Did you know with just 25 different words, it’s possible to generate over 15,000 distinct sentences (Pagel, 1)? The human language is incredible because we have “an endless capacity for generating new sentences as speakers combine and recombine sets of words into their subject, verb and object roles” (Pagel, 1). And once we make those sentences, we can communicate it to others in order to express our thoughts, feelings, wants etc. The other amazing thing is that we are the only species on the planet to be able to express with verbal words, our intentions. And with this, humans were able to evolve from all other animals on Earth because “humans have had a high-fidelity code for transmitting detailed information down the generations” (Pagel, 5). The human race was possible to be the most intellectual species because we can relay important messages in words and socialize with each other to improve life.
Not only are humans able to communicate verbally, humans are able to expression certain thoughts and feelings with gestures. Everyone does gestures in their everyday lives such as pointing to things you’d like to refer to, waving hi to a friend, and when trying to think of a word, either snapping your fingers or making a weird hand motion while trying to figure out what word you’d like to say. Therefore, gestures are important because “the listener integrates information from speech and gesture to form a unified representation of the speakerʼs message” (Cassell, McNeill, & McCullough, 1999). Basically, gestures are another way to communicate a message when words are not enough or when you’d like to emphasize something. Another interesting observation when it comes to gestures, is that it can “temporally overlaps with co-expressive speech, but the gesture is often initiated before (but not after) the co-expressive speech” (Habets, Boukje, et al, 1845). In situation where gestures and language overlap, it just proves that humans are very intellectual and complex in that we are able to do both while still getting our point across. No other species does this specific type of communication with one another and enhances our ability to create different types of messages with just the hand gestures we use.
This is helpful in society because humans are social being in nature and in order to socialize, we need to talk, make hand gestures and use body language to get our message across. When you think about it, this is how we make friends, how we tell our mom what to get from the grocery store and tell our significant other we love them. In reality, language and communication takes over a majority of our time and efforts. So with that, I decided to conduct an experiment in which I was not able to communicate with my significant other and had to express, without talking, what movie I wanted to see in the movie theatre. In this experiment I hope to take my knowledge of hand gestures and the importance of communication, and see how he will react when I can’t convey what I want.
The method I chose to conduct my experiment was a single subject experiment. This means a situation is exposed to varying levels of the independent variable. In this case, I conducted my experiment with my boyfriend while we were at the movies. On Saturday, November 4, him and I decided to go to the movies together. We went to the Pacific Theatres 18 in the Americana in Glendale and as we were waiting in line, he asked me what movie we should watch. I took this opportunity to conduct my experiment. After he asked the question, I referred to my throat by pointing at it and hoping he would assume I couldn’t talk. He gave me a confused face because we had just been talking a minute ago. I again referenced to my throat and he rolled his eyes then asked the question again. I turned around and kind of moved my head towards the board, showing the different movies that are available to be seen that day. He took a deep breath and said “Okay, point to the one you want to see”. I didn’t know if I could point so I decided to stay quiet and shake my head no. When he did that, he did put his hand to his face and groaned which I found hilarious but I had to keep in character so I tried not to smile. At this point I could tell my boyfriend was getting frustrated and he once again asked me what movie we want to see. The line was moving and I had to make a decision quickly before it was our turn to pay. I just wanted to see how long it’ll take until my boyfriend decided to pick a movie for us to see. I once again gestured with my head towards the movie board and he kind of got the message so he then started to point at the different movies on the board. As he went down the line of movies, I shook my head either no or shrugged my shoulders. He didn’t even get through the entire listing until he he threw his hands up in the air and said “Fuck it, we’re not seeing a movie then if you’re not going to pick a movie” and he got out of line. There were others around in line and they did happen to hear our little scuffle and looked over with wide eyes. I caught up with my boyfriend and told him what I was doing in order to conduct this sociology experiment. He was half irritated and half interested in my explanation for my shenanigans after I explained to him the whole experiment and how I was trying to get my point across without using words, only my hand and body gestures.
At first I felt awful for provoking my boyfriend and not telling him about the experiment I was about to conduct. I could also tell as I stayed quieter and did not communicate with him, the more frustrated and irritated he became with me. I also felt kind of helpless as I was trying to gesture with my head what movie I wanted to see but just as he was about to point to the movie I wanted to see, which was Happy Death Day, he got frustrated and stopped pointing to the board. The other people around us in line were paying no attention to us until my boyfriend exclaimed out loud his frustrations which I was a little embarrassed about. We’ve been dating for 3 years and he does tend to get frustrated easily and when he has reached his point, he lashes out. After I did explain the whole situation, I apologized for making him frustrated and he apologized for getting loud. He also explained if I had told him the experiment beforehand, he would’ve been more cooperative with me which I thought was interesting.
What I learned from this experience is that communication is so crucial in everyday life from big things to expressing feelings and intentions to small things like what movie to watch. I also learned that when one person can’t express the message they want to get across to others, the other person gets frustrated very easily and gives up on the incapable person. It just made me think about Genies situation (from the movie “Wild Child”) and how her caretakers must’ve felt when it came time to taking care of her and trying to teach her how to communicate again. The amount of patience and determination of the caretakers must’ve been exceptional. And as for Genie, I can only imagine how she must’ve felt when she had already designated certain sounds and gestures (as shown in the movie) to certain items but when trying to tell her caretakers what she meant, the communication was lost.
In a way, Genie had created her own culture in which language, noises and symbols was her way of communicating. And her caregivers had no way of knowing what she’d say or what she’d want. In this situation, there is a need for a cultural understanding and it “extends beyond an individual’s ability to state facts or know about a country’s cultural celebrations to being able to engage in culturally relevant and sensitive dialogue” (Fox, Rebecca and Rosario Diaz-Greenberg, 405). Just like Genie’s situation, there was no way for her caregivers to understand “celebrations” or experiences she went through because they didn’t experience the isolation themselves or how she taught herself the language she uses to communicate with. If Genie has someone else who knew what her sounds and gestures meant, she would be able to feel in an in-group instead of an outgroup in which she would experience more isolation than before. But regardless, this proves the importance of language and how certain barriers cause a disconnect between people.
Communication and language is a crucial part of society and part of our everyday lives. There would be no such thing as a human race if we did not evolve our forms of communication nor would we be as advanced as we are in that we can communicate with both words and gestures simultaneously. We also see how language affects our understanding of different cultures and how rough it can be when basic forms of communication is taken away. In the experiment I conducted I got to see first hand what it would be like to not be able to communicate my intentions and saw the effects of it. Of course, in sociology there is a reason for everything so I believe if a symbolic interactionist, a conflict theorist and fundamentalist were to look at my experiment, they would all have different variations of why my boyfriend reacted the way he did. A symbolic interactionist would look at my experiment and would say that the reason why my boyfriend reacted the way he did because in my boyfriend’s world, it’s normal for people to respond usually when asked a question, so when I did not respond to his question, he was taken aback and lashed out in return. A conflict theorist would believe that my boyfriend reacted the way he did because of the conflict between our social status and how since we are from the same social status and background (working middle class, Latino/a), my behavior was out of terms in regard to how I should act. And lastly, a functionalist would say my boyfriend's behavior was due to the fact that since I needed to make a choice in what movie we should watch and I didn't, I affect the outcome of the type of snacks we would get at the concession stand, if I took a while to choose, maybe we wouldn’t get food at the concession time, movie length and what time we will come out of the movie, how long it’ll take us to get home after we leave the theatre and so on. With this experiment, I was able to see what the reaction of my significant other would be when I take communication away and it taught me that we have established sort of a norm in which asked a question, you expect a response and if not given it, pester until it is given. In this case, frustration took over and lead to miscommunication which taught me that there really would be no society or human race if we did not communicate with each other. It just proves that even the everyday things we do, like communicating our thoughts, can be taken away and all hell will break lose.