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Nonverbal Communication Essay

Decent Essays

“The most important thing in communication is hearing what is not said”
This quote is is one of many famous and intriguing sayings of Peter Drucker who is known as the Father of Management. He showed his appreciation for the importance of understanding communication without any words or also known as nonverbal communication. In fact, nonverbal communication is a characteristic and indispensable element in any culture and not stopping there, nonverbal communication also demonstrates its influence on intercultural communication.

First and foremost, nonverbal communication is a process of communication through sending and receiving wordless messages. The differences between nonverbal and verbal communication is that we use our voice in verbal …show more content…

More than voice or even words, nonverbal communication helps to create your image in others mind and even you can express your emotions and feelings in front of others, give clues and additional information, which you are unable or hard to express in words. Notwithstanding, nonverbal communication can be different between cultures and these discrepancies can often lead to miscommunication between people of different cultures, who usually do not mean to offend. Take my experience for an example. My brother invited an American friend named Charles to his house to have a party with his family. It was the first time he has visited Vietnam. When he came, my brother introduced everyone to him. Everything would be so happy until Charles approached my sister, hugged and then kissed her! Though it was just a cheek kissing, everyone was so surprised and she pushed him then ran away embarrassedly while Charles did not know what happened. The problem here is nonverbal miscommunication in greeting display rules between two cultures which caused misinterpretation and discomfort for everyone, especially the girl. Vietnamese people don’t use kissing as a cordial greeting and our culture also considers it as an insult when a boy hugs and kissed a girl in public even when he only wants to express his friendliness. In contrast, it is widely accepted in …show more content…

First and foremost, you should learn as much as you can about the new cultures that you will be exposed to. The principle is simple – the more effort you make, the richer the reward will be. Your pre-preparation by learning from divergent sources like friends, the Internet can be helpful to avoid culture shocks and help you communicate with others more easily as well as not stumble into cultural barriers. Secondly, you should be open-minded and use cultural differences themselves as a interesting topic in a intercultural communication. By which i mean, you should not hesitate to ask if you feel confused about any characteristics of a new culture. Most people will feel confortable to share with others about the customs of their own culture. By exchanging the knowledge about each other’s culture, not only do you gain a lot of knowledge about it but your communication will also become more intimate and intriguing. Third, you should show your respect to values of other cultures. Do not impose your own cultural values or judge views and behaviors that differ from yours as wrong. For instance, in the aforementioned situation, the foreign guy should not have assumed subjectively that everyone in Vietnamese culture would prefer American’s

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