January 14, 2014

January 14, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

In spoken as well as written communication it is apparent when the listener is attracted to the speaker and when the reader is attracted to the writer. In the former, the listener will keep on listening and in the latter, the reader will keep on reading. What follows is that the speaker can keep on speaking and the writer can keep on writing, because what is talked about is reaching the listener and what is written is well-received by the reader. It is due to the understanding listeners that the speakers are invited and encouraged to speak and due to appreciative readers that the writers are stimulated to write.

More and better speaking and writing depends on whether what was said led to more speech and whether what was written contributed to better speech. There may have been an initial effect due to which listeners spoke more, after they had heard what was said, which later, however, caused them not to say anything at all. A similar effect can be observed in readers, who are excited to read more by the same author, but who may eventually not read anything by that author at all if he or she is not able to come up with something new. 

Listeners and readers expect and demand familiarity, but lose interest if the format of the speaker or the writer becomes too predictable. Even though one may lead to the other, newness of spoken language is much less appreciated than newness in written language. The newness of spoken language doesn’t translate too well to written language. We have humor, but jokes on paper have a stale quality compared to spoken ones. To expect newness in speech from the newness in writing is like expecting a rock to fall upwards. Such an expectation is against what we know. Newness in speech makes writing look dull.   

   

There is lawfulness to our verbal behavior which is similar to gravity. Spoken speech causes newness in writing. Speech is like the earth and writing is like a stone. Just as the stone falls to the earth, written words fall onto spoken language. Written language has to do that because it came from spoken language; what goes up must come down. Once we come down from our fixation on written words and stop trying to invent the verbal wheel, we will be able say and write new things. Moreover, we  acknowledge when the verbal aligns itself with the nonverbal. 

Written language is of course more verbal than our spoken language. The chances of written language to express alignment are small, because words have to be used to in such a way that they don’t cover up or distract from the nonverbal.  However, when the verbal explains and reinforces the nonverbal, our words become weightless and transparent. In such a speech words are spoken as sounds which are, produced by our relaxed bodies, which are sensitive, fine-tuned instruments of sound. In SVB we embody communication, because our words resonate with our body. If our resonance is lost we experience anxiety and fear, but when we hear the sound of our own fear and we notice our own NVB, because we listen to ourselves while we speak, we are able to effortlessly return again to our SVB. 

NVB makes us want to get out of here, while SVB makes us want to be here. The sound of our voice is in the here and now. Listening takes place in the here and now. When we listen to ourselves while we speak, we are conscious communicators, but when we don't listen to ourselves while we speak, we can’t help being unconscious mechanical communicators. Thus, we either are unconscious or conscious due to how we speak. Moreover, in SVB we know we are conscious and others know it too, but in NVB we don’t know we are unconscious and others don’t know it either