Interaction without visuals

Voices have been a persistent source of fascination for me and a recurrent theme here. There are certainly aspects of this that are entirely influenced by my lack of sight, but it’s also important to recognise that in the arenas of radio, theatre,  audio podcasting, reading aloud (now popularised through the mainstreaming of audio books), the voice is all (or a significant part) of what the listener has to go on, so I wouldn’t want to leave you thinking that there is merely a visual/aural (sighted/blind) polarity in operation.

 

The belief (or probably more likely too easy throw-away cliché) that, without being able to see the things that sighted people typically use to pick up on, or judge people  by, blind people must have a somehow more ‘pure’ and less encumbered impression of those we encounter.  Well for my part, there is nothing more pure about not being able to see, it’s just that my observations, interpretations and judgements about people are all loaded onto their voices, How they speak, the ‘quality’ of their voice, what they say, their tonality and inflections rather than their appearance, facial expression and other body language. How much more common it is to describe people’s appearance, their hair, faces, physical size, shape and clothing than their voice. Why do we so rarely remark on our judgements about what the different vocal styles people have or adopt might tell us about them, how they help build or diminish the external perception of their attractiveness, genuineness, character, mood, vulnerability etc.

 

I love listening to voices and am fascinated by how people’s language, inflection and how they use their voices, whether accurate or not, elicit my assumptions, judgements, respect or lack of it. In our still current world of virtual communications, without needing the distraction of video to draw my attention, I find myself fascinated more than ever by how people talk.  I’ve noticed how words, phrases and particular ways of talking seem to be picked up on very quickly and spread (especially when initiated by those with status or who are perceived to be charismatic in some way). Examples include: the particular mode of upspeak (rising inflection) now common in the ‘care industry’ as constant questioning, presumably  used to add a sense of continual connection with their audience, but to me merely sounds unauthoritative, pleading and exhausting to listen to. The way that new nonsense words sweep around  organisations – e.g. the word ‘piece’ as new speak for issue/topic/theme that has spread like wildfire over the last couple of years. Even new pronunciations like the current non-ironic substitution of the suffix ‘ing’ with ‘ink – where perfectly literate people have started to say ‘nothink’/’somethink’/’anythink’. These things are of course harmless but fascinating to observe. 

 

How is it that, so far as I can judge, some people sound themselves in the way they communicate, the language they use sounds natural to them and is used with confidence, they have few linguistic ‘ticks’ and modulate their voice in what I think of as an unaffected way. While others can only sound contrived through (consciously or less so) projecting some different persona through their voice and the language they use that they have picked up, copied or developed, somewhere thinking that it is better than they’d be were they to be themselves.

 

I certainly don’t want to suggest that I am immune to these vocal viruses though, I am judgemental, but not so arrogant that I see myself above this common affliction. I guess my position is something like that while it is not desirable to desperately maintain a particular mode of speech and language that remains fixed over time in the face of the wider society, our social or work groups continually developing, I think we lose something if we pick up every vocal tick that’s going around, as there is a danger of becoming more the caricature than the person.