Language Barriers:

I have to begin by saying this was truly an interesting experiment. I decided to use two different people for each experiment. My friend Ashley only spoke English, and my friend Anna spoke to me in Armenian.  I wanted to see if there was any difference in either experiment when the language was different. For the first part of the experiment the other participants were able to use language, whereas I was only allowed to use body language and non-verbal vocalizations. I began with Ashley. She spoke to me for fifteen minutes. Although I could not respond to her with words, I was able to keep her talking with just the hand gestures, smiles, and nods. Neither of us found this exercise to be difficult. I tried the same experiment with Anna in Armenian. We also had a lengthy conversation with each other. I didn’t find it hard to engage in the conversation, however I could tell there was times she was looking for me to react (with words) and I couldn’t. This made me think of my grandparents. They came to this country about thirteen years ago. I remember they felt so stupid because they couldn’t speak English. They had gotten lost one time by getting on the wrong bus, and they said they had a very difficult time getting home. They couldn’t communicate with anybody, and all they got were blank stares when they asked for directions. It did however encourage them to learn English at a much faster pace than all their friends.

In the second part of the experiment again my friends Ashley and Anna were the participants. In this part of the project I was able to speak to my participants, however I was not allowed any hand or face gestures or head movements of any kind. This was particularly interesting and difficult. Although the conversation should be easier with two people actually using their voices to communicate, it was not. Ashley had a much easier time speaking to me in English. She said my single tone was annoying. She didn’t like that I didn’t smile at her happy news. All in all it was not that bad. Now the conversation in Armenian was a whole other story. Anna was so frustrated with me for being monotone. She kept saying “say something”, what she didn’t realize was that I was saying a lot. I just couldn’t use my facial expressions and hand gestures as I normally would in our conversations. I actually found this to be amusing.

In order for me to understand Anna’s frustration she made me go through another conversation where she spoke to me in monotone and with no gestures. I have to say, it was pretty annoying. From this experiment I learned just how important language is to communicate. I was surprised to learn how much I depend on gestures and facial expressions during conversations.