Tuesday, March 22, 2016

LANGUAGE

PART 1:

The way this assignment began was actually very convenient for me because it wasn't like it was planned. My cousin and I were talking and I remembered about this assignment and interrupted our conversation to inform her on my assignment. I told her to continue the conversation we were having but that I was not allowed to speak. I think this kind of took away awkwardness from the assignment because she wasn't going to come up with a random conversation and be confused herself. We then set up a timer and continued our conversation. Starting the assignment was pretty difficult because my cousin felt awkward and couldn't really conversate with me because I wasn't responding verbally. We ended up laughing a lot in the beginning but after constantly restarting, we got serious and really tried. After a while, we got the hang of it; sort of. At first I found it difficult because I'm a talker and I'm usually the one doing most of the talking but I also do use a lot of hand movements and incorporate my body language, and my cousin knows me very well so she was able to keep up with that. 

My cousin was in control of the conversation and also was the one to initiate the conversation. She had trouble with this because she didn't know what else to talk about, she kept looking for question topics; a "conversation" where I would be able to nod yes or no. She was the one to ask and I answered questions; the best way I could. I'm also very big on facial expressions and she would just burst laughing because she didn't know what I was trying to say. Unfortunately I was only able to complete this assignment with just her, so I wonder if I had the chance to work with others, if my outcome would be different. I think if I had this conversation with more than just one person, I would definitely be excluded. I say this because I have seen this personally, where there is a group of people and one person tends to be the quieter one and they really don't get included. 

If I did work with more than two people, and the three of us had different cultures, I think their culture would have more power over mine because I lack the ability to corporate my message. The attitudes the speaking culture would have toward the non-speaking would most likely be negative. I say this because of my own culture, who really knows how other cultures are. My cousin couldn't even take me serious and for a moment I thought I wasn't going to be able to successfully complete this assignment. So to be able to not conversate with a community at all, I can only imagine the negative attitude one would receive. 

 PART 2:

This was definitely, hands down the most difficult task for me. Like I mentioned in part 1, I am huge in hand gestures and facial expressions. This section, I was not able to do; I don't even remember how many times we had to stop and restart. As we started, I began cracking up. I am always smiling and laughing, and my cousin could not take me being serious seriously. Me being serious would make my cousin burst out laughing. After about 3/4 minutes of actually doing this part correctly, my cousin mentioned that she was bored and didn't want to do it. It was difficult for her to understand what I was feeling or how I felt about the conversation topic. She didn't know whether to stick to the conversation topic or move on to a new one. 

By completing this experiment, I realized that the use of our 'signs' in our language is a very big factor and important in our communication. "Signs can serve as a supportive language and can be read better than verbal language by some people. A big portion of our communication is incorporated from our body language, facial expressions, and tone. You are easily able to pick up their vibe, mood, and attitude all by just their non-speech communication. I think for this part of the assignment, the saying "actions speak louder than words" correctly fits this question. 

With this experiment, I realized that vocalized words were not enough to effectively communicate. The ability to read body language can actually help a person survive. For example, you can have a situation where someone has been kidnapped. The kidnapper can have you driving and holding a gun to your lower body without anyone seeing. Your facial expressions can show distress, fright, etc, which can result to people questioning and maybe even helping you. 

There are definitely people who have difficult reading body language. I have worked with kids, and most kids tend to fail reading body language. A situation where there might be a benefit to not reading someone's body language would be an emergency. There have been emergencies at my previous job when I worked with kids, and I had to keep my cool and continue certain routines to get the kids to safety without looking panic and worried. If they were able to read body language, I'm sure they would question what was happening and create a worse situation. 



4 comments:

  1. Good description on your first experiment. Great analysis on the issue of balance of power, particularly this line:

    "I wonder if I had the chance to work with others, if my outcome would be different."

    Great insight. You might well have had different results with a stranger, or a group and it is great that you recognize that different conditions might change the response you received.

    Good explanation on the issue of communicating complex ideas, but I don't understand your discussion on a real life example. You say:

    "I say this because of my own culture, who really knows how other cultures are. "

    Remember that since we are communicating in a textual setting (very similar to the Part B experiment), you need to be careful to completely explain what you mean. How does your real-life situation resemble this experiment?

    Good description of your second experiment.

    "...my cousin mentioned that she was bored and didn't want to do it. "

    This is actually a very common response and it is worth while asking why? "Bored" is a common excuse, but the real reason is discomfort. Why does the lack of body language make people uncomfortable? What is the conversation missing that is driving them away? More on this below.

    While I don't disagree with your discussion on the information received from body language, you are missing a key point that would help explain your cousin's response. Humans tend to use body language as a type of lie detector. If spoken words don't match with the body language, we are more inclined to believe the body language and doubt the words. Think about how being able to detect liars might help an individual's ability to survive and reproduce. And, with regard to your cousin, if you are involved in a conversation where you can't tell if the person is lying or telling the truth, wouldn't you want to escape from the conversation as well? Again, this is worth considering.

    I'm curious about your experience with kids failing to read body language because body language is the first language children learn. They are usually very good at reading it. The issue here might be responding to it in adult way, which is different from reading it. There are specific groups of people who have great difficulty or an outright inability to read body language due to physical or mental disability, such as those who are in the autism spectrum or those who are blind (though they can read vocal intonation).

    "... I had to keep my cool and continue certain routines to get the kids to safety without looking panic and worried."

    But that isn't what the question asked. It asked for an example of when it would be an advantage for YOU to not read body language, not when it would be better for you to not exhibit body language. So when might body language of others mislead you and it would be better to ignore? Do all cultures use the same system of body language? If you travel to another country, can you trust the information you get from their body language?

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  2. Hi Cindy, I'm not entirely sure that i did part B right, I couldn't use any hand gestures or facial expressions, so i decided to try and draw out my feelings (without words). My sister and brother of course didn't understand very well.

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  3. Hi Cindy, I'm not entirely sure that i did part B right, I couldn't use any hand gestures or facial expressions, so i decided to try and draw out my feelings (without words). My sister and brother of course didn't understand very well.

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  4. I agree that you can pick up the vibe or mood of another person just by listening to their tone of voice and facial expressions. Being able to read all these expressions can make communication more effective.

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