Language Experiment

I found this experiment to be extremely difficult because the level of understanding was very low. It was hard to communicate with my partner through the methods I had at my disposal. I found myself getting frustrated with my partner even though I knew that it wasn’t her fault she couldn’t understand what was happening. My partner had a huge impact on what I was doing as well as I had a huge impact on how she was communicating. I found that she was trying very hard to understand me and she listened very intently, focused on what I was trying to communicate to her. She also communicated slower as if it was harder for me to understand because I had less ability to communicate with her. I tried to let her know that I could still understand her just as well as if I hadn’t been communicatively impaired, but she had a hard time understanding that.  I found that only about half of what I was trying to get her to understand was actually comprehended. The other fifty percent was given up on due to the frustration and difficulty I was having. If we were two different cultures meeting for the first time the person with the advantage is definitely the person with the ability to speak. The reason for this is because they also have different gestures and body language or cultural universals that can be conveyed with the language. Individuals that have lower mental capacity find it harder to communicate as well as people with certain diseases and from different cultures. It affects how people communicate with them because conversations are shorter, people get angry, and it makes it much more difficult to just communicate naturally.

The second way of communicating using only my voice without any signals was just as hard as the other way in my opinion. I was able to last the fifteen minutes but I did make some mistakes at certain points. It was interesting because my partner could understand everything I was saying but she lost interest. I couldn’t keep her interested in any subject I brought up. It was very hard to convey different emotions. I had a hard time conveying the importance of certain things to me as well. At one point we got on the subject of politics and I found it interesting that she couldn’t tell whether I liked or disliked a certain politician because of the lack of fluctuation in my voice. Of course after a couple minutes she figured at my point of view it just took longer than it normally would have. This experiment showed me just how important signals are in communication. Without it everything becomes very slow and boring and hard to understand. People that have difficulty reading body language must have it much harder to communicate and understand where somebody is coming from. Possessing the ability to read body language is helpful in countless circumstances. Understanding peoples emotions and stance on things can sometimes be more important than hearing what they are saying about it.

Experiment 1 would have been easier had we been able to write down what we were trying to say. There is also a major drawback to writing as well. The drawback being the amount of time it would take to communicate via pen and paper. This would take up a lot of time and much of what we did discuss during the time period would not have been mentioned. The written language is very helpful to the culture that developed it because it provides a way to communicate with people that aren’t near you. It also creates a more formal approach to communication as well as keeping in communication with more people than possible just through verbal communication. The written language has had a huge impact on the globalization of ideas through its quick and simple way of spreading such information all throughout the world.