Week Three Assignment
For this assignment, my brother and I had to take part in an experiment for the first 15 minutes, I couldn't talk in a conversation but for the last 15 minutes, I could talk but with no emotion, only my voice.
PART ONE
For the first 15 minutes, it felt weird. He was doing most of the talking but I still showed emotions such as nodding my head and others. At first, it was fun to talk to him but very quickly without me verbally engaging, he seemed to get distracted with smaller things with his phone that left me in silence looking over to him to continue the conversation. In that sense, he had the power in the conversation where it could end whenever he got bored enough and I couldn't talk or anything to continue it. Even with subjects he brought up, he got bored.
The benefit of spoken language is that the most part, there is equal power in the conversation. It is not the same for every dynamic but in most conversations, all parties can communicate what they want without being seen almost like an inanimate object like a doll.
If these were two cultures, my brother's culture would have the advantage in discussing complex ideas. I think that the culture who would speak would feel superior compared to the other one who can't speak even if they don't intend to. This can be applied to those who come from different countries and don't speak and/or aren't fluent in English. Unless you are put in the position of where you can't communicate what you would like to, you would tend to think you would treat others who can't with respect but we see this time and time again it doesn't happen. Growing up in a family of immigrants, I see my grandparents who don't speak English very well get disregarded or no one try to attempt to understand them. Like in the experiment with my brother, even if they try and understand, they soon give up and no longer treat you like an individual.
PART TWO
The first 5 minutes were definitely tough. My brother is one of those people where you just look at him and you can't stop laughing even though nothing funny was said or done. But once I got over that, it was very easy for me to keep a monotone voice and use no expressions or movements.
My brother described this experience as awkward for him and that he did feel like something was missing. He described feeling disengaged with the conversation even though I was responding and talking. He said he felt like it was easier to communicate with me compared to the first part but that emotions are important to talking so he felt like you need both vocal and emotional communication and not one or the other.
I think emotions are a huge part of talking to people to understand the meaning behind what people say. It does make it harder where there is no emotions behind it like for example when people say they are fine but are very clearly upset. However, many people also communicate without fully understanding tones such as those with ADHD like my brother or those who fall on the autism spectrum. Body language is important but there are individuals who can't fully understand and yet still form proper relationships with others, meaning it is more of a convenience but not a necessity to conversation. There are some benefits to not always understanding body language because sometimes even for people who are neurotypical, there can still be confusion with body language. So the benefit is that you are used to being clear with your intentions and words, which is really helpful to long term relationships with people instead of sending mixed signals.
PART THREE
I think it would have been easier to use paper but there would still be a power dynamic between the speaker and writer. It would be easier because you can be clear with your words instead of having some confusion. I however feel like the same issue would come across like with my brother where he got bored of it with contributes to the power dynamic. Writing language does have the advantage if being clear with words and the ability to communicate over long distances with convenience such like texts or college assignments. This can be contributed to many ideas across the whole world throughout history and even in our modern age. The Bible is a piece of literature many follow their whole lives around and while sure there are priests who speak about God, it is all based from the ideas of written language. This can be applied to many things like our constitution, Shakespeare and much more. We see this today with social media apps like Twitter where you can tweet a joke or a comment and change the perspective of many people or cause outrage from a few simple written words. We see the importance of written language time and time again.
Hello Kady, for part one you did an excellent job of explaining what the directions were. you talked about that for the first 15 minutes. It felt weird when you talked about how your brother was doing most of the talking, you were nodding your head and then immediately after your brother got distracted by his phone. Therefore, it left you in complete silence and you realized that he had power in the conversation. you did an excellent job explaining the benefit of spoken language and how it is the most powerful part as it becomes the equalizer of the conversation. You did a really good job explaining the cultural advantage your brother would have when looking at a complex idea. you ended your part one with saying that if your brother did choose to give up on the chat, he would no longer treat you like an individual or an equal. I would have to say you ran the experiment very well you’ve demonstrated a disconnect that can happen between two different cultures and whatever dialect or in a symbiotic way, both can have a drastically different outcome as one group may not take a serious the other and may refuse to acknowledge any form of communication that is not up to the level that they are at.
ReplyDeleteWhen looking at part two you did talk about how the first beginning of it was very tough. You mentioned it was very easy for you to use a monotone voice and have no expressions. your brother talked about how the experience was awkward for him and he did feel like something was missing. He went on to explain that he thought it was easier to communicate in the first part, but that emotion was very important to talking. I would have to agree with your ending point when you talked about how emotions are a huge part of talking to people to understand the meaning of what they say. It does make it harder when there are no emotions behind it, for example, when you said that people who say they are fine, but they are clearly upset. overall, I would say that you did fulfill the necessary requirements but again relating to the part one if we do not have the full rounded ability of human communication in another culture. We could feel that something is off about the individual and not understand them, this could lead to misunderstandings, miscommunications or interpreting something wrong. I wouldn’t be surprised if other cultures have felt that as a feeling of disrespect. If I walk up to another culture, they choose to give me a gift and I just stand there looking at them with no expression, no happiness, nothing that they would use to measure what would normally happen. they may take it as an act of disrespect not taking them seriously or they may even consider me not to actually be a human.
In regard to part three you explained that you thought it would’ve been easier to use paper to write down your words. however there still would be dynamic power between the speaker and the writer. you talked about being clear with your words instead of having some confusion by using hands signs or other methods. You did explain that an issue would come across like when your brother was bored, and he would be contributing to the overall power dynamic always falling into his favor. You then talked about how communication has been used around the entire world throughout history and even the modern ages. Like the Bible, the writings of Shakespeare, and the modern social media era of apps that heavily rely on written language. I believe these are all very good points you brought in a lot of real-world examples. that would be able to illustrate for others the exact point that you were looking to make and overall, it was a very good read and I felt that I gave a good educational steppingstone to get more in depth about the information that we are learning about.
ReplyDeleteGoogle limited the length of my comment. I'll finish it here:
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Part 3: Good on your initial response.
There are three distinct prompts in this last section. I'm able to parse out your response to the first prompt, but I can't figure out where your response to the second prompt ends and the response to the third begins. This is where it would really be to your advantage to separate each prompt response into different paragraphs. I'll do my best...
The "culture" question in prompt #2 was asking how written language can benefit a culture. It allows a culture to record historical events for future generations. It communicates ideas reliably throughout the culture (as opposed to the spoken word which is easily corrupted... think of a game of "telephone"). It also allows for education of the populace on a large scale. it also allows the sharing of information between individuals over great distances, such as the way scientists can share new ideas and research and discoveries. All benefit a culture.
With regard to the issue of the impact globalization, I appreciate how you note the impact a tweet can have over a large number of people around the world. Is this a positive thing or a negative thing? Consider the Covid pandemic: Written language allowed the communication of mitigation measures and vaccine information to be transmitted broadly to help reduce transmission and save lives. But unfortunately, false information travels just as fast, which can negate the benefits of factual information. Written information contributes to globalization via the spread of common information... but the quality of that change will depend upon the veracity of the information.