Here is my first college speech, an assignment to introduce myself.

Northampton Community College

I just started Intro to Communications at Northampton Community College. This is my first assignment!

About a month ago, I went to a Christmas party at my friend Vince’s house. What a great time! So many people gathered around the kitchen table and, as you can imagine, there were a lot of conversations going on. The real fun for me in those situations is to listen and respond to the mood they set. This time, everyone was happy which made me happy. It may not be talking, but I would consider that interpersonal communication. Roles like sender and receiver are involved, there are verbal and nonverbal messages, each time receivers respond with feedback, and it cycles around again. Quite a treat for a nonspeaker!

Zillions of conversations go on every day but not many meaningfully engage nonspeakers. How we communicate is really a big reason why. Spelling my individual words takes time and speakers don’t like to wait. I realize they rarely have to. Our brains can encode and decode almost instantaneously, and talking gets the messages out right away. Talkers frequently even think out loud which speeds things up even more. When nonspeakers try to participate, they typically can only take one turn and end up sharing something that the group moved on from long ago. An understandable but demoralizing outcome!

Really, this illustrates the transactional model of communication perfectly. Issues for nonspeakers stem from the fact that conversations aren’t just interactions where you’ve got time to take your turn. They are a lot like taking nine turns all at once, while someone else does, too, so the right answer is always changing. That dynamic nature of communication is what can leave so many people out. Getting left out has many consequences for nonspeakers since conversations are what we use to share our identities and figure out what groups we’re a part of. Getting at this is why I’m taking this class!