Saturday, August 25, 2007

Language Is So Limiting!

My daughter is just a bit over two-years old and isn't saying many words yet. The words she does say are generally announcements, very deliberately pronounced and used for a specific purpose.

When she really wants to communicate, she uses a combination of sign language and vocalizations. I have to say, she does a much better job of getting her point across like this than most people do with words.

For example, using words I might say "That was huge!" and someone would understand that I meant something was larger than normal. But my daughter would use her vocalization that means "big", and exaggerate it quite a bit, and you'd know for certain the she was talking about something HUGE!

We tend to leave out the emotional aspect of communication when we use words, and that's such a big part of communication anything effectively.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Language is an amazing tools created by human so that we understand each other well.

Jay said...

No doubt, but the way we use language tends to ignore other channels of communication, too.

Alli said...

My boyfriend's niece is two, and thinks that she's about 19. The funniest thing that she says/does is after she discovered that she likes to suck on ice cubes. Her dad doesn't like to give them to her very often for fear of her choking, but she found out that if she has a "booboo" then she gets ice to put on it to make it feel better. So, being the smart little girl she is, she will complain of a "hurtie" until she gets ice, then will say "it's all better!" and enjoy her ice cube. Little kids never fail to amaze me.

Jay said...

That's funny! I could totally see Amelia doing that.