Forms of Nonverbal Communication and Body Language
There are many different types of nonverbal communication. Together, the following nonverbal signals and cues communicate your interest and desire to communicate with others.
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Nonverbal communication and body language is a vital form of communication. When we interact with others, we continuously give and receive countless wordless signals. Our nonverbal behaviors — the gestures we make, the way we sit, how fast or how loud we talk, how close we stand, how much eye contact we make all send strong messages and communicate a wealth of information not included in the words that we use.
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Facial Expressions
The human face is extremely expressive, able to express countless emotions without saying a word. And unlike some other forms of nonverbal communication, facial expressions are universal. The facial expressions for happiness, sadness, anger, surprise, fear, and disgust are the same across all cultures. Facial expressions can be used by themselves or in conjunction with other forms of nonverbal communication.
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Posture and Body Movements
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Consider how your perceptions of people are affected by the way they sit, walk, stand up, or hold their head. The way you move and carry yourself communicates a wealth of information to the world. This type of nonverbal communication includes your posture, bearing, stance, which basically means how you position, move and hold your body. We can send information about our attitude and mood towards an individual person by facing or leaning towards or away from them.
Involuntary and subtle movements can also be included here, and we can reveal much by tapping our fingers on a table, playing with our hair or 'jigging' our foot up and down It has been calculated that there are more than 700,000 possible motions we can make — so it is impossible to categorize them all! |
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Hand Gestures
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Hand gestures are woven into the fabric of our daily lives. We wave, point, beckon, and use our hands when we’re excited and speaking animatedly. We express ourselves with gestures often without thinking. However, unlike facial expressions the meaning of gestures can be very different across different cultures and regions, so it’s important to be careful to avoid misinterpretation. It can be quite easy to offend others when using certain gestures that have a different meaning in their culture.
In addition, amount of gesturing varies from culture to culture. Some cultures are animated; other restrained. Restrained cultures often feel animated cultures lack manners and overall restraint. Animated cultures often feel restrained cultures lack emotion or interest. |
Head Movements
Communication using head movements can be very subtle yet very expressive or powerful when used along with other forms of nonverbal communication such as eye contact, eye movements and and other gestures. Head movements are also used extensively in greetings and rituals in many different cultures. Lowering the head invariably means to show respect or deference to another in all cultures.
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Eye Contact
Since the visual sense is dominant for most people, eye contact is an especially important type of nonverbal communication. The way you look at someone can communicate many things, including interest, affection, hostility, or attraction. Eye contact is also important in maintaining the flow of conversation and for measuring the other person’s response and level of engagement.
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Touch We communicate a great deal through touch. Think about the messages given by a firm handshake, a timid tap on the shoulder, a warm bear hug, a reassuring pat on the back, a patronizing pat on the head, or a controlling grip on your arm.
The Cultures of most English speaking countries, Germany, Scandinavia, Chinese and Japanese tend to have high levels of emotional restraint and use touch as part of communication far less than Latin or Middle-Eastern cultures which indulge in frequent touches. |
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Space
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Have you ever felt uncomfortable during a
conversation because the other person was standing too close and invading your
space? We all have a need for physical
space, although that need differs depending on the culture, the situation, and
the closeness of the relationship. You can use physical space to communicate
many different nonverbal messages, including signals of intimacy, aggression,
dominance, or affection. In general most native of English speaking countries feel comfortable with about one arm's length of space between them and the other person.
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Appearance Our appearance says a great deal about who we are, who we want to show we are, our mood and our attitude. People whether they realize it or not are communicating a great deal about their personality, attitude and mood by how they present themselves to the world. Think about the different messages sent by a short haircut and business suit when compared with brightly dyed hair with tattoos and a pair of old scruffy jeans and T-shirt. dress is used as a sign of status.
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Speaking Style
Our individual speaking style communicates a lot about who we are to others. Confidence is a significant part personal speech patterns, but we must also consider regional accents, length of sentences, pauses and use of silence, the extent of complementing body language and how emotions are integrated into the subject matter of the words used.
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Vocal Sounds
We communicate with our voices, even when we are not using words. When we speak, other people “read” our voices in addition to listening to our words. These nonverbal speech sounds provide subtle but powerful clues into our true feelings and what we really mean. Think about how tone of voice, for example, can indicate confusion, respect, anger, affection, or confidence.
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There are many varied vocal characterizers and sounds that we use every day when we communicate. We all laugh, cry, yell, moan, whine, belch, yawn at some point during each day. These all send different messages and can mean different things in different cultures. For example; in Japan — giggling indicates embarrassment, and a belch in parts of India indicates satisfaction but would be quite rude in many western cultures. The vocal qualifiers, including; volume, pitch, rhythm, tempo, and tone are how we use our voices when we are actually using language at the same time. We speak louder when we want to express strong emotions, or more quickly when we experience an intense situation or more slowly when we are relaxed. Or we can use a combination of several qualifiers to express complex feelings that would take many, many more words to communicate. Vocal segregates including; un-huh, shh, uh, ooh, mmmh, humm, eh, mah, lah, indicate formality, acceptance, assent, uncertainty and agreement among other things. |
It’s not what you say that is important, rather, how you say it!
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Worksheets
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