Communicaton Case

Mitchel VanDusen

ENGL 101

Alison Walker

Synthesis essay

If humans were unable to communicate with one another where do you think we would be? If we were unable to inform someone else of our thoughts and discoveries, there would be very little progress, emotional or intellectual. The people of the world communicate in vastly varying ways. Often in movies, with a foreign setting, there is a scene portraying the difficulties of communicating an idea to someone who speaks a different language. This is the way things are, so work and progress are often prohibited or slowed by miscommunication between people of different backgrounds and languages. That is why, though there are virtually unlimited ways to communicate, it is best to use a method that is universal, such as music, body language, pictures, and numbers.

Music is a form of communication that anyone can understand, whether it is slow and mournful or upbeat and cheery. No matter where we come from or what language we speak, music conveys a message to us. It is this that makes music more effective than most forms of communication: the fact that when people hear a song being sung by a choir or played on an instrument we understand that the music has a meaning and we are drawn in together by this understanding. Music can even alter other forms of communication. In Nicholas and David Temperly's article "Music-Language Correlations and the "Scotch Snap...," the author's note that the Scotch Snap rhythm (one sixteenth note followed by a dotted eighth note) is mirrored in the Scottish and English languages and speaking patterns and is very common in these places. In Germany and Italy however, the Scotch Snap rhythm is virtually nonexistent both in their music and in their speech patterns (Temperly and David Temperly pg.1). This simply shows that rhythm is always evident even in spoken language because it makes our words flow smoothly and fluently. Music is something that brings people together and it can be used at almost any occasion whether it is for fun, entertainment, celebration, personal expression, or even for grieving. In James McBride's essay, "Hip-Hop Planet," he explains what hip-hop is being used for all over the world. McBride tells us that hip-hop is a way for the world's youth to call out and tell us who they are (McBride pg.465). He tells us that hip-hop music is a good thing, and that he is embracing it because of that (McBride pg.472). The reason hip-hop is good; according to McBride is that it "lays bare the empty moral cupboard that is our generation's legacy" (McBride pg.472). What McBride means by this is that the hip-hop music is able to blatantly state the truth where no other form of communication could. This is why music is better than verbal and written communication: it has no limits as to what ideas and truths it can contain.

Body language has always been a universal mode of communication because of human emotion and how it affects us physically. For example when we are sad we tend to slump our shoulders and frown, but when we are happy, we hold our heads high and smile. Nearly every animal uses body language to communicate, from the great elephant down to the diminutive beetle. This alone should show that body language is more effective than verbal or written communication, simply because we could convey our intentions to a horse or a dog as well as another human being. The use of body language and how it can pertain to everyday life is evident in Brent Staples's essay "Just Walk on by." In the essay, Staples explains how, as a black man, he is often judged by appearance alone, and people are afraid of him because of that. He begins alluding to what he calls the "language of fear," (Staples pg.244) and the "hunch" posture that people often take on when they are near him (Staples pg.241). This language of fear is one form of body language. The people Staples came across were afraid, and it showed in the way they acted and moved. Staples noticed this and it affected him severely. He felt angry that these people were shunning him and fearing him for no apparent reason. Due to the powerful message that these people sent out simply through their body language staples became outcast more so than he ever would have if someone had talked to him about the issue. Staples then lashed out. He began moving menacingly towards innocent pedestrians who showed fear toward him. He wandered the streets looking for people to frighten; playing a game he called "scatter the pigeons" (Staples pg.245). Eventually, Staples began to understand the power of body language and as he matured he used his own body language to make himself seem less threatening.