NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION
Key Terms
Definition
Personal Paragraph with examples, This personal paragraph is a bit goofy and out of the ordinary. My story and personal experience began the day I got a pair of noise cancelling headphones for my birthday. I wore the headphones around the house because they were also wireless. While wearing the headphones I would not talk to anyone in my house because I could not hear their responses so anytime I could tell someone was talking to me I would make gestures to them as if I did not know what I was doing. They in return would make gestures to me that I was crazy or I could tell that they were pretending to talk to me.
Functions of Nonverbal communication
Paralanguage which is the vocalized but not verbal part of a spoken message, such as speaking rate, volume, and pitch. Nonvocal elements of verbal communication include the use of unspoken symbols to convey meaning
Nonverbal communication is a process of generating meaning using behavior other than words. Nonverbal communication includes vocal elements, which is referred to as paralanguage and includes pitch, volume, and rate, and nonvocal elements, which are usually referred to as body language and includes gestures, facial expressions, and eye contact, among other things.
to influence others, as it can complement, reinforce, substitute, or contradict verbal messages.
Aspects of Nonverbal communication
conveys more meaning than verbal communication
is more involuntary
is much more ambiguous than verbal communication
much more credible than verbal communication
influences others, as it is a key component of deception and can be used to assert dominance or to engage in compliance gaining.
regulates conversational flow, as it provides important cues that signal the beginning and end of conversational turns and facilitates the beginning and end of an interaction.
affects relationships, as it is a primary means through which we communicate emotions, establish social bonds, and engage in relational maintenance.
expresses our identities, as who we are is conveyed through the way we set up our living and working spaces, the clothes we wear, our personal presentation, and the tones in our voices.
Bodylanguage includes gestures, facial expressions, and eye contact, among other things.
Ambiguous unclear or often misunderstood compared to verbal which is often clear
Gestures are arm and hand movements and include adaptors like clicking a pen or scratching your face, emblems like a thumbs-up to say “OK,” and illustrators like bouncing your hand along with the rhythm of your speaking.
Head movements and posture include the orientation of movements of our head and the orientation and positioning of our body and the various meanings they send. Head movements such as nodding can indicate agreement, disagreement, and interest, among other things. Posture can indicate assertiveness, defensiveness, interest, readiness, or intimidation, among other things.
Eye contact is studied under the category of oculesics and specifically refers to eye contact with another person’s face, head, and eyes and the patterns of looking away and back at the other person during interaction. Eye contact provides turn-taking signals, signals when we are engaged in cognitive activity, and helps establish rapport and connection, among other things.
Facial expressions refer to the use of the forehead, brow, and facial muscles around the nose and mouth to convey meaning. Facial expressions can convey happiness, sadness, fear, anger, and other emotions.
Proximity refers to the use of space and distance within communication. US Americans, in general, have four zones that constitute our personal space: the public zone (12 or more feet from our body), social zone (4–12 feet from our body), the personal zone (1.5–4 feet from our body), and the intimate zone (from body contact to 1.5 feet away). Proxemics also studies territoriality, or how people take up and defend personal space.