Language Post

For the first part of the language assignment I had a 15 minute communication session without the use of language, sing, or writing. I completed this exercise with my boyfriend. At first I found this exercise to be difficult only in that it was hard to keep myself from innately responding with words to his discussion. I think that I, and others, am so used to being able to communicate without boundaries so it was strange to not just say what was on my mind. I ended up lasting the whole 15 minutes for this part.

In the beginning of the exercise my partner just talked normal, telling me about work and his day. I sat and nodded, showing that I was listening. It was not until the conversation required feedback from me that it was weird. Being able to use body language was nice in the first part of the conversation and did not hinder our ability to communicate, as far as one person speaking and the other listening. When I tried to communicate my ideas about his day or advice about work is when it was challenging. I tried to using head nod and hand motions, not signals, to communicate but this did not work that well. After that failed I tried grunting the noise of what I thought the words should sound like, but I think that may have made it worse because now my partner had to try to decipher what I was grunting. He changed in small ways about how he talked, but I think because he knew what the exercise was he just laughed a lot.

If we were two different cultures meeting for the first time I think that the culture that speaks a language would have the upper hand in communicating complex ideas only because there are larger ideas than those that can be made through body language. Through spoken language governments are made, scientist communicate, mathematics takes place, faith is build, cities are build and destroyed, etc. Through body language one is able to communicate feelings, emotions, intentions, but complex ideas are not translated through body language alone. I think the culture who speaks thinks of themselves as superior and does not bother to learn how to communicate with those who cannot speak. As being the person, who can readily communicate with most of society, it is hard for us to take into consideration those who cannot communicate as easily. It is for this reason that people who speak the dominate language really do not try to even understand or communicate with someone who doesn’t. It is almost assumed that that person should know how to communicate with you, or you will not even try to communicate with them. I think that a culture who endures this daily is deaf/mute people. I remember I had a deaf girl in my communication class. While it was hard to talk to her, she had a great personality and used her body language to make jokes, address the class, and express her gratitude. She did not have any problem conveying her feelings or emotions with the class, but if we wanted to talk to her about complex issues we would need to translate through her interpreter. I think sometimes when speaking with deaf people you may try speaking louder or slower in hopes they might hear you (which we know would not happen, it’s just habit) or in hopes that they can read your lips. Also you could just write your message to the person because they can read and know the written language.

For the second part of this exercise I had a verbal conversation without any body language, hand signals, changes in tone or pitch, or facial expressions. This part of the exercise was far more challenging for me and I was not able to last the whole 15 minutes before I started talking with my hands. That was the hardest part was not being able to use my hands in a conversation. At first it was fine because I was just very monotone, which was weird because nobody really talks that way. After about 7 minutes I ended up using my hands as an innate reaction to conversation. This was where I had the most challenge and failed the test.

For this experiment my partner did not know really how to read me. Of course he had the ability to understand the words that I was using and their denotation, but it was hard for him to interpret the connotation of the word through my lack of emotion and body language. It really made for a very dull and boring conversation. Had this not been an experiment I think my partner would have thought I was depressed or mad or something.

I think that this experiment really speaks to the necessity of body language in order to communicate more than just words. Spoken language is great to tackle communication of complex issues, but if you cannot express yourself through any of the said motions of body language than it really hinders the other person’s ability to comprehend your feelings about an issue, argument, or conversation. Without the use of body language it is hard for the respondent to fully understand what your message means with a flawed delivery. It is hard to know what it behind words sometimes because the emotions are not there to fill in the blanks.

There is a disease called Pragmatic language impairment which hinders people’s ability to read, understand, and comprehend body language. This impairment is associated with people who suffer from autism, Asperger syndrome, ADHD, and mental retardation. The adaptive benefit to being able to read body language is a great benefit to humans because it allows us to be able to read peoples intentions. As said before body language allows us to fill in the blanks, the things that words cannot express, but body language can. Living without the ability to read people’s emotions could be hindering and detrimental especially for those who suffer from the previously listed illnesses. Honestly I do not think I can come up with an environment that would benefit from the inability to read body language. Body language is so important. It does not generally lie, it can tell us things about someone, it can be beneficial when you have young children, and it lets you know of a person’s intentions, either honest or dishonest. In my opinion there really is not a benefit to lacking this ability to intuitively read a person based on their physical reactions.