Words With Impact: Direct Language Communication

Workshop: Discover Words That Sing

“The artist’s vocation is to send light into the human heart.” Robert Schumann

Language communication is built into the fabric of everyday life. A family can spend a day without words and still know what another is feeling, or knows what needs doing because of the rhythms of the household. A glance, a gesture, and body language all speak volumes within a family unit with or without spoken words.

Close friends have a private form of communication. And there are separate methods of communication within the workplace—vocabulary, codes, abbreviations that sometimes make no sense to outsiders.

Movies often communicate through both silence and words to convey emotional echoes to relate to their audience. For example, the opening of the movie Titanic focuses on the sunken vessel. The camera lingers over the silent giant at the bottom of the sea. What echoes are stirred by this choice? Another opening could have extended the newspaper stories, or old photographs. It could have highlighted the passengers. All of which are included in the movie as well, but not right away with the slow pace of the mysterious ocean liner seen through murky waters.

All of these contacts have the potential to build tension and conflict to our characters. First we need to establish what the language of the land is, and whether it is understood by your character, or is completely confusing.

For some the opportunity to study languages is pure joy and for others pure frustration. And yet to not be able to communicate at all can be an emotional prison.

Action Steps:

1.Think of a day when you and someone close to you could not (or would not) speak openly to each other. List all the non-verbal actions you remember using to be heard.

Share: Which one stood out as the most emotional?

Read deep, marcy