"What you talkin' bout, culture?"

One of the major steps to humanness is the evolution of speech. Our early ancestors, after becoming mobile and acquiring the human’s characteristic bipedal trait, started to develop and form speech. However, one can always ask “How does our speech and communication differ from other primates and mammals?” The thing is, us humans have developed our own system for speech, with a set of alphabets that can be used by anyone to form language and speech. This week’s assignment was to test the different components of speech and language, that is 1) the component of symbolic language and 2) the physical component of speech.

Part 1

The first portion of this experiment required me to not use any sort of symbolic language that is speaking, writing, or sign language. This scenario accounted for the use of speech itself, and put me in a state where my ideas could not be conveyed through speech but only physically communicated, almost like other mammals. To be completely honest though, this was not as hard as it sounded when I first read it. I performed the experiment with my brother, so there was a little bias there (as in if I pointed to something random it was because it usually had some significant event coupled to it that we both knew of), however I managed to convey my ideas and opinions. It was not as difficult because there were no limits to what I could do physically to communicate my thoughts and my signals did not get misinterpreted, that is they were discrete physical actions that could only mean one thing (eg. If I pointed to the television, my brother knew I was talking about the television). As the experiment went on, my brother started to acclimate to the scenario, however in the beginning there were some issues. At first, it was more difficult for him to understand what was happening, he would guess a lot and was confused sometimes, but after a while things picked up. In addition, I also noticed he was using more than usual hand movements and physical cues during our conversation, as in he would point to things more, he would nod his head in agreement or disagreement with his verbal response. Now, if my brother and I represented two different cultures meeting for the first time, he would have the advantage in developing and communicating complex ideas due to the fact that he can rely not only on physical communication, but he will have access to an established language system, and can use symbolic language by speaking ideas, or writing them out. My brother (culture that uses symbolic language) will most likely have the belief that I (culture that does not use symbolic language) am the inferior one. However, in our society today, we have many people today who are not able to utilize symbolic language to communicate, but we still see them as equals, for example those who are born without the capability to hear (i.e. through deafness) or those who are born with difficulties developing language and speech (i.e. through mental retardation). From personal experience, having an uncle who is deaf, it sometimes can be hard to communicate with him, and I always seem to heavily rely on physical communication and hand movements, even though he is very fluent in American Sign Language. The way I see it, is that those people who are seen as “inferior” seem to be more superior than us due to the fact that they not only need to interpret what we say with our complex ideas and symbolic language, but they have to process it and respond back with their simplistic communicational methods.

Part 2

The second experiment analyzed the use of symbolic language but one person was denied any physical means of communication, so no change in tone of voice, facial expression, hand movements, etc. Both, my brother and I, found this experiment to be more difficult (and fun) because every time we started our conversation we would both break out into laughter because of the seriousness on our faces. Therefore, on multiple tries, failed to last the full 15 minutes but not just because of the laughter but also it seemed hard for me to refrain from using facial expressions. As my brother and I attempted to complete the task at hand, my brother did not find it difficult to understand what I was saying but found it hard to interpret how I felt about what I was saying. He did not get how I felt about what we were talking about. He stated “it was like you had no opinion, even though you were literally telling me you agreed with me.” This experiment shows us the importance of communicating through physical ways, and that this simplistic approach to communication is needed to express ideas accurately and with ease. The reason why is because with symbolic language facts, concepts, and laws are easily conveyed however “signs” and non-speech language techniques are needed to express ideas, thoughts, and opinions. In today’s society, there are many individuals that have a hard time interpreting body languages, and it can range from people like you and me to those who physically do not have the capability to see physical cues and motions, that is blind individuals. People who are blind sometimes can be at a disadvantage because they do not have access to how ones idea looks like, or feels like which is conveyed through facial expressions, hand movements, etc. There are not many environmental conditions I can think of where not reading body language is beneficial, however I can think of certain physical conditions where it is not beneficial to read body language, and that is when an individual is diagnosed with tourette syndrome. A person with tourette syndrome might communicate an unwanted, and depending on the situation inappropriate, physical gesture or sign, therefore it would be beneficial for one not to interpret those physical gestures literally.

Part 3

Writing is considered a type of symbolic language, so if we were allowed to use it in the first experiment it would have made things easier, however there would be no reason to perform the experiment then because one can convey complex ideas and thoughts with writing. It is very beneficial for a culture to develop writing because once an established system is created for the use of forming words (i.e. an alphabet), that culture now has access to a reliable and constant system to communicate with one another. This way, complex ideas can easily be communicated with all those who comprehend that system of symbols. Another advantage is that writing allows the preservation of ideas, facts, opinions, etc. that can be revisited in a later time. This advantage of having access to writing, leads to the spread of that idea/knowledge, which is known as globalization. It is because of the development of writing why we can gain knowledge on the concept of globalization itself. It is true that globalization can be spread through other mediums, such as speech, however the idea can not be expressed systematically for others to have access to.