What's All the Hype About Language?

Language is such a pivotal part of how we communicate with others and is a uniquely human trait. We often take our communication abilities for granted, not realizing how helpful they really are in our everyday lives. To demonstrate this, I conducted a bit of an experiment where I held two separate conversations with a small group of people at my work. For the first conversation, I was only able to communicate using nonverbal cues, I was not able to speak or use sign language of any form- just hand movements, body language, and basic social cues. For the second conversation, I was only able to communicate using verbal language. This meant I could speak, but could not use any other form of communication like hand movements, body language, voice variation, etc. I then spoke with my co-workers about what it was like for them to communicate with me when my communication options were limited. I compared their thoughts with my own and concluded the following:

My first conversation took place out on the playground at my work (I am a preschool teacher). I stood with three of my co-workers as they spoke about our recent employee reviews that were conducted by our boss. Throughout the conversation, I found it difficult to give input as I was unable to verbally speak. It was easy for me to nod and agree with what my peers were saying, but it was increasingly harder to give constructive feedback or convey my own thoughts I had regarding our reviews. At one point in the conversation, one of my peers asked me about my plans for the upcoming school year and whether or not I was planning on staying at my current school. It was very difficult to answer the question without being able to speak. I found that in order to understand what I was trying to say, my peers were taking guesses as to what I was thinking, allowing me to either agree or disagree with their perceived guess. What would have been a two minute response turned into about five or six minutes of confusion and guessing back and forth. After eventually answering that one question, I found that my peers avoided asking me further questions throughout the conversation. My inability to effectively communicate was prohibiting me from actively being a part of the conversation. The conversation was ultimately controlled by my peers and there were indeed times I was excluded from the conversation because of my inability to add to it. In this case, my peers certainly held all the power. Since I wasn’t able to speak up or say what was on my mind, my opinions became less important to them because they weren’t being stated clearly. 

If I were to take this experience and look at it from a cultural perspective, I can clearly see that a culture that uses spoken language would have a much higher advantage at communicating than one that does not use spoken language. A speaking culture may consider members of a nonspeaking culture ignorant or uneducated since they can’t clearly express their thoughts and ideas- (at least not to people who use spoken language). We can occasionally see this demonstrated between members of the hearing community and members of the deaf community. People who are deaf can not hear which prevents them from being able to use spoken language. They can use American Sign Language and body language to communicate, however, unless the person whom they are communicating with also knows ASL, their options are very limited. Because of this, people who are deaf often have a harder time completing school, finding jobs, and having active social lives that interact with the speaking community. The hearing community often does not consider the needs of the deaf community as much as they do their own and hearing people don’t typically try to hold conversations with deaf people unless they have to. This shows how a speaking culture can have more of an advantage when it comes to communicating than a nonspeaking culture. 

Now, for my second conversation, I was inside the classroom with my co-teacher and one other co-worker. We had been talking earlier in the day about the new snack program we started using at our work. For this conversation, it was  easier for me to share my thoughts since I was able to speak, however, it was insanely difficult to remember I could not use any other form of communication like body language or voice variation. I kept wanting to use my hands or use different facial expressions to accompany my words. Normally, I am a naturally sarcastic person when I speak, so my lack of body language when speaking made it difficult for my peers to tell if I was being serious or not. So much of our personality is portrayed through the way we speak and interact with others. Since I am normally very bubbly and sassy, not being able to use my hands when I spoke or make facial expressions made me feel very dull and unexciting. This made the conversation hard to have since I wasn’t as engaged as I usually would be. This just goes to show the emphasis that is placed on nonverbal communication in our speaking culture. Body language allows us to not just speak words about what we are thinking but also portray the emotions tied to those words. Our actions while we talk whether it be facial expressions, hand movements, etc. allows others to interpret the feelings or connotations of what we are saying. Without these nonverbal cues, it becomes very difficult to interpret someone’s true thoughts and feelings. 

The ability to recognize and acknowledge body language is very useful because it helps us decide how to respond to what someone is saying. If someone is screaming and throwing their arms around, chances are they are angry. Being able to recognize this would allow you to decide how to react to that person’s words in a way that addresses the feelings they are portraying. Being able to read body language can even potentially be a life-saving skill. If you are in a hostile situation with someone, you can analyze their changing body language to help determine whether or not that person will become violent. The ability to recognize this may give you the opportunity to leave the situation before putting yourself in danger by staying in the presence of a violent person. Not everyone has this ability though! For example, individuals with autism have a harder time recognizing body language and what a particular person’s body language may mean. This can make effective communication difficult for them since so much of our everyday communication in a speaking culture is influenced by body language. However, there are indeed times when the inability to read body language could be useful. Since body language is often used to portray feeling or emotion, we know that it is not objective. If someone needed to be completely objective for some reason (i.e. observation for an experiment), the inability to be influenced by body language would prove to be useful. 

In conclusion, both conversations were certainly interesting to have given the circumstances I needed to abide by. I realized just how much I rely on both verbal and nonverbal communication in my everyday life- particularly at work where I work with several women and many young children. Not only does the way I communicate effect me and my actions, but also those of others when interacting with me. Language and communication are such important parts of our lives!