Language

Kevin Mundo

PART 1

When involving myself and another person in a conversation without any version of symbolic language on my behalf was more difficult then I imagined. What usually would take 2-3 minutes to convey across to someone took a whole 15 minutes and it wasn't much that we got across to each other. I had to use a lot of hand movement and a lot of facial expressions as well as body language. I had to give a lot of thumbs up and thumbs down or nod up and down when something was mutual. The thing that was tricky was that sometimes I would say something and it would take forever for my partner to understand exactly what word I was trying to say, so I would have to kind of act it out for him to understand as well as uses noises for guns and objects that can be identified by noises. Yes my partner did alter the way he communicated with me because of my absence of communication it seemed to me ilke he was asking questions most of the time trying to understand me then actually conveying something to me. So in a sense his language didn't change but he did also use a lot of facial and body expressions to make sure we were both on the same page. His sentences and questions were reduced and straight to the point in order to be able to understand and ask questions quicker. 

It definitely felt like he had a tool with language so he was in charge of the conversation he was asking me most of the question and I was nodding or making facial expressions to agree or disagree. In this case if a conversation is seen as a balance of power between two or more individuals the one with the most power in this case was my partner because he was able to talk and explain himself clearly. When you can get your word across clearly and you're the one asking questions to someone you do not understand you feel more in power then the other person although not too much because you still might not fully understand the other person. However on the other hand the other person feels powerless when trying to explain something with no symbolic language and using hand symbols and references only because half the time he is not being understood so he has to work twice as hard just to get his message across. 

When comparing two different cultures one that uses spoken language and one that doesn't; the culture which uses a spoken language has the advantage of communicating complex ideas within their population because they can get ideas and messages across much faster and more efficiently where their society will understand if they make a law or rule. The culture with the spoken language might look down upon a culture without a language because language is a big tool and it makes us humans what we are. Language and symbols to communicate are a big advancement that led to many great things like laws, poems, art and government. WIth language we have been able to accomplish many things and at a much faster pace, with no language there is no way you can have a structure or a form of government. 

PART 2 

When communicating with my partner without any physical embellishments like hand signals, vocal intonation, nor head, facial or body movements we found it very difficult to engage into the conversation and we had to ask questions twice when we did not understand what we were saying without using facial expressions to reassure. Our conversation was very boring and monotone-like my partner seemed frustrated and did not seem to want to engage in my conversation. I was starting to bore my partner and they had difficulty understanding exactly what I wanted and how I felt about certain things because I did not use any hand or facial signals to suggest my opinions and feelings. 

It wasn't as difficult as not being able to talk but it really took the excitement and the wanting to communicate with my partner in this way.

This experiment definitely says a lot about not only our use of language but our use of "signs" in our language like hand signs, body signs, facial signs and signs in general and how important they are. When it comes to communicating in person we definitely need to use signs and body language to convey across our message and concepts; this can build a society. When a person can read another persons body language they can tell a lot, with certain words their body language can show whether they fully agree with you and or whether they fully know what they and yourself are talking about. A person's body language can also show negativity, carelessness , positivity or care when saying certain things or certain words. 

There are may adaptive benefits that come with possessing the ability to read body language. When you have the ability to read body language it can help you survive in the sense that you can read not only peoples' body language but animals' body language that may seem threatening and therefore this can save your life because you can read and sense harm or danger coming from someones body language and avoid a situation like that. You can obtain resources like this by reading peoples body language and keeping them happy knowing what they want and what they need exactly in order for you to be able to receive your resources. This can also help reproduce successfully in the sense that you have to be able to read someones body language when it comes to reproducing because you can know who and who not to reproduce with and who wants to and who doesn't as well . Body language can tell you that and much more about a person that is why it is very critical . 

Yes, there are definitely some people that have difficulty reading body language and you can sometimes identify them because most of them aren't so social and keep to themselves. They probably feel like outsiders but its not because they have a problem they just may not be able to read body languages and feel like others don't want to talk or vice versa they may talk too much when someones body language is showing that they clearly do not want to talk. A situation where not being able to read someones body language would be beneficial would be when a nurse or doctor is telling you something that could be totally wrong with you but his/her body language is unreadable then this could be a good thing because you won't be worried about something that may not be too big or could be solved.