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| Silence |
After watching 'The Artist' the other day, it got me thinking about how integral spoken language is to our lives. It was suggested to me before I went to see it, that I may not enjoy the film due to a general lack of patience and indifference to many forms of art. However, despite finding it strange that a film like this is deemed original, truly porn for Empire Magazine, when it is actually the root of modern day cinema, I did quite enjoy it. Firstly, the film is set to a soundtrack [see video], thus dispelling my fear that we would have to sit and listen to rustling packets & crunching popcorn in a cinema for 2 hours. Secondly, the lack of speech meant the story and characters had a subtlety that is so often lost in 'hollywood flicks'. And it was this that got me thinking about what the world would be like without talking.
Recently, I have come face to face with someone who experiences this on a daily basis. One of the kids in my school has a debilitating social phobia which renders her speechless (and fairly motionless) at school [I must add that this is only at school, she walks and talks vivaciously at home]. After working with her for many months, I am slowly developing ways of communicating with her to help her in lessons, such as through yes/no questions, and she is starting to relax around me, though she is still far from speaking. This has been rather pains-taking at times, a true test of patience, but I was rewarded last week when I was told by her friend that she had asked to speak to me on the telephone from home. It was probably the highlight of the year so far to hear her normal, teenage voice for the first time after four months of silence. In addition, that she could say 'hello' and 'goodbye' in English, something the English teacher himself didn't even know, was even better! Although it was a great feeling to finally hear her voice, school the next day continued as normal and she remained silent. The good and somewhat amazing news here is that it does not seem to stop her having friends.
It's amazing quite how much we take chit-chat for granted, and experiences like the one above, as well as learning a new language, are making me appreciate what I have. Four months in, and I am still communicatively deficient at times. One example of this was during red cross a training week where all the trainees were put into pairs and asked to direct each other round a town. The added complication of being blindfolded made a highly un-anticipated task on my part. Piece of cake for all the other, French speaking participants who naturally share a language, not so piece of cake for me and my partner. To cut a long story short, it was not long after we had finished that the leader of the exercise insinuated that I was the cause of her subsequent panic attack. Wasn't convinced myself, it was hard to translate 'walk around the edge of the pavement but don't step down', but they don't mince their words, the French.
I have said more than once throughout this year that I feel like I'm reduced to not much without free-flowing, decorative vocab on my side and I am still yet to make jokes, at least ones that others find funny. But, as shown by 'The Artist', we can get by without spoken language and I am getting better at miming. Next time I am lost for words, I am just going to raise my eyebrows up and down and grin ridiculously. You'll probably need to see the film to get that reference.
Go watch it.
