How We Communicate....

Part 1

Communication and conversation without writing or speaking is difficult and very limited. I had a conversation with one person and we were only able to express very basic ideas, wants, or needs to each other using gesturing. We used a lot of pointing and imitation; For example- pretending to eat something to signify that we were hungry but even that got a little confusing. The biggest limitation was not being able to speak about anything abstract, ideas etc. Everything included in the “conversation” was very literal.

I think I was more in control of the conversation because I was constantly thinking about what my partner and I could “talk” about. It was difficult to keep conversation flowing since it was impossible to share ideas or feelings other than “happy” with a smile or “angry” with a frown. I asked more questions than my partner; however they tended to only require yes or no answers. After I ran out of questions, I began communicating things like “I like dogs” but only because I had a dog in the room to point to. I think a good conversation would include a balance of power between two individuals but because I was the person with the agenda (to complete the assignment), I took over the conversation to ensure my partner and I were communicating in some form.

I think that if my partner and I were from two different cultures, one that had language and one that did not, the overall tone of the “conversation” might have been negative. The culture that has language has an advantage in communicating complex ideas because they have words to describe thoughts and feelings that gestures cannot communicate. The culture with the language might think that the culture without symbolic language is less sophisticated and probably not very smart in comparison to themselves.

This might be a stretch, but the example I can think of is babies and adults. Babies have no way to communicate except for crying and gesturing (when they are a little older). They can only communicate when they are happy or sad, while their parents talk to the babies all day long. This does not create any negative situations because adults are aware that their children cannot yet communicate with speech or writing but the limited communication would be similar to that of the culture that had language and the culture that did not. Other than this example, I cannot think of any modern culture that does not have at least some type of symbolic language (ASL etc) to communicate effectively with other people.

Part 2

Part two of the language experiment really was more difficult than I thought it would be. My partner and I discussed different movies and characters that we liked and during the conversation, I realized that inflection in your voice and body movements greatly affect how your message is received. For instance, saying “Iron man is in that movie” with no excitement in your voice or body language means something completely different than if you were to raise your voice and jump up and say “IRON MAN WAS IN THAT MOVIE!!!” The first was a statement of fact, the second was an exclamation denoting excitement and expressing that you REALLY like Iron Man. It was difficult for my partner and me to completely understand each other unless opinions were explicit like “I like Iron Man” or “I do not like the Hulk.”

The experiment shows that body language and tone of speech is extremely important in communication. This helps to show if we are passionate about something, or if we are upset, bored, etc. It helps to express a wide range of emotions and also keeps our “audience” interested in what we are saying.

The adaptive benefit of reading body language is that you are able to communicate more easily with people who speak different languages or are from different cultures. This allows people from different places to interact even though they may not speak the same language. This may help in acquiring resources, or survive in an unknown place. It could even help people reproduce successfully because they are able to communicate beyond just language. Many emotions and intentions can be expressed through body language such as if a person wants to hurt you or help you. If a person appears threatening or docile. Although body language cannot replace the spoken word, it is a universal mode of communication.

I think there are people who have difficulty reading body language. A good example would be someone who has Asperger’s syndrome as they are not able to pick up on body language or social cues and cannot replicate them in their own communication. A person with Asperger’s would also be a good example of when body language may not be reliable in providing information about how the person is feeling or thinking at the time.