The Essence of Language: The Experiment

Part 1

• Throughout the discussion with my partner, they usually discussed the topic as normal until I would try to "ask" some form of question through my body language and humming as if I was confused. Because of this, she was unable to immediately tell what I was asking, and it required a little more effort in order to get my question to be understood. Communication was normal, with the exception of her trying to guess what I was asking, building up a sentence word-by-word in correlation to my body language.
• Although my partner did most of the talking, I was able to dictate the flow of the conversation by using questions to explore other perspectives and aspects of the main topic at hand. Although I usually think a conversation is a balance between each person taking part of the conversation, I felt that I was the one who had the power in this case, as my partner had to cater to my "handicapped" speech in order to continue the topics.
• The spoken language will probably be easier to utilize in order to express complex ideas, as compared to a society that doesn't use speech. Those that can speak may feel as if they are more intellectual than those who don't use speech as a form of communication, due to the speed and structure of spoken language. A modern situation of this could be an individual who speaks English, trying to communicate with a deaf person who knows ASL. 

Part 2

• Now that both of us were able to speak, (but I was unable to use any other form of communication or even alter my pitch to a large degree) it was much easier to communicate our ideas. However, my partner felt as if I was not invested enough in the conversation due to a lack of enthusiasm in my voice and lack of body movement throughout. Although they didn't have a hard time understanding what I was trying to say, it didn't feel like a human conversation for the most part.
• This experiment opened my eyes to how important it really is to use some forms of signs when communicating to others. The signs can be used to distinguish the tone or context of a conversation. In a society of humans where we thrive on being social quite a bit, using signs help keep us engaged in the conversation and enthusiastic about it as well.
• The adaptive benefit to being able to read body language is being able to see if our own kind is in a certain dangerous state, especially if they are unable to directly communicate that to us. With that information, we can help understand what they need in different situations, therefore leading to their survival in the long run. This body language can also help us understand if the opposite sex is available to mate with, especially in a instinctual sense. If we could never tell these sorts of behaviors, it would be a hit or miss as to if an attempt at reproduction will be successful or not.
• Those that would have the most difficulty reading body language would be the visually impaired, or the blind. One example as to where this is beneficial, is if the person could hear in someone's voice if they are speaking nervously. If body language were used to create a false sense of being comfortable, using just our sense of hearing could help distinguish the underlying truth of how people are actually feeling during speech.