Unit 5 Encoding Messages: Nonverbal Communication

I. Notes

We live not only in a world of words but in a world of silent messages. Every day we accompany our talk with the languages of gesture and posture, space and time. Even when we are silent, invisible messages crowd around us: colors excite us, sounds calm us, the smell or look or feel of another human attracts or repels us. To communicate fully, we must learn to speak these unspoken languages.

The Nonverbal Codes

The Kinesic Code I: Body Movement and Gesture

Our bodies are an important source of nonverbal meaning. Whether we lean in toward someone or move away, whether our stance is wide and strong or nar­row and weak, whether we talk with our hands or remain completely still—we tell others a lot about us. Even the way we walk can give off signals. The study of body movement (including movement of the face and eyes) is called kinesics. People who study kinesics often classify body movement into five categories, emblems, illustrators, regulators, affect displays, and adaptors.

Emblems

Emblems are kinesic behaviors whose direct verbal translations are known to all of the members of a social group. Emblems are like silent words. If you are at a noisy party and want to send a message to a friend across the room, you can use nonverbal emblems. You can “say” to your friend, “Shame on you” (by rub­bing your right index finger across your left), “All right! Excellent!” (by turning your clenched fist inward at about head height, then drawing it rapidly down and back), “What time is it?” (by pointing at your wrist), or “I’m leaving now” (by pointing to yourself and then to the door). In fact, you can have a fairly lengthy (if not intellectually stimulating) conversation using emblems. We have emblems that allow us to tell others what to do (“Wait a minute”, “I can’t hear you”, “Come over here”, “Sit down next to me”, “Calm down”), that convey our physical state (“I’m hot”; “I’m cold”, “I’m sleepy”, “I don’t know”, “I’m confused”), that act as replies (“Yes”, “No”, “Maybe”, “I promise”), that evaluate others (“He’s crazy”, “That stinks”, “He [or she] has a great figure”), or that serve as insults, including obscenities.

One of the defining characteristics of emblems is that they are culturally defined. We must be very careful when using them with members of different cultural groups. The sign that in the United States recognize as the OK sign (thumb and index finger touching in a circle, the rest of the fingers out­stretched) can in other countries stand for money, can indicate that something is worthless, or can obscenely signify female genitalia. Judee Burgoon com­ments on the way emblems vary in different cultures.

For example, the head throw for “no” displayed by Greeks, Southern Italians, Bulgarians, and Turks could be mistaken for “yes” in cultures where nodding sig­nifies affirmation. The Bulgarian turn of the head for “yes” is likely to appear to be shaking the head, a sign of negation in many cultures. Beckoning gestures are also a source of misunderstandings. The palm-down fluttering fingers beckoning gesture observed in Asian and Latin Americancultures may be interpreted as “go away” by North Americans. In sum, although emblematic differences allow us to identify cultural group membership, they can also create cross-cultural misunderstandings and unfavourable attributions.