Language Post

I found this assignment to be hard, to try to take part in a conversation where you only use hand gestures, noises, and our body movement.  My partner was my girlfriend; first I let her do all the talking asking me different questions. I would try to respond by using my head, body and pointing at objects with my finger. As expected she made fun of my expressions.  After a while of asking me questions that required me to basically use my whole body to express what I was trying to say, she started to ask simple questions that required me only to nod my head to answer yes/no. If we are to see two different cultures meeting for the first time, the culture who could talk and use their body language to express what they wanted to say would have the advantage.  For example Latinos that come from their hometowns to the United States, they don’t know how to speak the language English as well as their native language. Therefore they rely on gestures and body movement to understand what the people who peak to them want them to understand. In this case English is the disadvantage if the Latinos, but what if an American went to the Latinos hometown the same situation would occur.

I couldn’t complete the whole 15 minutes without using any body movement; I’m a person that uses my hands, and body movement to express what I’m trying to point out. During the experiment I noticed that when I didn’t use any gestures or emphasis on my tone of voice the story I was telling seemed dull. With this experiment I noticed how body language, gestures, or even noises make a difference when trying to grab somebodies attention, and how almost every culture uses body language, gestures, and noises when expressing themselves.