Part 1
I had this conversation with my friend Miko. This assignment proved to be pretty hard which I'm sure was the point of this assignment. Part of what made this assignment so difficult was that I couldn't properly explain what I wanted to. I told my friend ahead of time what this assignment was so he was prepared for it. At first we were able to have simple conversations, I could answer yes or no answers easily. However as time went on and the conversation became more complex, it became much harder to verbalize my thoughts. I could tell me friend was getting a little frustrated during the span on of our conversation and it was equally frustrating for me.
My friend definitely had control of our conversation. He was more capable to control the flow of our conversation. He was able to not only change the topics we were discussing, he could change the tone, and was in control of when we switched topics. While he had most of the control, I had almost on control.
The culture with spoken word is definitely more advantageous in communicating complex ideas. The culture that had a more advanced speaking pattern would look down on the less advanced culture. They would feel more superior than the nonverbal culture, that's how I felt as someone who had no say in a conversation. I feel a modern example of this would be tourists visiting another country, In fact I deal with this personally all the time. I work at Six Flags Magic Mountain and we often get a large number of people who don't speak English that well or at all. Trying to communicate with these people can get frustrating for me and them. It leads to the point of both of us using awkward hand signals to communicate, much like the ones I used to attempt to communicate with my friend.
Part 2
I believe this part was much harder for me than the other. I use body language a lot in the way I communicate. I can also tend to be quite sarcastic and the inability to convey tone makes this much more difficult. My friend enjoyed my watching to struggle with this task. Over time though, he would get confused on what message I was trying convey and what I intended to get across.
While I understood how important body language was, it took this assignment to realize how much I use sign language. When you observe other peoples body language you can tell how they intend their message to be received as well as how the persons emotions are.
Their are lots of benefits as to why being able to read body language is important. One of these being, being able to tell what someone else might be thinking is a very important trait to have, You could tell if someone is threatening you, you could tell when someone needs help, and you can tell by the way someone carries themselves that they might be a possible mate.
One of the most blatant examples of someone not being able to read body language are the blind. Without being able to read body language the blind seem to do fine in their day to day life. I think a situation on when reading someones body language isn't all to helpful is talking with someone who is panicked or frightened. For the most part you can tell when someone is scared but you don't how that person will react to you approaching them for comfort. I think in this situation being able to read body language is unreliable.
Great post Matthew!
ReplyDeleteI agree as well and noticed during this experiment that body language is as and in some cases more important than verbal language if you do not know what some else is saying or how they react to it the conversation is blind. I also found that the others who were in this experiment with me had control of the conversation as well.
Great discussion on your Part A experiment and good discussion on the issue of control. I also liked how you brought in your own personal experiences to help explain the issue of cultural differences. Well done.
ReplyDeleteSometimes the importance of body language isn't for clarification on the intended message but clues as to the validity of the message. Non-spoken language contributes meaning and clarification, but it also allows people to verify what you are saying, kind of like a lie-detector. If your body language doesn't match the words you are saying, this tells the person that you aren't telling the truth and perhaps can't be trusted. Why would this be beneficial in an adaptive sense?
Yes, people who are blind have more difficulty reading body language, though they can detect vocal intonation and body positioning. Those in the autism spectrum also represent a group that also has problems reading body language.
Well, one of the reasons you knew they were panicked or frightened and needed special care was because you read their body language. ;-) I don't think it would be helpful to know have this knowledge. Can you think of any situation where body language would lie to you or where you would misinterpret it? You mentioned interacting with people of other cultures in Part A. What about body language and different cultures? Do all cultures use the same system of body language?
I also found the second portion of this assignment more difficult. It really taught me the importance of tone, and non verbal gestures within our communication. I did not think of it but i thought your example of the blind not being able to read body language was a perfect example. Also i think that your example of seeing someone who is panicked or frightened as a means of unreliable body language was in a sense correct, but we can see that they are panicked or frightened it's just we would not know how to react to them.
ReplyDelete