Part1:
Engage in a conversation for 15 minutes where you are not allowed to use any version
of a symbolic language.
I decided to try the non-verbal
experiment on my husband two year old
niece, well I was babysitting. I did not tell my husband or niece about the experiment
beforehand. I found the non-verbal
experiment to be fairly easy because both my husband and niece actually
understood what I was trying to communicate. Ironically, my niece seemed to
understand more of what I was trying to communicate than my husband. My niece caught on very
quickly and actually starting motioning for things along with me. My husband
seemed to be confused with my motions at
first and kept asking me what I was doing, but eventually he was able to
figured it out.
If this experiment were to actually
take place with two different cultures I suppose the culture that can communicate
the simplest would be able to get more ideas conveyed to more groups of people.
I also suppose the speaking culture may feel as though the culture that does
not use symbolic language is more primate or less knowledgeable. In our culture, there are individuals who
have difficulty communicating with spoken language such as the deaf. As a
culture we accept American Sign Language as a valid form of communication, which
can be taught to anyone who wants to
learn another way to communicate.
Part2:
Spend 15 minutes communicating without any physical embellishments, i.e., no
hand signals, no vocal intonation, no head, facial, or body movements.
For the second part of the
experiment I decided to have a conversation with my mother and sister. I had
not see either my mom or sister in about 3 months which meant they wanted to
catch on all of life's happenings. I did not tell my mom or sister about the
experiment beforehand. I found this
experiment to be quiet challenging and lasted maybe 10 mins. When I started speaking with mom she almost immediately noticed that I
was not communicating normally and asked if something was wrong. My sister on
the other hand, communicated that I
didn't seem very interested in the conversation and started to get irritated we
me . After the experiment I have concluded that non-speech language techniques
are very important to how we communicate because they help define our emotions
and help give meaning to spoken words.
Without non-speech language we are literally just spouting out words.
People who are visually and hearing impaired
may have difficulty reading body
language and non-speech language. An adaptive benefit of being able to read
body language is being able to evaluate a person or situation, i.e. a perceptive job applicant or a hostile situation. I do not feel that there is an environmental
condition where there might be a benefit to not reading body language because
body language is sub concise. Most of the time people do not even realize what
they are conveying to the rest of the world, which generally reveals a person's true
feelings.
That was actually very creative to have two distinctly different age groups in the first part of the experiment. Can you speculate as to why your niece had an easier time understanding and communicating with you as opposed to your husband? Could it be related to her developmental age?
ReplyDelete"...the culture that can communicate the simplest would be able to get more ideas conveyed to more groups of people."
But that wasn't the question, though I do question whether non-speaking cultures would have greater success with this. Which culture would be better at communicating complex ideas? Could you explain the concept of evolution without spoken/written language?
Why did your sister and mother interpret a lack of body language as "something wrong"? Since you could fully use verbal language, why were they concerned or irritated? I agree that body language "gives meaning" but even more than that, they confirm or deny the validity of our words. If our body language matches our words, we are telling the truth. If it doesn't match, our words can't be trusted to be valid or honest. So with no body language whatsoever, your mother and sister didn't know if what you were telling them was real or not. It is common for partners to feel uncomfortable or irritated or even angry during this part of the experiment. (You touch on this in your last paragraph.)
Yes, those who are blind (and deaf, for intonation) will have trouble reading body language, as will people in the autism spectrum, who are characterized by the inability to read body language.
Is there ever a situation where body language might lie to you and it would be better to ignore it? Do all cultures use the same system of body language?
Hi Jennifer,
ReplyDeleteI think it was a great idea to not tell your husband or niece about the experiment before hand, and I also find it interesting that it was easier to communicate with your young niece, than with your husband. You made a good point when you explained how that it is difficult for people who are deaf in our culture to communicate with people using spoken language. Again with the second part of the assignment I thought it was clever to not tell your partner(s) what you were doing, and even more so to use different partners for both parts. Like yourself it was very difficult for me to communicate without using any non-speech language techniques. I completely agree with you about the non-speech techniques help to communicate the emotion. I enjoyed reading about your experiment, and I thought you had a very clever way of conducting it.
Great post, however, I disagree with a small part. I believe that those who are hearing impaired are great at reading body language. Sign language is often enlivened by exaggerated body language. Also believe a deaf person would rely more on body language than we do since they have difficulties with verbal language.
ReplyDelete