Nonverbal Communication And The Social Norms Of Communication

Communication involves more than exchanging words between people. Gestures, postures, facial expressions and even eye contacts are important during communication. Both verbal and nonverbal cues are important during communication and can help a person understand the speaker or listener’s emotions, attitudes or status. Understanding the existence of various cultures is necessary since different cultures have varying ways of communication (Lustig & Koester, 2012). Therefore, a communication style that is perceived as bad by a culture may be good in another culture. Besides, characteristics that may be essential for a particular culture may be quite irrelevant for another. In line with this dissimilarity, individuals need to adapt carefully and understand communication preferences and desires among cultures.

Communication is everywhere. We, as interactive human beings, spend the majority of our time corresponding with others to satisfy our physical, identity, social, and practical needs (Adler, Rodman, & Sevigny, 2011). Often, this is consciously done; we search our minds for the accurate linguistic means to express our experiences, and use them to communicate with those around us. However, communication is not as straightforward and effortless as we may believe. It is, in fact, often unintentional, with 65% of it occurring as a result of non-verbal cues (Matsumoto, Shibata, Seiji, Mori, & Shioe, 2010). As mentioned by Marta Dynel (2011) in a study done on nonverbal communication, “Non verbal signs and signals ... are prevalent practically in

Our society also relies on language as its major bases for communication. Our ability to communicate apart from our words plays an important part in our daily lives. We often disregard the power of body language and our facial gestures. We are expected to portray our body language and facial gestures

Body language (the process of communicating nonverbally through conscious or unconscious gestures and movements). People all of the world use body language or gestures to communicate nonverbally. I personally think that nonverbal communication and body language are one of the biggest barriers in communication especially between one culture to other. Body gestures can be misinterpreted as rude or disrespectful depending on the country, region, or even the city you’re from.

The spoken language, while endlessly useful, is only a recent invention in comparison to body language. Dr. Albert Mehrabian’s often quoted study found that 7% of a message is conveyed through words, 38% through vocal elements, and 55% through nonverbal elements. While these statistics and their meanings may not be so straightforward, the overall take away is clear; nonverbal communication heavily affects the way we receive and transmit messages.

Communication in japan is mostly non verbal. They rely on facial expression, tone of voice and posture to tell someone's feelings. Words can have several meanings but nothing shows true emotion like facial expressions. Frowning while speaking is interpreted as a sign of disagreement. When Japanese people meet, they traditionally bow instead of shaking hands. The lowest bow shows the deepest respect

I am originally from Puerto Rico, which is a country in which communication is an integral part of society. The cultural norm of the Puerto Rican culture is to speak up when necessary and communicate clearly if we want things to be done. At the same time, I believe that in order to produce results, the manner in which communicating takes place, is an extremely important component. My culture also showed me how the emotions used when communicating, such as the use of the hands and body language, will dictate the tone and flow of the communication. The literature suggests that the majority (as much as 76%) of the message we gibe to another person during conversations is carried by non-verbal or para-verbal communication. Thus, we must be very careful and strategic in our use o non-verbal communication (Van Acker, 1997).

There are thousands of verbal languages in the world, like English and Chinese. People use these languages to convey our opinions with others and express their feelings. Apart from verbal language, body language is another powerful language that helps people express themselves clearly. Take Mr Bean(1991-1995), a famous British silent sitcom for example. There is no verbal communication in this sitcom, the plot is derived by Mr Bean’s funny behavior. It is body language’s magic that makes this sitcom popular. In people’s daily life, they often use body language when they try to persuade others. As is often the case, if they manage to persuaded others, they will owe their success to verbal language. However, body language plays a key role in affecting others. But since body language is out-of-awareness, people tend to ignore it. Here is a video about an interview with Calgary’s mayor Naheed Nenshi. By analyzing Nenshi’s behavior, people can obviously see the importance of body language.

However, in many different cultures, nonverbal communication is a part of daily life and is expected. In Japan, people tend to bow at the waist as a formal gesture expressing appreciation and respect towards a person. It can also be used as a greeting accompanied by “ohayo gozaimasu” meaning “good morning” or “konnichi wa” meaning “hello, good afternoon”. In America, service men and women salute the flag or someone of higher power/rank as a sign of respect or admiration. This is where nonverbals contain the entire message.

There are eight key forms of nonverbal communications used on a daily basis. These forms can affect the way people view another person; however, without understanding the forms of nonverbal communication there is certain to be a lot of misinterpretations. Cultural and language differences are a common reason for miscommunication. When communicating with people in different cultures, a person should be extremely aware of the hand gestures and nonverbal communication tools they are using. Many of the hand gestures used in the United States that mean good things, mean offensive and profane things to other cultures. Nonverbal communication is described as body language, hand gestures, and facial expressions. It is known that people reveal more information through nonverbal communication, than words alone to get a point across. There will always be some interaction between two or more people that everyone’s

Any communication interaction involves two major components in terms of how people are perceived: verbal, or what words are spoken and nonverbal, the cues such as facial expressions, posture, verbal intonations, and other body gestures. Many people believe it is their words that convey the primary messages but it is really their nonverbal cues. The hypothesis for this research paper was: facial expressions directly impact how a person is perceived. A brief literature search confirmed this hypothesis.

Silvia Bonaccio, Jane O’Reilly, Sharon L. O’Sullivan and François Chiocchio (2016) provide research regarding nonverbal behavior and how it affects the workplace environment. The team describes nonverbal communication a little different than the typical dictionary defines the word. This reason for this is because the basic dictionary definition excludes American Sign Language as type verbal communication. The researchers explain that there are three types of codes. They are designated as body codes, sensory and contact codes and spatiotemporal codes we use when communicating without words. First, body codes include kinesics, appearance and oculesics. Second, sensory and contact codes, vocalics and olfactics. Third, spatiotemporal codes, chronemics and environment and artifacts. The group identified through this research how these 3 areas of nonverbal communication affect people in an organization by, “displaying

Body language, while easily overlooked as a means of communication, is used every day when people interact with one another. We interact beyond words by using what we call nonverbal signals. According to many experts in this field, such as James C. McCroskey and Virginia P. Richmond, the authors of Nonverbal Behavior in Interpersonal Relations, body language makes a huge difference in our daily communication. For example, the way we pose, the expressions on our face, and even the tone of our speech, which are all nonverbal communication methods, change the volume of speech and thus have various impacts on the overall communication. Almost half of our communications involves people’s use of body language to convey their thoughts, whether or not those happen unconsciously or consciously; understanding body language is very important for daily communication with one another. Since Eastern University is a small Christian college, students and professors have the opportunity to have better and intimate relationships with each other. Therefore, professors should not only use more efficient body languages to interact with students individually but also use various types of body language to improve class atmosphere. Furthermore, the use of body language can help international students have a better understanding of the American education system.

To me interpersonal communication describes the exchange of verbal and nonverbal messages between two different people. Joseph DeVito states that “interpersonal communication is inevitable, irreversible, and unrepeatable” due to these things effective communication is a necessary skill for us to function in our day to day lives (p. 20). Therefore, I have created a theory for interpersonal communication that goes as follows; To experience effective communication you must understand: your culture, the other person’s culture, and how to listen effectively. By knowing these three things you can consistently avoid misunderstandings and promote understanding in your interpersonal and intercultural relationships.

Gesture is a form of non- verbal communication that it serves to convey mankind’s position with a part of body. Gesture is rich in variation to express people’s feelings, thoughts, even attitudes towards others and others’ opinion . According to the social anthropologist, Edward T. Hall, in a normal conversation between two people, less than 35% of the social meanings is actually transmitted by words. So, at least 65% of it is conveyed through the body language.