Language Blog

Language Assignment Experiment

PART 1:

    * I found this assignment very difficult at first only because it's really hard to communicate with one another without using any form of language. The body language and facial expressions helped for my group to somewhat understand simple things.

    * My group had to alter the way they were communicating with me by asking lots of questions to see what I was refering to or what I meant by something. At first, I would try to answer things by pointing or gesturing to things but that was a bit difficult for the others to undestand what I was trying to make out. So then I decided to mix the gestures with drawings or pictures to help them understand. The drawings of symbols and pictures actually really helped them in the end. By that time we were able to communicate somewhat thoroughly with each other.however it was very time consuming.

    * People with down syndrome for example have difficulty speaking. They have to rely on non-verbal     skills such as gestures for longer than children do. They usually experience significant speech and language delay. They have difficulty learning grammar and with developing clear speech. For the most part they can understand certain things but it just takes some time for the thoughts to actually register in their head and like I said before, they use a lot of body language and gestures along with whatever they can pronounce to communicate with other individuals.Sometimes they even have to have someone there to help them understand and help them answer questions.

    Another example would be if a Deaf person came into contact with a hearing individual. The way a Deaf person would communicate with a hearing person would be through hand gestures, facial expressions, and body language. If that fails they usually resort to lipreading or writing things down.

PART 2:

   

    *Now this was actually more difficult because as you talk freely you are used to using facial expressions, hand gestures, and movements the whole time. Now that I could actually speak it was hard to remember to not move anything or not make facial expressions whatsoever as I was speaking. After every few minutes I would forget and my friends would have to remind me to not more or do anything. We tried this experiment more than once and that still didnt make a difference for me at least.

    *My partners would find it strange and awkward when I wasnt using any movements or putting any     emotion in my dialoque. It was actually kind of funny because it was so hard to not make any facial     expressions or move my hands especially because I tend to use a lot of gestures when I'm                 speaking.

    *Non-verbal communication plays a significant role in spoken language especially because since birth we rely solely on this way of comunication when we cant understand spoken language quite yet. Facial expressions and hand gestures are important because even before the sentence is uttered people are already looking for these signs to try and make sense of the message.These symbolic gestures help the hearer understand the speakers intentions or emotions.

    *There are people with impairments who have difficulty understanding body language. For example, those with Asperger syndrome, they have trouble understanding the meaning of what is being said. The benefit to being able to read body language is extremely helpful in  being able to understand the underlying meaning of things. Sometimes I think body language can affect you negatively when someone comes into a room with a negative energy  nobody will want to be around you. Or for example if you were to come to work and you're in a bad mood or you're sad it can affect the way you work or others around you.