely dishonest words?