Communication at its Finest!!

               “Primates have an advanced system of communication that includes; vocalization, hand gestures, and body language. Humans have evolved even further, we have achieved something that primates have not; spoken language” (http://science.howstuffworks.com). I had never realized how difficult it is to communicate without speaking verbally or even to communicate without gestures and emotion but only spoken language, but it is difficult. It is hard to believe that there was once a time when humans did not use spoken language. While doing the Language Assignment Experiment, I found that both the absence of spoken language and the absence of all body language and gestures hinder communication.

                The first part of the Language assignment was to spend 15 minutes taking part in a conversation without using spoken language. I found that this was difficult, but it wasn’t impossible. I was still able to communicate with body language and gestures such as nodding my head or making a certain face depending on if I agreed or disagreed with what they were saying. I did this assignment with both my parents and I filled them in on the assignment before-hand. If I could re-do the assignment, I would leave my participants in the dark about the guidelines to the assignment because I felt since my parents knew what I was doing; they didn’t react as naturally as they would have in a normal situation. I did notice that since I was not communicating verbally back to them, that they somewhat drifted away from talking to me and instead continued the conversation between themselves. It would be interesting to see how this conversation would have gone between two people from different cultures. As advanced as we have become with spoken language, I feel that the culture that is demonstrating the spoken language would have the upper hand. This is because we rely so heavily on spoken language, that one might not know how to react in a situation where the other culture does not use it. An example of two different cultures that might be on different communication levels is someone who is deaf and relies on American Sign language and gestures to communicate and someone who is able to hear and speak and uses verbal language freely. Some people might feel uncomfortable knowing that they can’t communicate in the way that they are used to, but I believe that body language, expression, gestures, and emotion are a huge part of communication. In fact, without all that it would be difficult to communicate on a daily basis.

                The second part of the Language assignment was to spend 15 minutes taking part in a conversation only using spoken language. To communicate without using physical embellishments, hand signals, vocal intonation, or body movement. This part of the assignment was difficult; in fact, I thought it was more difficult than the first part of the assignment. I was not able to complete the full 15 minutes; at least I couldn’t finish it while taking it seriously. It is difficult to express how you feel about something without using the different devises such as gestures or expression. This part was not easy for my parents to participate in either. They didn’t seem to take me as seriously when I spoke everything in a monotone expressionless robot tone. In fact, we ended the experiment early because we were laughing at how silly I sounded. The “use of signs” in language is a large majority of the communication process, in fact, without “non-speech language techniques”, I believe that communication would be extremely difficult.  There are a lot of different people in the world who have trouble reading other people’s body language whether it is someone who is autistic, naive, or just simply does not catch on easily to others gestures; there are plenty of people who just don’t understand. I believe that it is important to know how to speak with expression and body language but I am sure there are some situations when the use of body language is not necessary. One might believe that the use of body language and gestures is not necessary when they are communicating with someone who cannot physically see; someone who is blind. I don’t think that there is a benefit to this, just the fact that it may not be as necessary in this situation as it is in others. Humans have come a long way, and I believe communication such as spoken verbal language, and body language is one of our best achievements!

Works Cited

"HowStuffWorks "Science"." HowStuffWorks "Science". N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Mar. 2013. <http://science.howstuffworks.com>.

Riggio, Ph.D., Ronald E. . "Reading Body Language: It’s Not Easy, But You Can Improve ." Psychology Today. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Mar. 2013. <http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/cutting-edge-leadership/201106/reading-body-language-it-s-not-easy-you-can-improve>.