Week 3 Language
Part 1
The experiment was performed by my mom and I. The experiment was very difficult to get my points across as I am very vocal person. Hand gestures were the only way to be able to carry out my sentences but couldn't fully get my point across. My mom was very good with being able to provide gestures that made her conversation make sense. There was a part where my mom was asking me to be focus and pointed to her eyes and brain which made me see that as "focus". My mom is also a very vocal person and by seeing her try to use symbolic expression was very different. I would say that my mom possessed the power as she was able to carry her sentences without stopping too much. Spoken language is so essential in today's society and don't know how much more we could civilize without it. My mom is a teacher and has a lot of way of being able to carry her points across. Her culture in this experiment shows that she is much more civilized then me. The speaking culture would view the gestures differently since yes may mean differently as a gesture. I believe that some of our presidents that were in power had trouble trying to get America on the right page and some of the words they used offended many Americans.
Part 2
I was able to last through the full 15 minutes as I don't use many expressions when speaking. The difficult part of this experiment was not being able to do head movements and keep a still head which felt pretty awkward. My body is used to moving in that and not being able made me think of other ways to go around it. My mom uses a lot of facial expressions when talking and by her to hold it in, felt very weird. She shared that it felt weird for her not to use facial expressions as that it second nature to her. Non speech language is also very essential since our body uses body language to grab the spoken word and provide more meaning to it. It shows that we aren't fully meaning what we are saying if our body language doesn't match the word. Many guys in the dating scene may find it hard when a girl is giving them a hint if they are interested or not. There are certain types of body languages that girls may show which will hint to the guy but it comes with learning and first hand experience. I believe the best time not read body language is when preforming to a group of people as that may get you more nervous and distract you from your performance.
Part 3
Yes I believe written language as I am doing on this post right now, would have been a lot easier to conversate. Written language is always gonna be used as that is spoken language is brought into existence. Words are created to be spoken and provide such a great advantage to become more civilized. The advantage that it brings is, that can be viewed as many times as possible and can be kept for history. Our society wouldn't have known what has happened in the past if it hadn't been written. The knowledge that words hold is very essential to proving enlightenment for the future innovators.
Initial comment: When all your points are collapsed into one paragraph, it makes it difficult to parse out your responses to each prompt. It is to your advantage to ensure that your answers are clearly indicated. Separate each set of guideline prompts into separate paragraphs.
ReplyDeletePart 1: "My mom was very good with being able to provide gestures that made her conversation make sense."
Why did your mom need gestures? You had no difficulty understanding HER words, correct? Isn't it interesting that she switched to a more body-language oriented approach, almost mimicking you?
"I would say that my mom possessed the power as she was able to carry her sentences without stopping too much. "
Okay, but how was this presented? Was she able to ask questions? Switch topics? Could she have walked away from the conversation if she chose to do so?
"Her culture in this experiment shows that she is much more civilized then me."
Careful. Watch the bias here. How is "spoken language" a measure of "civilization"? Or is it? is that your own bias talking here? Or is that just how those who speak see those who don't?
I'm not sure I understand how your example of presidents mirrors this experiment. All presidents could speak, correct? A situation that better mirrors this power differential is seen 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 2: "My mom uses a lot of facial expressions when talking and by her to hold it in, felt very weird. "
She wasn't SUPPOSED to hold it in. She was supposed to speak normally. Only YOU were to be limited. Did you also run the first experiment this way, where both of you were limited to body language? That's not how the instructions explained this and it likely impacted how you interpreted the results. Your partner was supposed to speak normally in both and report to you how it felt to communicate with you when you were lacking either verbal language (part 1) or body language (part 2).
"It shows that we aren't fully meaning what we are saying if our body language doesn't match the word."
Yes, but can you take this further? 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.
Additionally, body language goes beyond just applying meaning to words. Body language can help you figure out if a person is attracted to you. It can help you figure out who to trust. Those are key benefits.
RE: The man vs women example... Is it an issue of the men not being *able* to read body language? Or just not *wanting* to acknowledge what they are reading? Human males have a reproductive advantage in ignoring female body language. Just because you can read body language doesn't mean you can't choose to ignore it.
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.
For the "performance" example... perhaps. But I would argue that any time the body language is giving you accurate information, it isn't wise to ignore it. The body language of the audience might offer you feedback to improve your performance.
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?
DeleteGoogle limited the length of my comment. I'll finish it here:
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Part 3: Note that some cultures do NOT have a form of written language.
"Words are created to be spoken and provide such a great advantage to become more civilized. "
Careful... you are conflating the written word with being "civilized". Is that accurate? What (and *who*) defines whether a culture is "civilized" or not? You? Should a word like that, carrying with it a rather heavy load of bias, be used here?
Think of the benefits to a culture who can use written language to inform and educate their people, who can record their history for future generations to read and understand, who can create a foundation of knowledge on which their culture can build and progress.
I agree with your final point here, but you don't really discuss this from the *global* perspective (for the final prompt). And are there any potential negative impacts from written language? Written language allows information to spread globally at a rapid pace. But that is both good information and bad, true information and false. Correct?
Hey Anthony!
ReplyDeleteI'm assuming you told your mom about the experiment and what was being asked right? I loved reading about both of your experiences and how you two saw how language is valuable, but I don't think it was necessary for both of you to do the experiment and the main focus was you doing it and seeing the reaction/analyzing. But it was still so cool that your mom also wanted to try this out with you and get to learn about our class! Would you mind clarifying what you meant when you said that your "mom's culture was more civilized?" Do you mean it in the sense that people who are able to speak are more "civilized" or did you maybe mean another word instead?