Week 7 assignment

Brian Roe  

Anthropology 101  

3/21/2017  

Week 7 Language Blog   

For this assignment, I carried out a conversation with my mom about different controversial topics ranging from global warming to politics. When I was communicating with my mom she noticed that my hands were used in order to direct her to what I wanted to talk about and to also help focus on what I was trying to say. She also focused in on my facial expressions like how my eyebrows would raise when she talked about something or if I would smile or frown during a topic. My experience of this assignment was interesting to say the least, only having the option to use body language and minimal sounds without language was not as hard as I had expected. I thought that we wouldn’t be able to have any form of communication but through my body language my mom was able to ask me about my viewpoints or my ideas on the topic and I would answer with body language to let her know that I was engaged in the conversation. But having complex conversations was impossible because there is only so much you can say with facial expressions and body language. Yes, my mom changed the way the conversation headed by asking simple questions that could be answered with yes and no answers, which could be interpreted with body language or my facial expressions.  

My partner was definitely the controller of the conversation throughout part 1 of this assignment. It was usually my partner who initiated a change in topics, but I had the ability also to change the subject if I wanted to just by pointing something out or averting my eyes to a different part of the web page. I think that the balance was tipped toward my partner because it always almost as if it was her duty to initiate the conversation, but I had the ability to change the topic.   

The culture that uses spoken language will have the advantage when expressing complex ideas because spoken languages words have power to them, also through speech, you can incorporate many things like emotions or different tones. It also allows you the ability to convey your thoughts to a wider audience just by raising your voice. The speaking culture will probably think that the nonverbal communicating culture is inferior to them or isn't as sophisticated. Today there is a deaf culture, which is consisted of people who don’t use verbal forms of communications. Almost all other cultures use verbal communication.  

Part 2  

Through this part of the assignment, we used the same topics as before and I had the same partner. Being able to use verbal communication with these controversial topics allowed us to have a sophisticated debate about our thoughts and our feeling toward different topics. My partner was more open to question my ideas and why I think the way I do and I was able to do the same. Our conversations were never dull and sometimes it even got off course because of the differing ideas that we had.  I think that this part of the assignment was easier, but I noticed that it felt almost awkward not being able to use my hands in order to talk, I noticed how much I depend on using hand motions in order to convey my own ideas. I thought it was really difficult not being able to make any facial movements or even move my head because I wanted to face my partner and talk with her but my position was so that I was looking straight ahead. I used my peripheral vision in order to glimpse her facial expressions and also how she reacted to the topics. My partner said that it wasn’t a big issue with the lack of body language, but she said that I was almost robot like without the use of body language or emotions. My partner didn’t have trouble with understanding what was being said, but she wasn’t able to read my emotions or how I truly felt about the topic.   

This shows that body language is equally important as verbal language. Body language helps us read people's emotions and maybe their comfortability about a topic. They are able to read a lot of things through people's body language like their emotions, how interested they are if they are focused, and what they might be thinking as the conversation goes on.  

The advantage to reading body language is the ability to see if someone poses a threat to you or not. This helps with survival because through body language you can see if someone feels comfortable around you or is not someone who wants to be around you. If someone doesn’t want to be around you, their body posture will probably be stiff and rigid while someone who is comfortable will be laid back and be very open about body language.   

I think that some people might have a hard time reading body language. I researched people who are not able to read body language and I came across a medical condition called social-emotional agnosia and this condition is basically the inability to read body language, facial expressions, or voice intonation. A situation of a benefit of not reading someone's body language, in my opinion, is if they are sad or angry. I just feel like these two traits can turn others to become depressed or have negative thoughts just by your body language.