Language Exercises

1a. I found this half of the exercise to be much easier than the second. I did this exercise with my fiancée, who knows American Sign Language and has taught me some, so communicating without words is not new to us. However, it was difficult to resist the urge to use what I know of ASL to communicate more efficiently, instead of just using general motions and facial expressions.

1b. She was taken aback by the proposal of the exercise but once we were underway she was instantly comfortable. She did not have to change how she communicated with me at all since she knows how to communicate with deaf people. She had no issue translating my gestures and my expressions into what they truly were—we think on the exact same wavelength very often, as if our brains were telepathically connected, and this is where I think communicating with her gave me a slight edge in this exercise.

1c. It is definitely more advantageous to be able to communicate in a more complex form of symbols. Simply using arbitrary motions and expressions are very vague, and even though a culture that does not speak a certain language may not understand exactly what the “spoken-language” person is communicating, having a more specified vocabulary ultimately makes it easier to communicate precisely.

A speaking culture may be taken aback by a culture that has not adapted toward speaking. As a person from a speaking culture, it seems so inefficient to communicate without speech (assuming efficiency is the ultimate goal, here). However, there are definite situations where it is advantageous to communicate without having to use sounds, like when a group is hunting or during a covert operation mission.

The easiest example to give for people who have difficulty communicating with spoken language is deaf or partially deaf people. Fully deaf individuals, especially if they were deaf from birth, can find it very frustrating to try to understand someone who only knows how to speak a language. Trying to use sign language with someone who has no idea what the symbols mean can be taxing if both parties are not patient. I know barely any ASL myself, and what I do know did take quite some time and repetition to understand.

2a. For the most part, I was actually able to complete this exercise. There was only one point at which I really let it go and broke “character.” However, there were quite a few times where I was making an interrogative statement and inflected my voice. This is one of the things that is very hard not to do. This exercise was much more difficult for me because I felt like I was incredibly restricted, as if I were imprisoned within myself. Having to keep a straight facial expression and speak in a monotone voice was incredibly annoying and irritating for me.

2b. Again, she did not have too much trouble trying to figure out how to communicate with me. This time she just had to stop and pause every time I was talking because I was trying to pronounce every syllable of every word in the exact same tone so as not to waver from the non-expressive state. Also, the times I would ask an interrogative question and successfully mask any inflection, she would have to repeat the phrase or statement back to me using her own inflection to acquire affirmation that it was or wasn’t actually interrogative. I also noticed that, through the “freezing” of my facial expression, her facial expression varied much less than it normally does. She is a very expressive person and I think she was subconsciously imitating my stone-face as a sympathetic response to that me in my restricted state.

2c. As the old adage goes, you don’t know what you have until it’s gone. Once I was restricted from making facial expressions, shrugging, or varying my vocal tones I realized how truly dynamic the communication process is. This really is something that we don’t talk pr think about too much but the use of non-verbal communication is just as, if not more, important that verbal communication. Facial expressions and body language are very telling signs for the emotions behind words and phrases, and understanding the feelings behind words and phrases in communication definitely gives more depth and understanding to what exactly one is trying to say. It is certainly possible to communicate solely using a monotone voice, but it is difficult to ascertain whether or not someone is asking a question or giving a command, etc. This can be demonstrated in written language by taking away punctuation and capitalization—if all of the letters are lower/upper case and there is no punctuation separating the words and phrases, do you really know what exactly the author is trying to say? It takes much more work to figure that out.

2d. Blind people would be an obvious selection for people who cannot read body language. Also, I imagine that anyone who would be raised in an incredibly dark environment or an environment where they only communicated with other humans in different rooms from them (e.g.: a prison) would also have difficulty understanding body language.

An adaptive benefit to body language is the understanding of the emotion and physical intention (if any) underlying the message itself. If my fiancée were mourning but could only communicate to me with a monotone voice, it would be difficult to actually believe that she was sad about something; but with nonverbal communication, she could hang her shoulders and make a devastated face, which clarifies what exactly the words are trying to express. Also, if someone is being aggressive, one would not be able to discern that solely from a monotone voice, but from tension, stance, and the actual inflections of the voice.

The only sort of situation I can think of is one where it is beneficial to know less than to know more—possibly some sort of secret meeting where the information is life-threatening, knowing less might actually cause someone to live longer. It is difficult to imagine a circumstance where knowing less is beneficial because throughout my whole life it seems that more knowledge and clarity have always been positive, and the converse—obscurity and ignorance—seem the negative.