Tacita Verba

     The most mindless behaviors, but also the most imperative within cultures across the globe, lie in communication. Copious combinations of sounds, gestures, and actions performed daily to convey emotions and concepts with those around us. The nature and importance of this system can easily be overlooked, until it is actively being restricted. That is the basis of this experiment, the lack of everyday behaviors which we may believe we could manage without. 

    The first part of the experiment required me to speak without words. Communication was to be held only using gestures, body language, and hand signs. My experiment was held with my mother, as I frequently talk with her during meals. The first minute or two were relatively easy, all I had to use was my ears as my mother talked about her day. Difficulty struck when the time came for me to respond. I couldn't immediately curse the man she said had been rude to her at work nor could I add on to her insights about pride influencing a person to distance themselves from a loved one. All she got from me was facial expressions and raised shrugs in frustration. She herself felt a bit isolated, in her words, she felt like "a schizophrenic trying to talk to a creature in her head." She had to constantly throw guesses at what she thought I was trying to tell her until I nodded, which she found a bit tedious. The conversation was definitely being carried by her, she was ultimately the one with the power to choose the topic of conversation and make herself understood most easily. I believe this showed how she, the one with access to spoken language, was naturally the one to dictate the course of events for the duration of the 15 minutes, and how our methods of communication centered on me adjusting my actions to her words rather than her adapting her mannerisms to mine. 

    The second part of the experiment was held the same day after dinner time. My hands were placed on my knees and my mother could only see my chest, shoulders and face. This time, the words in my head could actually leave my mouth but the rest of me was paralyzed. Spending 15 minutes being what my mother described as a "portrait with a text-to-speech voice" proved arduous. The lack of movement in my hands took away from the flow of my voice, as in, the hand gestures that would subconsciously help me visualize what I was going to say were absent and I found myself thinking of what to say for a slightly longer time. According to my mother, the lack of tone change, aside from being unsettling, made it difficult for her to determine what emotion was being emphasized. For example, she could hear the words come out of my mouth saying that the experiment was getting on my nerves, but she could not decipher if those words were sarcastic or if I was genuinely feeling animosity. This is what body language provides in a conversation, it provides emphasis, emotion, visualization. You can say you're excited but, without the body language to express, nobody would believe you if you told them.

    I believe this experiment successfully encompasses how much both corporeal and verbal language go hand in hand with each other. Being deprived of one makes the other weaker. The lack of writing was like a cherry on top to the limitations of this experiment. The ability to write what I wanted to say to my mother would have heavily facilitated the first part of the experiment. With writing, not only could I have provided words, but I would have provided the emotions that came with them. You can show emphasis with capital letters or use punctuation to convey either question or surprise. Many factors provided by our own language have been successful at delivering accurate depictions of communication to the point where books are essentially words on paper recognized for being thought provoking, terrifying, or heartbreaking. Tales from many cultures have been able to be passed down, delivering the same message throughout generations. Were it not for written language, many aspects of ancient societies would not be known today and today's practices that were influenced by them would not exist.