Non Verbal Communication

Introduction

“Actions Speak Louder Than Words.”

Firstly what is communication? Communication is a process that involves exchange of information, thoughts, ideas and emotions. Communication is a process that involves a sender who encodes and sends the message, which is then carried via the communication channel to the receiver where the receiver decodes the message, processes the information and sends an appropriate reply via the same communication channel.

Human communication uses vaguely defined symbols.

A symbol is essentially a sign to which some meaning is assigned by convention rather than by any external similarity between the sign and its denotation. Thus, for example, a word like lion is a symbol: the word does not resemble a lion. An onomatopoetic word like whizzle is not a pure symbol in the same sense. And a picture, even a very stylicized picture, of a lion is not a symbol for a lion in the sense discussed here. A symbol like the word lion may sound very simple and unambiguous. But think about the various connotations. You perhaps meant just the lion, Panthera leo, as an animal species; the recipient may have taken it as a symbol of strength, or bravery, or danger, depending on his cultural and personal background. Perhaps the recipient has read the books with great enthusiasm; or perhaps a lion has killed a friend of his.
One reason to that is that by being conventional by their very essence, symbols are prone to misunderstanding. Language, cultural and personal background and data lost(physical barrier).

Types of Communication Based on Communication Channels

Based on the channels used for communicating, the process of communication can be broadly classified as verbal communication and non-verbal communication. Verbal communication includes written and oral communication whereas the non-verbal communication includes body language, facial expressions and visuals diagrams or pictures used for communication.

• Oral Communication

The oral communication refers to the spoken words in the communication process. Oral communication can either be face-to-face communication or a conversation over the phone or on the voice chat over the Internet. Spoken conversations or dialogs are influenced by voice modulation, pitch, volume and even the speed and clarity of speaking.

• Written

The other type of verbal communication is written communication. Written communication can be either via snail mail, or email. The effectiveness of written communication depends on the style of writing, vocabulary used, grammar, clarity and precision of language.

• Nonverbal Communication

Nonverbal Communication-information that is communicated without using words. It includes specific visual, sense and sound. Vocal sounds that are not considered to be words, such as a low sound, or singing a wordless note, are nonverbal. It is mostly used to express emotion in different context.

Important non verbal cues

Eye gaze

Eye contact can indicate interest, attention, and involvement. Furthermore, eye contact with audiences increases the speaker's credibility. Gaze comprises the actions of looking while talking, looking while listening, amount of gaze, and frequency of glances, patterns of fixation, pupil dilation, and blink rate.

Facial expression

Universal facial expressions signify anger, fear, sadness, joy and disgust. Thus, if you smile frequently you will be perceived as more likable, friendly, warm and approachable. Smiling is often contagious and a person will react favorably.

Posture

Your posture–including the pose, stance and bearing of the way you sit, slouch, stand, lean, bend, hold and move your body in space-affects the way people perceive you. Studies investigating the impact of posture on interpersonal relationships suggest that mirror-image congruent postures, where one person’s left side is parallel to the other’s right side, leads to favorable perception of communicators and positive speech; a person who displays a forward lean or a decrease in a backwards lean also signify positive sentiment during communication.

Gesture

A gesture is a non-vocal bodily movement intended to express meaning. They may be articulated with the hands, arms or body, and also include movements of the head, face and eyes, such as winking, nodding, or rolling one's eyes. The boundary between language and gesture, or verbal and nonverbal communication, can be hard to identify. If you fail to gesture while speaking, you may be perceived as boring, stiff and unanimated.

Haptics

Touches that can be defined as communication include handshake, holding hands, kissing (cheek, lips, hand), back slapping, give five, a pat on the shoulder, and brushing an arm. The meaning conveyed from touch is highly dependent upon the context of the situation, the relationship between communicators, and the manner of touch.

Paralanguage

Paralanguage (sometimes called vocalics) is the study of nonverbal cues of the voice. Various acoustic properties of speech such as tone, pitch and accent, can all give off nonverbal cues. Paralanguage may change the meaning of words.

Proxemics-

The nonverbal study of space and distance. The concept of territorial space refers to the area around the self that a person will not allow another person to enter without consent.

DISTANCE ZONES

Intimate : (up to 2 feet), modt sensitive zone, since it is reserved for close friends, and loved ones.
Personal : (2 to 4 feet)
Social : (4 to 12 feet)
Public : (greated than 12 feet)

Clothing and bodily characteristics

Elements such as physique, height, weight, hair, skin color, gender, odors, and clothing send nonverbal messages during interaction. For example, research into height has generally found that taller people are perceived as being more impressive. Melamed & Bozionelos (1992) studied a sample of managers in the UK and found that height was a key factor affecting who was promoted. Often people try to make themselves taller, for example, standing on a platform, when they want to make more of an impact with their speaking.

Video Example