32 Non Verbal Communication

Dr. Mani Shreshtha

Module 32: Non Verbal Communication

1.  Learning Outcomes
2. Introduction
3. Kinesics
4. Paralinguistics
5. Proxemics
6. Chronemics
7. Other Dimensions
8. Summary

1.      Module 32: Non Verbal Communication

2.      Learning Outcomes:

By the end of this module, students will be able to

·         know the relevance of non verbal cues in communication

·         know essential elements of non verbal communication

3.      Introduction:

Any communication wherein no words are used to convey a message is known as non verbal communication. Many times, a non verbal communication accompanies a verbal communication. In a normal face to face conversation between two people, non verbal cues constitutes major portion of the total communication. When compared with verbal communication, non verbal communication differs on certain aspects such as unstructured and less intentional. Interestingly, if there is a conflict between the verbal and non verbal communication, later is considered as more predictive of actual intentions of the speaker. Non verbal cues are believed to be generated as unplanned and accidental actions. In case of non verbal communication, a person involved in a face to face communication is considered as the message. The actions or even the presence of a person can be decoded and interpreted to conclude a meaning out of it. The actions can be in the form of eye movement, appearance, tone, time, space or distance. Interpretation of a non verbal cue is totally dependent on the decoder of the cue. Same action can have different meaning for different people. With a non verbal cue we can support, negate, replace, or highlight the verbal communication. In the simplest words a non verbal communication is communication without the use of a language. Following are the dimensions of non verbal communications:

·         Kinesics or body language

·         Paralinguistics or language of voice

·         Proxemics or language of space

·         Chronemics or language of time

·         Other dimensions like touch, colour and smell

Understanding of non verbal communication helps in two ways. First, it helps in using the correct non verbal cue to support the verbal communication and second, it equips a person to interpret the correct intentions of a speaker.

4.      Kinesics:

Kinesics means a study of body movements. While communicating, various parts of our body move. Every movement and way of movement of a body part provides certain cues to others. All our bodily movements are guided by the way we are thinking. Winking an eye, waving a hand, shrugging shoulders etc all are part of our body language. Movement of body part and their interpretation can be understood under following elements:

4.1. Face: Face of a person is referred as a mirror of one’s heart. Whatever we feel inside, willingly or willingly reflected on our face. Every person is capable of generating several facial expressions depending upon the state of mind. These expressions include happiness, anger, sad, sorrow, bewilderment, disbelief, disgusted and many more. These expressions are created by using lips, eye-brows, eye lids, cheeks and eyes. Yawning symbolises boredom, twinkling eyes with smile indicate excitement and happiness, contracted eye- brows with red eyes indicate anger, and closed lips along with lowered eyelids expresses sadness. Facial expressions provide feedback to the communicators. It is suggested to work on your facial expressions while communicating. Your facial expressions must match with the words your speaking. If you are communicating in a group and delivering a motivational speech, your facial expressions must convey that you are energetic, enthusiastic, and happy to communicate with the group. A facial expression serves different purposes. It indicates whether the communicating parties are interested in the communication, level of involvement of each party, responses are original or fabricated.

Source: http://www.smileysymbol.com/2013/06/10-styles-of-smileys-and-emoticons.html#.VjYS_CuvYUA

4.2. Eye Contact: Eyes are the integral part of face and contributes to various facial expressions. For the purpose understanding body language, eye movement is studied separately. It is generally suggested that during a face to face communication eye contact has to be maintained. The reason for this suggestion is eye contact conveys to the receiver that speaker is confident and knowledgeable. Just like facial expressions, eyes also convey the interest level of the listener. Through shafting an eye contact a speaker can focus on a different receiver. Eyes are also used to gain feedback. A variation in eye movement conveys different meaning. Continuously looking or staring at someone is considered as rude. Too little eye contact is taken as less interest, insincere or dishonest. Lowered eyes indicate respect or regret. Not looking into the listener’s eyes while talking indicates lack of confidence. Eyes looking to the sky sometimes indicate prayer. During a conversation or presentation if listeners are not looking into your eyes that means they are less interested in your talks and it is advisable that you should change your strategy. Size of the eyeball also gives indications. A contracted eyeball conveys doubt or anger and an expanded eyeball shows shock, amusement or disbelief. Winking of an eye actually negates what is said during verbal communication.

4.3. Gestures: Whenever any body part is moved while communicating, it is considered as a gesture. The body parts could be hands, head, legs, feet, fingers, shoulders etc. the gestures are used to support the verbal communication. These are sometimes used to give emphasize or highlight a point while communicating. Such gestures are known as illustrations. Appropriate usage of gesture sometimes eliminates the requirement for a verbal communication. For example, if someone asks you the way to the market and in reply you shrug your shoulders, the communication got completed. It means, instead of saying I do not the way to the market, you simply indicated ‘no’ by simply shrugging your shoulders. It is the power of non verbal communication. Every part of the body when moved might indicate some meaning to the receiver of the cue. Few of the body movements and their possible interpretation is given below:

·         Tapping your temple with finger: Thinking, planning

·         Tapping your chin with finger: Making decision

·         Moving your head up- down: Agreeing, listening, understanding

·         Arms crossed on chest: Not interested, closed communication

·         Sitting with crossed legs: Bored

·         Rubbing the eye: Bewildered, amazed

·         Fidgeting fingers: Nervous, doubtful

·         Biting nails: Anxious, insecure, nervous

·         Shrugging shoulders: I don’t know, not interested

·         Rubbing palms: I am at advantageous position, I know something more

·         Touching the nose: Hiding something

·         Scratching the neck: Uncertain, doubtful

·         Fingers in mouth: Insecure

·         Both hands in pocket and thumbs out: Confident, superior

·         Scratching head with index finger: Not understanding

·         Sitting and shaking foot or leg: Anxious, nervous

Gestures can be used for different purposes such as to specify, explain, point out, symbolize, and insist. It is important to understand that meaning of a gesture changes with the culture. Same gesture can have different meaning in two different cultures. For example, a ‘V’ sign can symbolize victory in one culture and taking the opponent head on, in other culture. Also it is important to develop a coordination of a gesture with verbal communication.

Source: http://mag.formation-prise-de-parole.fr/ameliorer-forme-et-support/3-astuces-pour-adopter-la-bonne-posture/

4.4. Posture: It is also known as body posture. Posture is how you carry yourself in a communication situation. In other words, posture is a way in which you stand, sit, or walk being a part of a communication situation. The way we stand conveys a particular meaning. For example, standing with slouching body posture signifies tiredness or surrender. On the contrary, a person standing straight with head held high indicates energy and confidence. Similarly, sitting at the edge of a chair conveys that a person is uncomfortable or nervous or ready to go. Leaning forward while sitting indicates that you are eager to listen. Leaning backward depicts you are relaxed and comfortable. As a speaker it is very important to maintain a correct posture in all the three positions i.e. standing, sitting, and walking. It is suggested that while standing one should stand tall, feet together and keeping the chin parallel to the floor. While sitting, one should sit attentive and straight with a total weight on your hips. In case of walking, always walk with confidence at a moderate speed and in straight line. Distribute your body weight appropriately while walking.

4.5. Appearance: Appearance is related to the overall look of a person. It includes clothing, grooming, accessories etc. Although it might seem unrelated to the body language but it creates a first impression sometimes prior to other components of body language. For example by looking at one’s uniform we can guess the profession of a person. Also the kind of hair style explains the personality of a person. Keeping aside special occasions, generally it is suggested that one should follow a conservative style of dressing. Always keep in mind that your appearance must match to the occasion. Your dress should be neat and clean, properly ironed, hair well groomed, nail properly cut, footwear matching with the dress, sober accessories. Your overall appearance depicts many things about your personality. It also indicates your attitude towards yourself, others, and life.

5.      Paralinguistics:

Paralinguistics or paralanguage means like language. It is closest to the actual oral communication and always accompanies it. Basically study of paralanguage focuses on how the content is delivered at the time of oral communication. All the voice related aspects at the time of oral communication is the part of paralanguage. An effective usage of paralanguage provides different cues about the content and relevance of the content delivered by a speaker. Voice is an important aspect of verbal communication. Just by listening to someone, we are able to tell about the speaker like age, gender, education, place of brought up, and attitude. Generally, human carries a reasonable voice that works ok for most of life span. The purpose of a voice is to carry a message or meaning. Its purpose got defeated unless all the components of voice are working properly. Main components of a voice are quality of voice, speaking speed, pitch, volume, pause or silence, pronunciation and non-fluencies. All the components of voice are discussed in the following sub-sections:

5.1. Quality of voice: Quality of voice refers to that feature which makes it unique when compared with others. We can easily observe around us that there are few voices which we termed as good or pleasant while other we consider as unpleasant or harsh. Generally we cannot do much about our quality of voice. We are gifted with a certain quality of voice. With some practice and training some improvements can be made one’s quality of voice. Voices can be classified as husky, harsh, shrill, nasal, soft, pleasant etc. There are some professions which require a particular quality of voice. For example, commentators, radio jockey, announcers, news readers, front office executives. A good voice is always considered as an asset and it adds up to the personality of a speaker.

5.2. Pitch: A pitch is tone of sounds. A pitch brings variation in sound while speaking. Purpose of a pitch to catch the attention of a listener. It can be monotone, high or low. If the speaker brings no variation in the sound while speaking it becomes monotone. Audience are less interested in listening to monotone. A variation can be created by putting stress on important words while speaking. A variation of sound during speech keeps the audience alert and interested in your conversation.

5.3. Speed: It denotes the speed at which you are speaking the words. A speaker has to control the speed of the words spoken. Generally, 120 to 150 words spoken per minute are acceptable to audience. If you are too slow, you would be termed as a dull speaker. On the other hand, if you are too fast, audience would fail to understand the content. We can also speak different parts of the message at different speed to highlight a specific piece of information.

•   Voice quality

•   Pitch

•   Speed Paralanguage

•   Volume

•   Pronunciation

•   Pause or silence

•   Non- fluencies

5.4. Volume: Volume refers to the power of sound. It decides whether the speaker is audible or not. A speaker needs to adjust their volume considering the size of audience, room size, noise level, availability of amplifiers, and venue. While speaking, we should be loud enough that everybody hears what we are communicating. More the number of audiences louder should be the volume. Contrast is another strategy that sometimes speakers should adopt. A sudden lowering of volume also attracts attention of the audience. Volume also signifies the intended audience of the message. If spoken in lower volume, the message is meant for people who are close to the speaker. It also conveys the confidentiality of the matter. On the contrary, a loud volume dictates that the message is for everyone.

5.5. Pronunciation: It refers to the way we speak a letter or word or a sentence. A wrongly pronounced word can indicate a different meaning resulting into misunderstanding. Culture is having a strong influence on the pronunciation. English is generally accepted as a global language but influence of other languages can be easily observed when people from different countries or regions speak the same word. We can even get the idea about the native place of speaker; just by the manner a word is being pronounced. Training is required to neutralise the accent related issues. The relevance of accent neutralization more for multicultural organizations.

5.6. Pause or Silence: General perception is that if we are not speaking, no communication is taking place. It is wrong, as silence is a strong communicator and has a meaning. If a person remain silent after listening to a speaker it might mean that listener is not understanding anything, waiting for more information to come, or spellbound. A gap between two spoken words or sentences is considered as a pause. Just like silence pause also communicates. Duration of pause or number of pauses indicate different meaning during an oral communication. For example, a long pause indicates that the speaker forgets the matter. Too many pauses can break the flow of communication and makes a message difficult to understand. In a public speaking scenario, effective use of pauses can attract attention of audience, controls audience discussions, and pull applause.

5.7. Non-fluencies: Non-fluencies are the sounds and expressions that fill the gaps between two words or sentences. Some of the common non-fluencies are ‘umm’, ‘aaa’, ‘you know’, ‘ok’, ‘got it’ etc. Many times speakers are unaware about making such sounds or utterances. These are used by the speaker to breath, think or plan the next word or idea. An effective use of these non-fluencies can attract the attention of the listener and breaks the monotony of the conversation. But if overly used, it definitely distracts and irritates the listeners.

6.      Proxemics:

It is also known as language of space. The study of Proxemics tells us how we communicate through space around us during face to face interactions. For example, during a conversation between two people it can be judged that whether are at same level of hierarchy or the other way. Space is always relative to a speaker. Its understanding moves from intimate to public space. Adequate space provides freedom to move body parts and convey a message through body language. Major credit for conducting remarkable space related studies goes to E. T. Hall. In the year 1963, Hall has given classification of space to improve its understanding in communication. As per the classification of Hall, space can be divided into following four zones:

6.1. Intimate zone: It includes a radius of 0-1.5 feet around us. A zero means physical touch. This space is used when we embrace, touch, or whisper. Only people very close to us are allowed to enter into this zone. Generally, these people include our relatives.

6.2. Personal zone: It includes a radius of 1.5- 4 feet around us. This space is used when we shake hands at about arms length. Generally, our friends and close associates fall into this category.

6.3. Social zone: It extends from 4 feet to 10 feet. This space is being used for formal purposes and generally for the relationships that are more professional. Our colleagues from the organization, customers, suppliers and others that create our professional surrounding are the part of social zone. In our social zone, people are known to us and we share some commonness with them.

6.4. Public zone: Any distance beyond 10 feet creates a public zone for us. Generally, it is used when we are addressing public. In a public zone, people unknown us can be the part. Relatively, in public zone a speaker is detached with the audience in terms of accessibility.

7.      Chronemics:

It is also referred as the language of time. Whether time is money or not has to be decided after an understanding of language of time. A weightage given to time varies from culture to culture. Understanding relevance of time in culture might help you in business dealings. For example, in Europe the committed time is exact time and any delay is not well taken. While in India, committed time is having flexibility and delay of few minutes is acceptable. Understanding of time language has a direct impact on the importance of punctuality in a given culture. Also, language of time tells about what is early or delay in relation to an action.

8.      Other dimensions:

Apart from above discussed dimensions, there exist few more dimensions under non verbal communication. These dimensions are related to language of colours, smell, and touch. Studies have proved that colours are associated with different behaviour patterns and cultural backgrounds. Every colour has a meaning associated with it. For example, red is treated as energetic while blue is considered as vibrant. Display of a specific colour along with the verbal communication can enhance the effectiveness of a message. Just like colours, smell also communicates about the personality of a speaker. The kind of fragrance a person is wearing tells about the attitude and individuality. Fragrances can be classified as strong or soothing. Touch is another dimension of non verbal communication. Touch is capable of creating bonding effect. In a business setting, most common touch related behaviours are handshakes and pats. The way a person handshakes conveys his personality. Some people apply too much or too less force while shaking hands. Both are incorrect. We have to apply an appropriate force that should not hurt but still displays your warmth. A gentle pat on the shoulder by your senior conveys appreciation and sufficient enough to motivate you.

9.      Summary:

Any communication wherein no words are used to convey a message is known as non verbal communication. Body language is the most observable aspect of communication. When compared with verbal communication, non verbal communication is unstructured and less intentional. In case of a conflict between the two, non verbal aspect is considered as more predictive of actual intentions. Non verbal cues are believed to be generated as unplanned and accidental actions. The actions or even the presence of a person can be decoded and interpreted to conclude a meaning out of it. The actions can be in the form of eye movement, appearance, tone, time, space or distance. Interpretation of a non verbal cue is totally dependent on the decoder of the cue. Same action can have different meaning for different people. With a non verbal cue we can support, negate, replace, or highlight the verbal communication. In the simplest words a non verbal communication is communication without the use of a language. It has many dimensions such as Kinesics or body language, Paralinguistics or language of voice, Proxemics or language of space, Chronemics or language of time, and other dimensions like touch, colour and smell. Understanding of non verbal communication helps in two ways. First, it helps in using the correct non verbal cue to support the verbal communication and second, it equips a person to interpret the correct intentions of a speaker. Interpretation of non verbal communication varies with culture.

Learn More:

• www.sagepub.com/sites/default/…/53604_Gamble_(IC)_Chapter_6.pdf
• www.acq.osd.mil/dpap/cpf/docs/contract_pricing…/vol5_ch5.pdf
• www.ambadylab.stanford.edu/pubs/1998Ambady.pdf
• www.highered.mheducation.com/sites/dl/free/…/825671/Pearson4e_ch04.pdf
• www.inf.ed.ac.uk/teaching/courses/hc1/slides1011/slides26.pdf