Language Post

PART ONE NON-VERBAL 15 MINUTES

This experience of having a conversation with my girlfriend was a little bit difficult. I would like to think of our relationship as having good communication between one another. We had our first fifteen minute conversation where I did not use the spoken language. This part of the assignment was not that difficult for me or my girlfriend. We just had to alter the way we usually communicate. My girlfriend just changed the way she talked to me, and was asking yes or no questions in which I could reply with a yes or no head nod. During the first part I would say my girlfriend was in control of the conversation because she was the one who was asking the questions, it would be hard for me to ask questions without the use of the spoken language. The power was definitely in the hands of my girlfriend during this first part because she was in control of what we talked about and I had no say in the conversation if you get what I’m saying.  If this first part of the conversation was looked at as being two cultures I would think that the culture with the spoken language would have the advantage by controlling the conversation and directing in which way they like.  With communicating complex ideas with their respected communities the spoken language would have an easier time of getting the idea out to the people in a way they could understand. Present day cultures that can’t speak would possibly be primates. I would think that maybe since they can’t speak and we can, we treat them like animals and treat them differently. After taking this class I see that humans and primates are really not that different but yet the spoken language culture rains power over the culture that cannot speak, that’s just my opinion.

PART 2 NO BODY LANGUAGE

The second part of the assignment my girlfriend and I had a conversation in which I could speak, but use no other way of communication. I found this part a little more difficult because she could hear what I am saying but without any other form of communication it could be taken the wrong way. Technically my girlfriend could hear what I’m saying but the thing was did she understand the emotion behind it. I could say “I love you” but a statement like that is a very emotionally driven statement and without any feeling behind it, she almost felt like if I didn't mean it.  When we speak to someone and we can see their body language, we get the idea and emotion behind what they are saying. For example if someone is mad or sad and they speak to us, but are not allowed to yell or show any anger in their facial expression they really can’t get there point across. The ability to read body language could easily help a person survive, for example I am a police officer and on a daily basis I can do my job and protect myself by reading someone body language. This also helps in the animal world because you can tell if an animal is about to attack by their body language and this might give you the time to react or flee just like when I’m talking to a person at work, I can read body language and tell if they are being aggressive and are about to attack.  Body language also helps with reproduction success because while reading body language you can sometimes tell if a woman is interested in you, but that’s another story because even with reading body language woman are still hard to read. I think a situation to being able to not read someone’s body language would be anytime you’re trying to buy something that the seller gets a commission. Take car salesman for example you can read their body language and they appear to be nice and happy and pretend to be your friend but they are sending you unreliable information. They get something out of giving you false signals and there body language is not genuine. Some people with disabilities like being blind and autistic people have a hard time reading body language.