6165 Week 2. According to Jim

The television show I watched was “According to Jim”. With no sound, it started with one dad and his little boy and another man with two girls; they were waiting to buy tickets for the movies. Because the boy’s dad read a sign that said that children under 4 were free, he held up the boy and showed him to the cashier. The boy frown and looked like if he was upset with his dad, maybe dad made the boy lie about his age in order to get him in for free to the movies. The girls talked to each other like criticizing the boy’s dad. Only the boy’s dad the other man laughed, the two girls looked at the man as if they were ashamed for being with him. At this point I thought the man with the two girls was his dad.

Later a woman was lying on the sofa in a house and a couple came in kissing, hugging, and laughing one to each other. The women on the sofa got up quickly and greet them, smiling and looking ashamed because she was asleep. When the man leaved, his girlfriend looked worried, she dropped her shoulders, sat sown on the sofa, put her head on both hands, and showed a note to the other woman. I had no idea about why the woman was worried and what the note said.

The two men and three children got into the house and the woman stopped talking, they two looked surprised because they stopped talking and hid the note. The little boy looked upset because he closed his arms and talked to one of the women, while his dad made hand movements while talking.

Now with the sound on, I found out that the man with the two girls was their uncle, I was right about the boy and man, they were dad and son, and the two women in the house were sisters. Danna, who was with her boyfriend wanted her sister to prepare a family dinner with her boyfriend, because she thought he is going to propose her and the note had the food that he liked.

I noticed that the way adults talked was different from the children’s talking. Adults made more hand movements than children, and when adults talked to children more visual contact was established. When children talked they raised their volume more frequently than the adults.

I think that if I had watched a show I know well with no sound, it would be easier to guess what the episode was about, because I would be used to the characters, how they express themselves, the relationships among characters, the places where the show is commonly developed in, and the general subject of the program.

This activity helped me to understand that communication is certainly not only matter of listening and speaking, because the context and previous experiences are important too, as O'Hair & Wiemann (2012) cited.

Reference

O'Hair, D., & Wiemann, M. (2012). Real communication: An introduction. New York: Bedford/St. Martin's.