For this assignment, I was asked to conduct an experiment in which for 15 minutes, I was in a conversation with someone else, but I was not allowed to use ant kind of language. Personally, I found the experiment extremely difficult. I was about 5 minutes in and I found myself having to bite my tongue in order to not talk. The person I was talking to knew that I was conducting the experiment, but even she didn't like it. I found my partner looking around for things to talk about because she wasn't sure what to talk about. After about 7 minutes, she was silent for a bit but then decided to tell me about her day. After the 15 minutes were up, she was so happy that I can talk. According to her, my absence of communication made her feel that whatever she was talking about was uninteresting to me and that I seemed like I didn't want to hear about it any more. If my partner and I represented different cultures, then I definitely think the talking culture has the advantage of communicating complex ideas. Because they can speak, they can introduce their culture and allow whatever they want to be known delivered to this other culture. I feel that in our culture, the individuals who are only able to speak in sign language might have the most difficulty in communication because not many people are familiar with this language and therefore they would have a much more difficult time expressing their feelings and ideas. In a way however, it might also make the people who do not sign feel very helpless because the other person might think they are not interested and misjudgments can occur, like how my friend misjudged how I was feeling about her stories.
For the second part of the experiment, I was allowed spoken language, but no physical language. Although I was able to last the whole 15 minutes of using only speech, It was extremely difficult. I felt that I sounded boring with no emotions and I had to constantly remind myself to not change my tone of voice and to not use my hands. Once again, my partner felt that she was talking to someone who was very uninterested and according to her, she felt "stupid". In the beginning however, she couldn't help but laugh because she was used to me always using hand gestures while speaking. This experiment shows that body movements and facial expressions are sometimes more significant in communicating what we want to be communicated better than spoken language. They show motions such as happiness, anger, sadness, especially using different tones of voice. Body language has becomes a part of our daily language and communication that being able to read such language is crucial to our lives. However, being able to read the language is different for each person. While some people can read most body languages, others are only able to read some. The benefit of being able to read it is obviously being able to communicate in a much deeper way. You can hear the emotions and see them without having to hear all the words. Therefore, I can not exactly describe conditions where it is more beneficial to not be able to read body language.
I think that if I was permitted to use written language, it would not have made a significant difference in difficulty. The conversation was a very casual conversation while spending time with my friend. In order for me to use written language, it would mean that I have a paper and pen, or a computer where I can write or type what was actually going on in my head. Such behavior is not part of a natural conversation and it does not occur often. However, it is important to be able to communicate using written language. Written language can be chatting on the computer, sending a letter to a dear friend, or sending a business email. All of the ways that written language has been used for are important in our lives today and without it, there would definitely be some lack of communication. The use of written language has made room for the spread of ideas throughout the world as people are publishing their ideas on the web with the rest of the world having access to them. People seek such written language on the web to solve problems in their lives and without the ability of written language, it would be much more difficult to have the spread of the ideas.
Batool, I really liked the organization of your post!
ReplyDeleteI can totally understand why your partner would feel as if she was being uninteresting or thought you were uninterested in what she had to say. Facial expressions convey a level of attraction, attention, concern, curiosity, etc. and it is often difficult to evoke a lot of emotions when we are restrained from using gestures.
I also found it very interesting that you don't think it would have made much of a difference if you were allowed to use written language. I am the opposite and think that it would have been way easier for me to communicate since I could write down specific words and construct sentences to articulate exactly what I am talking about :)
Good description on your conversations in both parts. Isn't it interesting how the way we respond and interact in conversations has so much impact on how our partner interprets what we are trying to communicate and how they in turn communicate with us?
ReplyDeleteYou say that there are people who have difficulty reading body language. Can you name a particular group?
I'm curious that you felt that using written language in Part A would not have impacted the difficulty level. What about if you had tried to communicate a complex idea, like Einstein's theory of relativity. Would it have been easier to communicate with no spoken language, or with no spoken language but with written language? Which communication would have been more successful?
Other than those two points, good job.
Thank you!
ReplyDeletePeople who are blind would definitely have a difficulty reading body language, and also children who have not been exposed to much body language. Also, I think that body language might be different for different cultures and countries. For example, I showed my friend one of the popular gestures we make in Jordan and she had no idea what I was saying so I found that to be really interesting.
In a way, when I was answering the question about whether written language would have helped, I was only thinking about that specific 15 minutes I was speaking with my friend and thought that 15 minutes is not enough for me to use written language.However, if I was trying to talk about a complex idea, then I would definitely choose written language over no language at all. It would be more successful to use written language with no spoken one.
Thank you for the reply.
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