With and Without Words

This series of video IS interesting but so informative. The following is some thoughts I had after watching it.

First,nonlinguistic communication, the imparting of the information without using language, has so much for us to look into. As it was mentioned in the video, one reason for the existence of nonlinguistic communication ways is that they are efficient. The same as language, they carry meanings as well. And the meaning that a gesture or some other body language carries vary due to the different situation they are in--it's also culture-, region-based or even group-based. No doubt, body language usually helps understanding. It was kind of interesting to know how body language makes boundaries during a conversation. I didn't realize it before, but as I've heard that, I think that is so true.

Facial expression, another interesting part in the video, gave us some insights on how the different parts of muscle work when having different expressions. One thing I still remember is about eh courtesy and real smiles. What have been described by one of the linguist there really makes sense, but there may be some exceptions like some one always smile with his/her mouth muscle move. Maybe some of the smiles are real, but get misunderstood?

Another thing was in my mind is about the language learning. When the linguists were talking about articulation system when producing certain sounds, it reminded me of the "critical period" theory. Personally, I think there may be a critical period for people to acquire/learn a language. Many people moved here when they were adults and they found there are certain sounds they always have problem to make them sound "authentic". So, the question I had is: Is this partly because their articulation system has been shaped at their age so it is hard for the existing one to make some new sounds they did not produce before?