Experimenting with Language and Communication

In the two parts of this experiment, I was asked to first "engage in a conversation for 15 minutes" where I was not allowed to use "any version of a symbolic language (no speaking, writing, or ASL)," and second to spend another "15 minutes communicating without any physical embellishments," basically referring to body language and vocal intonation.

With the first part of the experiment, I found it fairly challenging. In the beginning I wasn't quite sure how to start and how to respond to my partner in conversation. Eventually it became similar to charades with me attempting to act out what I meant, but by the end of the fifteen minutes we had barely gotten through one idea in our conversation, and I had to explain to him what I had been trying to communicate. Our attempt at discussion was rather humorous to the both of us, but that's only because we knew that at the end of the fifteen minutes we would go back to talking to one another. However if we didn't have that opportunity, a simple dialogue would be nearly impossible.

Had we been two different cultures meeting for the first time, we really would only be able to share very simple ideas that we could act out through similarities. For example, if I was trying to explain to someone from another culture that an apple was sour, I could show them an apple, and then make a face as if it were sour, or hold up a lemon and make the same facial expression to show them through associations what I'm trying to say. However, if my culture could speak and the other culture could not, I believe I would be at a disadvantage in communication. Since the other culture would already be accustomed to conversing through body language, they could share ideas much more easily than I could. Since my symbolic language would mean nothing to them, I couldn't use it, and thus I would have to figure out a way to act out my meaning. However since both cultures share body language, that form of communication would still be open, though my speaking culture would be at a disadvantage.

Those in speaking cultures have historically tried to share (force) their symbolic language with (upon) the places to where they travel. In example, the English language was spread to the rest of the world as the British colonizers traveled around the world, even if those native to the area had no interest in learning the language. However, it still must have been much easier for those who had a solid symbolic body language to share their complex ideas with each other, and even with the colonizers, than it was for the colonizers to discuss ideas with them. Most people understand body language, even if they don't understand each other's native tongues.

There are several groups in our culture who have difficulty communicating with spoken language, like those who are deaf, mute, or have other speech or language disorders. Focusing on the first two, individuals who are deaf and/or mute generally learn sign language to communicate with others, which may be American Sign Language (ASL) or the sign language of another culture. Interaction and communication with those who do speak changes because those who speak must learn a new type of symbolic language, though in this case it would become symbolic body language. It would also change dialogue since a person who speaks can often multitask, doing other things while talking to others, but while signing, this same person would have to pay attention to the person their signing with, or else they would miss part of the conversation. It requires a shift in the way the brain works, really. People who speak regularly rely on both their senses of hearing and sight to communicate, since spoken language includes both the use of the voice and the observation of body language, but with those who sign, the shift becomes the complete observation of body language.

In the second part of the experiment, however, we were not to use any type of body language, physical embellishment, or change in intonation for fifteen minutes, and I found this nearly impossible. I'm a very expressive person when I talk, using my hands and facial expressions to express both my ideas and my opinions of ideas. My friends and family think of me as an open book because of it, so I found being unable to use any of my normal body movements extremely unnatural. I basically had to focus on talking and acting like a robot to avoid changing intonation or moving my face. At the longest I was able to do this for two or three minutes, but then my partners in conversation would start laughing because it's just so unnatural to how I normally speak.

Although I tried fairly hard to keep my composure, my partners in conversation found it more amusing to try and make me laugh. And even when we were all being serious, it's just not how conversation works; people need body language to understand one another's thought processes. It's what the idiom "read between the lines" refers to: the ability "(1) to infer something (from something else); to try to understand what is meant by something that is not written explicitly or openly," or "(2) to try to understand someone's real feelings or intentions from what they say or write" (McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms).

There is so much context that's involved in body language, which is why it's often hard to read someone's intentions, for example, over text messages or the internet, because one can't read their expressions to see exactly how they mean a statement. In my conversation, my partners had to ask me if I was being sarcastic because it was so hard to figure my meaning without expressional cues. Non-speech language is essential to communicate effectively because speech language is completely flat without it. Our words don't take meaning without the emotion behind them, which is revealed through our facial and body expressions, as well as changes in our intonation.

There are those who understand and can speak this symbolic language, but have difficulty reading body language. In my experience, I have a friend who has Asperger's syndrome, which is a pervasive developmental disorder (PDD), and from what he's explained to me and what I've researched myself, I know that it affects one's ability to interact in social situations and how one acts and reacts on an everyday basis. My friend has had no problem developmentally in learning or speaking, but occasionally he has problems with his social skills. Although he's developing in this regard as well, he still has issues like understanding when he's making other people uncomfortable in a conversation, such as bringing up a topic others don't want to talk about, or just taking a topic too far. He also becomes very frustrated because he doesn't understand why other people get upset, which stems from the fact that he just isn't picking up on the physical cues that others give him. It's something we've worked through in our friendship, but is also something that he works through with every new person he meets.

We adapted the ability to read body language from reading other animals in the wild. In primates, for instance, if a smaller gorilla cannot read the body language of the leader (silverback) of the band, he might accidentally irritate the silverback to the point where he would strike the smaller ape. In the wild, I think reading body language is a way to keep oneself alive. For example, early hominids would also have had to protect themselves by observing the body language of larger animals, like carnivorous animals like lions or cheetahs, and the easiest way to keep oneself alive is to notice the difference between when these animals are hunting, or when they're tired and ready to sleep. The ability to note body language is most beneficial for self-preservation.

I can't think of very many circumstances where there might be a benefit to not reading body language, but perhaps if one is in a job interview, one may try to understand the intentions behind the body language of his interviewer. However he doesn't know his interviewer personally, so he might assume that his interviewer is bored or uninterested in what he has to say, which would make him even more nervous, and thus his performance in his interview would be negatively impacted. In that case and cases like it, reading body language should be done with a grain of salt, as in, read the other person's body language, but don't read too much into it because several other factors may be weighing in to the other person's expressions. There are probably several other examples that I'm not thinking of, but reading body language generally helps us to better understand one another by avoiding miscommunication, and helps us to get to know one another's opinions based on their actions and reactions.