Week 7: Language Blog
By: J Grajeda
Part1:
· Prior
to conducting my language experiment, I shared the guidelines with my team
members, so we all understood a baseline to work from. I wanted to make our
interaction as natural as possible; in other words, our conversation was about
how things went in the prior days, school, work, and general family events. As
we started communicating with each other, we encountered difficulties, there
were times where there were multiple persons talking or repeated the same questions,
there were multiple delays due to my inability to respond clearly or promptly,
wife and kids had to make adjustments to their way of communicating, multiple
pauses, a lot of use of hands and body language to answer or provide input. It
felt like I was forcing them to make changes to fit my needs in order to fit in and be
part of their world.
· I’m
not exactly sure who was in control in our conversation, there were times when
I felt that I was in command, but most of the time my partners had to adjust
their vocal approach to insure we understood our conversation. Most of our topics were initiated by my team,
leading with lots of short questions that I would respond with hand signals or
body movements. My partner (wife)
definitely had the advantage from a power standpoint, she had to adjust many
times for us to have a meaningful conversation, but if we rolled the clock five million years ago, I
would probably be left out of many critical phases of daily life events, not to
mention if there were any real time emergencies, with the disadvantage of not
being able to speak it would have been a crucial element to own survival.
·
When I think about having two different
cultures, one not being able to speak and the other culture with the ability to verbally communicate,
there is no doubt in my mind that the culture that is able to effectively
communicate complex issues, such as safety, health, and education would have the advantage. Look
at our indigenous groups around the globe, especially in America, North and South, they seem to be less fortunate, they’re faced with
extreme levels of discrimination, poverty, poor nutrition, serious health
problems and unequal opportunities to prosper and thrive as a population. All
of these conditions are linked to their inability to communicate and the
disadvantages of not speaking a language.
Week 7: Language Blog
Part2:
· This experiment was less difficult from a
comprehentional standpoint, we were able
to quickly adjust and carry normal conversations, but my partners felt ackward due
to lack of body language, they also mentioned limited interest and miminum
physical emotion.
· Having the ability to verbally communicate and
interact with our body, it enhances the delivery and makes others feel more
receptive, it also helps to better understand the information being shared.
· It provided an advantage to those that had ability to
read body language, they were the leaders, adjusting quickly to invironmental
changes, getting first hand on available resources and finally better odds of
reproducing.
· I think most people are able to read body language of
some sort.
In an emergency
setting at a hospital, your friend is having open heart surgery, the Doctor
comes out of ER with his head down, arms crossed and exhausted from a succesful procedure. This
scenario would help this pearson by not making wrong preconception.
"It felt like I was forcing them to make changes to fit my needs in order to fit in and be part of their world. "
ReplyDeleteGreat insight! And because they were your family, they accommodated your needs. What about the rest of the world? Would they have been as patient and accommodating? Or would you have found communicating even more difficult?
If you had had this conversation with strangers, I suggest you wouldn't have had any doubt about who had control in the conversation. Again, because you did this with family (not a problem... I expect it), you faced a situation with people who wanted to help you. You are absolutely correct that under other circumstance, be it now among strangers or long ago, you would have had no illusion of control over the conversation.
Interesting discussion about the problems of indigenous people. Note that until westerners made contact with them, they lived their lives just fine (and all indigenous populations use symbolic language, so it isn't as if they lacked that skill). It was the introduction of non-native ideas, customs, language, and tools, not to mention restrictions placed upon their lives by the invading governments, the created an imbalance in these populations. A little ethnocentrism in your comment. Careful!
I agree that body language helps with comprehension, but how? And is that the only benefit? You say that reading body language helps with adaptation and adjustments and getting better resources, but you don't explain how it helps.
Body language goes beyond basic information. Humans use body language as a lie detector. If the words they hear don't match the body language, they know that the person is not telling the truth and not to trust them. We use this all the time, when buying things, listening to politicians, talking with family member... Think about how important this would be in a survival situation, particularly with someone who you don't know.
No, not everyone can read body language. Individuals in the autism spectrum are unable to read body language, which is why they can't understand jokes. People who are blind also have trouble with body language although they can hear vocal intonation.
Is the doctor example a survival situation? Or just information that you were afraid to receive? Think a little deeper on this from an adaptive point of view. Do all cultures use the same body language? Imagine traveling into a culture not your own. Would it be safe to assume they use the same system of body language that you do? How might misinterpreting body language impact your survival in another country?
Hello,
ReplyDeleteThis is the first post i read where there was more then two people in the conversation and it seems the results differ from the typical two person conversation. I find it interesting that you stated that there was not one clear person in power. Although you could not speak, there were more people to help figure out what you were trying to say and in some cases you did not really have to say much because there were multiple people trying to contribute to the conversation. I agree that the group that can speak will definitely had the advantage because language helps us go deeper into simple ideas and even express them in easier more efficient ways. I also agree that body language simply enhances the ideas we express through speaking and can help other better understand our ideas.