Communication

Part 1
     I enlisted the help of my 18 year old brother for this part of the assignment. It was easy in the sense that carrying out the actual assignment wasn't very difficult; I don't know any ASL so all I had to do was not talk. However, actually communicating effectively with my brother was extremely difficult.
     For the first few minutes, my brother found it entertaining to ask me questions that he knew I had no chance at answering without speaking like "What brand of shampoo do you use?" but eventually he began just making statements and seeing if I had positive or negative reactions. I noticed he slowed down his speech, enunciated more, and spoke louder- almost like he would to someone who had difficulty hearing. I tried communicating to him mostly by pantomiming and making sound effects. My brother would then repeat what he thought I was trying to say and then wait for me to have a positive or negative reaction to tell if he got it right. After only a few minutes we started being able to actually get some two way thought exchange and he started talking a little more like normal.
     My brother definitely had the advantage in communicating complex ideas. After several minutes of exasperated pointing and gesturing I managed to get him to understand "Talk about your girlfriend" and then in that same amount of time he was able to tell me about what he liked about her, a recent date they had, and what what she did that day. However, his communication using a symbolic language is only as effective as my understanding of it allows. If we really were from different cultural backgrounds, neither one of us would really be able to understand much of the other, although I'd imagine that if I was used to not communicating with symbols I would be a little better at expressing thoughts to him because it is a more familiar form of communication. He, however, could see me as simple minded for not being able to get across larger thoughts.
     My cousin Glen was born completely deaf and, like so many other deaf Americans, has faced significant obstacles overcoming communication barriers. He relied on sign language when he was young to communicate with his immediate family, but since the majority of America does not know ASL, he worked very hard to become good at reading lips and actually speaking. People still talk really loud with simple words when talking to him, even though volume has no effect on his ability to understand what they're saying, and he is not lacking in intelligence. In our culture, a common sign of intelligence is being able to speak well. For instance, most Americans automatically assume that people with British accents are smart just because of how they talk. So when people like Glen communicate a little differently or have speech impediments, they can automatically be seen as less intelligent. This can be overcome, though, as people become more familiar with each other and how different people speak, just like my brother began speaking normally with me once he got used to my new way of communicating. 

Part 2
     I managed to get through the majority of 15 minutes using only my words to communicate but I did have moments where my voice would show some emotion, I would make a face or my hands would somehow become involved in the conversation. My two younger sisters and my brother talked with me during this part of the assignment, and like any younger siblings, they were more than eager to point out every little time my monotone stillness broke. They also tried their best to make my composure break. However, their speech was largely unaffected by my way of talking, unlike in the previous experiment. While they thought my almost robotic voice and blank face were funny, they were otherwise completely normal in what we spoke about and how they talked. 
     I think the fact that my monotone gestureless way of talking didn't really affect my siblings shows that we are used to having symbolic language be our primary means of communication. This is also supported by how we exchange ideas mostly through writing, whether it be in the form of a text message, letter, book, or website. However, if I had to continue speaking in such a limited way I think other problems would have surfaced. We rely very much on tone a verbal ques to carry across messages. I would begin to seem detached, antisocial and almost sociopathic if I only used words to express meaning.
     Autistic people can have a very hard time reading body language. One of my good friends has a younger brother with mild autism and they have to work very hard to help him understand certain non verbal ques, especially facial expressions. Understanding other people's body language can be an adaptive advantage for several reasons. It can help a person tell when someone could possibly wish to harm them so they know when to back out of a situation. And, as demonstrated in any teen girl's magazine, it can even help you find a mate. It can also allow a person to tell what kind of effect they are having on someone else- like are they making them nervous, excited, angry, pleased, or threatened. The only way I can see not being able to interpret body ques as an adaptive advantage is if society as whole begins to rely less on nonverbal signals and more on symbolic language. This could help in that it allows for clearer communication but it requires everyone to have a strong grasp on the meaning of the symbols and rather open honesty when communicating.

Part 3
     Communicating with my brother for part 1 would have been incredibly easier if I was able to use written language. While writing things down can be slower than just saying them, it still allows for clear, if not even more specific, communication of complex thoughts and ideas. It is still very much language, and word I know how to speak I can at the very least write out phonetically for my brother.
     Written language is essential for cultures to advance in most ways. Writing down ideas and experiences allows for them to be preserved, studied and built upon by later generations. It allows for specialization of tasks because a lifetime is not required to learn the necessary knowledge to perform a task, like farming or building. Previous knowledge can be drawn upon and what took someone else years to experience and learn can be absorbed in an instant.
     Written language has also helped with globalization because it can be learned and shared easier. As complex as various written languages can be, ultimately they are systematic and can be learned and therefor translated into other languages. Ideas also become portable when they are written down. Say an important event happens and news of it needs to be spread, someone who witnessed it can write it down, make a few copies, and have them delivered to several different places. This spread the story much faster than if they went from place to place themselves to tell what they saw. It also allows for people to know exactly what the witness knows without having to go through a messenger who could possibly corrupt the accuracy of the story (anyone ever played telephone??). Written language is essential for the sharing and expansion of knowledge, and even though the majority of it is digital today, it is still written communication.