Difficulty in Communicating

This particular experiment was not as easy as I originally thought it would be.  It was one that required much careful consideration in ensuring that I was not using any form of a symbolic language to get my point across.  In the beginning of the fifteen minutes spent on this experiment, I found myself as well as my husband, humored by what we needed to do in order to effectively communicate. This meant that we needed to use hand movements (not ASL) as well as facial expressions in order to “speak” to one another.  Towards the end of the fifteen minutes, it was a struggle to maintain communication and we were very tempted to just give up.  In communicating with my husband during this experiment, I noticed that he became uncomfortable at the idea of others observing us practicing this way of speaking.  I too began to look around for other’s expressions as I believed we looked incredibly silly to the outside world, who were essentially unaware of the experiment at hand. For my husband, who is generally not shy at all, I noticed a different way about him, one that became more timid as the experiment continued on.  As a result, he communicated less. If I was to imagine us as individuals from two different cultures meeting for the first time, I can imagine that much would be lost in translation.  It was so difficult communicating my thoughts to my husband (who knows me very well) that it would be frustrating to a stranger experiencing such barriers in conversation.  Both cultures I believe are at a disadvantage in such situation as it is nearly impossible to communicate complex ideas.  As a result, you are hindered by the time it takes to simply interpret the simplest of ideas. The attitude of the individual from the speaking culture may be that of intolerance and impatience as it takes work to fully communicate what one is thinking. Young children experience difficulty in communicating with spoken language as they are just at the beginning of their speech development; this allows for much frustration by parents who often forget that these little ones do not have the speaking ability or even the understanding that one might expect them to have.  Telling them no, when they do not fully understand what you are saying or what that means, leaves them bewildered and unable to fully cooperate. As a result, the individual speaking to the child may tend to raise their voice in an attempt to get them to understand, however this is useless as it is not their hearing ability at play, but their ability to understand spoken language.

The second part of this experiment was more difficult than the first, which was quite surprising.  I thought that as long as I could use my words to communicate, than smooth conversation would be easily achieved.  This however was not the case.  I never truly realized just how much I use my hands and facial movements to convey my message, or just how much my husband uses his.  Not being able to incorporate these into my conversation was quite impossible. Due to the difficulty of this task we were not able to last the full fifteen minutes.  In truth, we lasted just a few minutes.  I found myself correcting him and vice versa whenever we strayed from the rules of the experiment.  I found that I incorporate the movement of my eyebrows and eyes quite a bit when I talk, and that my husband uses his eyes and hands the most. In talking to my husband during this experiment, most of his concentration was placed on ensuring that I was not breaking the rules by using physical embellishments. The emphasis was less on what I had to say and more on the fact that I wasn’t using my hands and face to communicate. This experiment says a lot about our use of sign language.  Many may not realize just how much they use their hands, or how often they roll or squint their eyes to portray intensity.  Without using such movements I felt like I lacked the ability to effectively communicate as I am used to being able to use such movements when I speak. There are many people out there that have difficulty in reading body language.  These individuals may not pick up on cues that another puts out there which may say they are uncomfortable, irritated, or even on the opposite end of the spectrum interested in them as a potential love interest. By being able to read body language I feel helps put you a step above the rest in a way as you are able to read what one’s body is communicating, without perhaps the other person even knowing what they are projecting. An environmental condition where there would be a benefit to not reading body language would one that best serves the person on the receiving end of the negative body language. For example, being oblivious to negative body language may in fact allow an individual to have a good time, rather than wondering the reason for body language and in effect directing it towards something they must have done to warrant it.  This can occur in all types of scenarios such as in school or business. If you are in school giving a presentation, the last thing you want to interpret is negative body language from your teacher. That would most likely cause you to lose focus and affect your ability to finish your report.

The first experiment in this assignment would definitely have been greatly assisted by the ability to use written language. That is assuming that the person that is communicated with understand the written language being used.  Without such understanding, its effectiveness would be lost. However assuming my partner can understand my written language, I would have been able to simply write down my questions or thoughts, with them being able to read and write in response. Written language is definitely beneficial to the culture that develops and uses it as it can be used in a way to secretly communicate between your own culture, assuming the other cultures do not share that understanding.  Such communication within the culture would also essentially help to unite it. This can be seen on a larger scale as well, if you look at what written language has done for globalization.  Simply looking at how the majority of the world communicates today, much is done through the use of written language via email, text or Facebook.  Text messaging and Facebook has essentially forever changed the face of communication, and has taken the emphasis away from verbal and physical embellishments in expressing our thoughts, to using words to effectively deliver the same message.