We are living in an era where communication is crucial. We are communicating in order to achieve something, to express our feelings or to sort out some problems; we communicate to get someone to do something, to behave in a certain way.
We can do all these things saying nothing at all. Our body does all the talking. At this conclusion got Albert Mehrabian whose research material showed that the verbal messages without tone or inflection of the voice have only 7 % impact and the rest of communication is done nonverbally.
Non-verbal communication is falls into seven categories:
Paralanguage,
Proxemics,
Haptics,
Chronemics,
Artifacts,
Kinesics,
Environment,
Paralanguage is the science of vocal qualities that usually accompany speech. It includes the rhythm, pitch and the tempo of our voice, also our crying, snoring or laughing. Through paralanguage we can say what it is the emotional state f a person if he is sad, happy nervous or even if he is sincere.
Some cultures rely on paralanguage especially on the tone of voice, to tell the meaning of the words. These languages are Thai, Vietnamese or Chinese.
Proxemics refers to how near people are to something or to other people. E. T. Hall coined the term of proxemics from the Latin root prox- and the suffix -emic as in "proximity" and "systemic". He defined it as the science that studies how people usually organize their space, their houses and the place where they work.
Proxemics has three fundamental areas: space, distance and territory. According to proxemics' spatial extension Hall proposed a classification of its behavior. His theory states that the proxemic behavior covers up three dimensions: micro-, meso-, and macrospace.
Microspace deals with the" immediate surroundings" of a person, this space is considered more private, "mesospace is the further proximate environment within the person's reach" (Proxemics:The Semiotics of Space p411) and macrospace is the space that extends over vast territories ending by covering up cities.
In what concerns the distance area of the interaction Hall identifies four levels of distances:
Intimate distance is up to 45 cm from the body, the individual does not allow everyone in this space, since it requires extensive contact.
The personal distance is the invisible barrier that someone builds in order to separate him from the other people. It extends from 45 to 120 cm.
The social distance ranges from 120 to 360 cm, this type of distance we often meet in classrooms, in different kind of meetings where the close phase 120 to 210 is characteristic for informal interaction while the other one for most formal ones.
From 360 cm to more represents the public distance where the individual it is outside his circle of activities, events, interests. This is the perfect distance desired by strangers.
Haptics or the tactile communication sometimes is used to replace the speech act even if it is considered the most primitive way of communication. Edward Hall showed in his studies that there are cultures that tend to encourage touching and some cultures that do not. He calls them contact and non-contact cultures. In the first kind of culture touching occurs frequently while in the second type occurs less frequently and it is generally discouraged. Contact cultures are many Central American cultures as well as many south European countries. In Thailand, Sri Lanka touching the head is restricted because it is considered to be sacred.
The nature of Haptics is influenced not only by the culture but also by the relationship between the interacting people, by the age, situation, and the duration of the touching act also by its location, if it is private or public; by the relative pressure of the touch and whatever it is intentional or accidental.
Chronemics refers to the non-verbal channel of time, especially how people perceive the notion and the value of time. It is a powerful tool to know how to organize your time and how to react in time. People agendas, their lifestyle their patience to wait and listen are affected by the correct use of time.
Time is perceived differently, for people in the United States time is something concrete, perceptible. To them it can be bought, saved, wasted and measured; they plan what they want to do and to happen. For Arabs instead, an individual who wants to know his future is seen as irreligious or insane, because in their culture only God can say what will or will not take place.
Artifacts as irrelevant as it seem at first are important factors of our non-verbal behavior. Our belongings show who we really are, they help us to reveal our true identity and separate us from the group. Sometimes you can recognize a person's culture by what he or she wears. You will presume clearly that a man dressed in a kimono is from Japan and a woman who wears a veil is from a Muslim country.
Like all the artifacts the environmental elements contain information too. People have to decode the information. The things we surround ourselves with, the environment, provide non-verbal cues which tells lot of things about us. The way, in which we decorate our house, factors such as furniture, colors, temperature, noise, and even music may have a direct effect on people.
1.1 Body Language as a Science (Kinesics)
We act and react to one another through more ways than we can imagine, these ways does not always involve words. Most of the messages we send to other people are nonverbal, which includes our facial expressions, gestures, eye contact and posture.
Throughout years, many scholars or anthropologists like Ray Birdwhistell were concerned with the study of this type of communication that is called kinesics, with its evolution, development and its distinctions among the cultures. A useful scheme of non-verbal behavior was suggested in 1969 by Paul Ekman and Wallace Friesen. They proposed five categories of non-verbal movement which are: emblems, regulators, illustrators, affect displays, and adaptors.
Emblems are direct communication signals that indicate certain words; they are used especially when verbal communication is problematic.
Emblems may repeat a word as it is said; replace a word in a flow of speech, provide a separate comment related to the word spoken, or occur as the sole reply…. Emblems most often involve the hands, but some are performed using the shoulders, changes in head positioning, or facial movements (Ekman p40).
Illustrations accompany verbal messages; they are made by our hands, head or even feet. Usually they" back up" the verbal message. "Illustrations are socially learned; presumably when language itself is learned… they help explain what is being said verbally, also helping the speaker get going or get through a difficult thought"(Ekman p42-43).
Manipulators were called adaptor; they represent daily behaviors that are used to make a person feel comfortable in a social interaction. These are actions that include our hands pressing something, fingers scratching the palm or playing with a pencil or a piece of clothing.
Regulators unlike the three movements mentioned above, interact with the actions and the movements of another person. These movements, form so called encouragements for other individual speak quickly or to slow down with the talking. We can use these regulators in a positive manner to encourage someone to speak or in a negative way by making him loose his interest in talking.
The term " affect display" stands for emotional expressions, those movements of the face or of the body that have a hide emotional content like anger, happiness, disappointment, rage. "As involuntary signals they may occur in response to anything that calls forth an emotions, which may include non-personal events such as a beautiful sunset or a thunder, and may be manifest when the individual is alone" (Ekman, 44-45).
The phenomenon of Kinesics has known an outstanding increase in the last decade, the ability to understand and to use nonverbal cues, body signals, is a powerful tool that can help us connect with others, navigate in challenging situations, express what we really mean and in this way to build better relationships.
1.1 The Functions of Body Language
The overall functions of body language as well as of the non-verbal communication are:
Accenting
When we interact, we may call attention to an important part of a message. Like when someone is angry and verbally expresses this anger he will accent this feeling further more by shaking his fist while talking.
Moderating
Moderating is the opposite part of accenting; it seeks to reduce attention on the message; you attenuate a part of the message you send, in different ways and you transform it by making it difficult to understand. Moderating happens when you talk faster than usual.
Complementing
Complementing is considered similar to accenting, but covers a wider part of the message. It goes hand in hand with verbal messages; when we are talking about sad things we lower our head and we use a sad tone in order to accent those sad things we are talking about.
Substituting
Sometimes non-verbal language is simply the best way in which you can communicate. Whenever are things that are best left unsaid, we use the substituting function. We replace the words with non-verbal language.
People are used to these non-verbal signals; they learn to identify gestures, facial expressions as corresponding with certain feelings and intentions.
Contradicting
Contradicting means sending non-verbal messages that disagree with what is being said. This non-verbal cues are done either intentionally to confuse a person by changing the message or it may happen at the subconscious level when somebody lies.
Regulating
Regulating consists of that non-verbal signals, regulators that we use to send signals to another person. Usually these are signals related to the speech of the other individual. It is used around starting and ending speech you send some signals that will make him either speak faster or stop talking.
Repeating
Repeating with non-verbal cues happens like in complementing or accenting, but with a certain interval between the verbal and non-verbal communication. After you say something and there was no reaction, a gesture or a facial expression will reinforce the verbal message you sent earlier.
Deceiving
Non-verbal signals can be used to lie. It is not easy to send this kind of messages; you must be in perfect control of your all facial muscles in order to deceive someone. Saying you did not do it, while sounding insulted at the accusation, rubbing your nose are signs that you are lying.
