August 29, 2014

August 29, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

These letters, words and sentences on the screen, are physical, but, looking at the screen, holding the laptop,  keyboarding and listening to the sound of our fingers and touching the keys, are behavioral. 

Expression of language is physical, but reception is behavioral. Words are the independent variable and the writing is the dependent variable. Also this particular fond is physical, which has an effect on the writing behavior it causes. Writing on one’s computer is a natural process in which one variable causes a change in the other.

Written language is very different from spoken language. Words, which are spoken, are sounds and their physical properties are determined by our vocal cords. Moreover, when we listen to our words, our bodies are affected by our voices. By listening to ourselves while we speak, we affect our body with our voice. Thus, our sound is the independent variable, which has an effect on what we say,the dependent variable. 

The sound of our voice is physical and it depends on the relative tension or relaxation of our body. The production of our spoken words requires the movements of our mouth and our tongue on an outgoing breath. Not all sounds are words. Only vocalizations which were reinforced by the verbal community are considered verbal behavior. 

Our body is the instrument that produces its own sound. Different bodies will produce different sounds. Depending on one’s physique, one will behave as a soprano, an alto, a tenor, a baritone or a bass. The natural range of a person’s voice is determined by his or her living body. When we are dead our sound is gone for good. Also, when we are depressed or stressed, our sound will be temporarily gone. 

 

Under certain circumstances the soprano, the alto, the tenor or the baritone will sound great, but under other circumstances he or she will sound horrible. Singers are more aware of the circumstances in which they sing than speakers are aware of the circumstances in which they speak. It takes a speaker with a singer’s background to become aware of how we sound while we speak. Only such a person is inclined to listen to how he or she actually sounds. Without such a background people tend to think that only what they say matters.

As stated, something physical is the independent variable, which causes observable behavior, which is the effect or the dependent variable. Our body causes our sound and our spoken words are sounds, and thus whether we sound good or not matters a great deal. We sound terrible when we are frustrated, stressed or anxious and what we say will be received by others based on by how we sound. Our tense body not only produces a tense sound, but it also produces tense content.

We will choose different words when we are calm and when we sound good. If, as we usually do, we don’t pay attention to how we sound, we may be using upsetting language without even knowing it. The only way to find out that we are using such language is by listening to how we sound. As long as we are not listening to our own voice, we get carried away by our own words or by the words from others. What causes us to speak in the way that we speak is our body. If there is no awareness of our body, we will speak in a disembodied manner. 

We may think that we say doesn’t seem to depend on how we say it, but it really does. We can say “I love you”in a way that we mean it, but we can also say it in a way that it becomes meaningless. Whether what we say becomes meaningful depends on how we say it. Also, our tone of voice signifies how well-adjusted we are to each other. And how we sound informs us how well-acquainted we are with our selves. Our sound represents our well-being or the lack thereof.

How we will use our language is determined by how we sound. Nothing good has ever come from the so-called communication in which we said what we were forced to say or what we were forcing ourselves to say. We are coercing ourselves and each other to say things only to the extent that we ourselves were once coerced to say things by others. Whatever we say to ourselves in our private speech reflects how others have spoken with us and have demanded to be spoken to.

 

We have learned to say many things, but whether what we say maintains our relationship depends on how we say it. Correspondence between saying and doing doesn’t depend on what will happen after we have spoken, on whether we will do as we have said. It depends on what happens while we are speaking. It is often said that saying is one thing and that doing is another, but, saying is doing. If one does what one says one does, one does it already while one speaks. If one supposedly does what one says later on, one makes false promises and one deludes oneself and others into believing that one will do as one has said. No one who said that he or she was going to do as he or she said he or she would do, has done what he or she said he or she would do. Those who did what they said, they said exactly what they did, because they didn’t do it later, they did it while they said it, in other words, their saying was doing.

When saying is doing, we achieve Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB), but when saying and doing are separate, when we supposedly take care of business later, we engage in Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). After SVB there is no need to follow up on what we say, because in SVB our body resonates with its ideal sound. In NVB, by contrast, our sound doesn't match with our body. Consequently, during NVB we dis-regulate and reject our own body as well as the bodies of others, but in SVB, we co-regulate each other's body with our nonverbal actions. The verbalizer's sound always operates on the mediator's body.