Language Blog Post

“Engaging in a conversation for 15 minutes where I was not allowed to use any version of a symbolic language” and then another “15 minutes communicating without any physical embellishments” was a lot harder than I anticipated. I have played charades in the past but for some reason it was nothing like that. I thought that this would have been a fun kind of game like experience with my family, just like charades, but it ended up being to total opposite.

 I did this experiment with my sisters, brother, and fiancé and tell all had the same reaction. They all got frustrated with me. I was actually quite surprised at their reactions. I did try to make it seem more like a conversation than a game and I think that is what threw them off. I don’t know American Sign Language so I am not sure if some of my symbols might have been ASL, but even if it was my family wouldn’t have known. I must have been really horrible because they could not grasp anything I was attempting to portray. And even though I told them they could speak back to me, and they knew I wasn’t actually illiterate, they way in which they responded when they understood what I meant, was much more symbolic than normal. They enunciated their words more, they used more hand signals and facial expressions and their voice was heightened almost like because I couldn’t speak English I was def. It was quite fascinating.

In the strangest of ways, it almost did feel like my siblings and I were from two different worlds, meeting for the first time trying to interact with one another and in the way that they interacted with me, I could tell that they felt some type of superiority as in if this were a real situation they would feel more intelligent and have to speak to the person in a way where they feel like they were dumbing down their communication skills., it was all in their tone of the way they spoke to me. In my own opinion I definitely think that getting an extremely complex thought or idea across would be much easier to do in the culture that has developed language not just symbols because you can articulate your point in a more precise fashion. Although in almost every culture, no matter what the language is, you can communicate in some form or fashion with symbols and hand gestures. There are many people in our culture who have difficulty communicating with spoken language, such as babies, people who are def, people who cannot physically speak, people who speak different languages, people who posses mental retardation issues and maybe just people who are not well educated. People who can efficiently communicate through spoken language do often try and take on a different approach in the way they communicate with someone who has difficulty or who cannot at all communicate with spoken language. They try to use more hand gestures and symbols which is where Sign Language took on a whirlwind. 

In the second part of the experiment when we had to talk without any hand signals, vocal intonation, head, facial, or body movements, I did not last very long and I kept messing up and starting over again but after a while I just gave up. I actually thought it wouldn’t be so hard because I have had  many teachers in my past who has just sat there and addressed the class in what felt like was a rambling speech with the most monotone voice and no enthusiasm. I thought if they can do it so can I. I was wrong. I am a very vibrant, enthusiastic type of person, and I had never realized until this experiment, that I talk with my hands as the expression goes. At probably about the third time I had to end up sitting on my hands, to not move them. It is almost like all of those physical embellishments are what help people communicate their points more effectively, or at least that what it felt like to me.

My family looked as if they wanted to fall asleep by the 15^th word, but since I continued to mess up, it kept them laughing. I figure that was the only reason why they didn’t fall asleep. I purposely threw in some inappropriate words just to see if they would notice and it’s almost like they zoned out of the conversation, they couldn’t even tell me what I was talking about in the end. I think this just shows how signs in our spoken language are just as important as spoken language itself. Yes we can communicate without signs, but seeing as human’s attention spans nowadays are extremely short, we have to use the physical embellishments to keep people paying attention so that they can remember and care about what you just said when you’re done saying it. If there are people out there who cannot read body language, it is because in my opinion, the common sense part in their life’s development is missing, the interactions with other human beings aren’t happening. There is a huge advantage to being able to read body language, because after a while if you’re good at it, you can almost know what someone wants to say or doesn’t want to say or even can’t say without them saying a word. I don’t think there could ever be environmental conditions where not being able to read body language could be beneficial. The only situation I could maybe think of would be if someone was being interrogated for committing a crime, and if they were lying and the detective couldn’t read body language, that would then be good for the criminal.