Conversation without a version of symbolic language
I began the conversation with phrases and sentences that were simple to act out and easily identifiable such as "I love you" or" and "I sleep." The task was a bit frustrating because I am so used to expressing with my words and my actions, but I eventually used more body language and facial expressions to communicate. My responses remained fairly simple because I could convey difficult words without actually saying them. My partner, my sister, eventually began to ask me questions that she knew I would be able to answer easily with hand motions or body language, so I wouldn't get too stuck. The conversation overall, was a bit more basic with he content, but a lot more theatrical and gestural on my part because I had to convey tone, mood, attitude, opinion without speaking.
My sister was the one leading the conversation and changing topics, while I was mostly responding. She was able to come up with things to say quicker because of her use of words and would try and change the subject constantly, challenging me to figure out how I was going to communicate my answer. I believe that my sister definitely had the power in this conversation as she had more words at her disposal and did not have to think as hard about getting her point across. She could interrupt my "speech" way more effectively than I would be able to interrupt hers.She had the majority of the power as she was dictating the questions and topics, and I was responding.
The culture that uses language has the advantage of communicating complex ideas with their population because there are more opportunities as you have the ability to articulate exactly what you want to say. When you can't use words, the gestures may sometimes convey more than one thing. For example, "mad" and "frustrated" mean different things, but the gesture that one might use to show this could be interpreted either way. With speech, there is less opportunity for misinterpreting the point of what is being said. A speaking culture might view a culture that doesn't use symbolic language as possibly behind educationally or not as intelligent in the communication aspect. A modern culture that can speak is the American culture, but there are some people within that culture who are mute and do not speak.
Conversation without physical embellishment
At the start of the experiment, I talked slow so I could make sure that I didn't raise my volume or change my face. My natural conversation usually involves varying volumes, hand gestures, head movements, and more, so I felt that I had to be slow, deliberate, and more focused to break these tendencies. I found this task a bit more challenging than the first because there were so many more things to think about not doing. Before you just had to not talk, but now you have to not move, not get louder, not gesture with your hands. My voice was monotonous and the conversation became slightly more boring and dry overall because of the lack of personality and animation in my voice. My partner, in response, started to tone down her own body language to almost match mine. She did not have trouble understanding the words that I was saying, but she did have trouble understanding the intention of my words and how I was feeling. Many things sounded sarcastic and like I didn't have any interest in what I was saying.
This experiment shows that while words are important, the signs are crucial to communicating your intentions and feelings about what you are saying. It adds an emotional aspect to words and can let someone know if you are serious, joking, mad, sad, happy, and more. When you read someone's body language, you can often read their attitude on the subject they are speaking on. You can tell if they are open to challenge or completely closed off in their opinion. You can tell if they are shy or outgoing. When the body language is read along with speech, it shows the complete intention of what the speaker is trying to convey.
The adaptive benefit to possessing the ability to read body language is that it can help you judge someone's character or intentions. It can aid you in determining if a person is serious about their words or if they might be lying. Being able to accurately read people helps you to come up with better ways of talking them into getting what you need. It can also help you to detect lies, and therefore, be smarter about who you trust with your words, your safety, your health, your life.
People that might have difficulty reading body language are those who are blind. Not being able to ready someone's body language might be an advantage when making a speech in front of many people. It can be very distracting to see people in the audience falling asleep or having irritated body language. Not reading body language can sometimes help a person to stay focused on the task at hand and not be affected by the opinions of others. Body language may not give you reliable information when a person is manipulating you. They might have the understanding that certain body language can make them look non-threatening and possibly like they are in need of help. However, when they are purposefully manipulating their appearance, this provides false information as to what their real intentions are.
Part A: Good opening description and good discussion on the issue of power in the conversation.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your conclusion on the issue of communicating complex ideas, but understand that "language" can be symbolic (spoken/written) or "sign" (i.e., body language, not ASL). So you need to be more specific, noting the advantage of *symbolic* language, not language in general.
"A modern culture that can speak is the American culture, but there are some people within that culture who are mute and do not speak."
That wasn't the question here. The prompt asks you to identify a real-life situation that mirrors what you experienced in this experiment, so a conversation with a significant power differential, one speaking and one not speaking. We see that in the interaction between English speakers and non-English speaking immigrant populations. Think about how non-English speaking immigrants are treated in Southern California? Are they treated as equals?
Part B:
"she did have trouble understanding the intention of my words and how I was feeling."
Good observation. Why did she have trouble with this?
I don't disagree with your conclusions regarding the information we receive from body language, but you are only considering the situation where body language matches and supports the information you receive from spoken language. What does it tell you when the body language doesn't match the spoken language? 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 (which applies to the next section).
You do discuss this issue of detecting liars in the next section discussing the selective benefits of reading body language. Good.
Yes, those who are blind will struggle with body language, though they can hear vocal intonation and sense positional cues. What about those in the autism spectrum? One of the defining characteristics of autism is the inability to read body cues, which is why they have so much difficult in social situations, particularly with sarcasm and jokes.
"Body language may not give you reliable information when a person is manipulating you."
Actually, if you compare spoken language and body language, body language is much harder to fake. If someone is trying to manipulate you, the last thing you would want to do is ignore body language, as that will actually help you detect the manipulation.
But is there any situation you can think of where body language might actually mislead you, not because the person is lying but because you don't know how to read the body language? Do all cultures use the same system of body language? They all use different systems of spoken/written language, so why would we assume their body language isn't different? If you travel to another country, can you trust the information you get from their body language?