Verbal and Non Verbal

Communication

Verbal Communication
Language & Culture: The Essential Partnership
If we spoke a different language, we would perceive a different world (Wittgenstein).
Language is the roadmap of a culture. It tells you where its people came from and where they are going (Brown).

Verbal Communication
Language & Culture: The Essential Partnership
Serves as a communication exchange Organizes people into groups according to age, gender and even socio-income level Allows individuals to engage in cooperative activity

Verbal Communication
Language & Culture: The Essential Partnership What is language?
Language is a set of shared symbols or signs that a cooperative groups of people has mutually agreed to use to create meaning.

Verbal Communication
Language & Culture: The Essential Partnership Language Variations:
Accent Dialect Argot (a private vocabulary peculiar to a co-culture) Slang

Verbal Communication
Language & Culture: The Essential Partnership
Language as it Reflects Cultural Values: High and Low Power Distance (formal/informal)

Individualism and Collectivism

High and Low Context

Verbal Communication
Language & Culture: The Essential Partnership

Multicultural Interactions:
Speech Rate slow down! Vocabulary avoid jargon Monitor nonverbal feedback Checking (so do you mean?)

Nonverbal Communication
(The Silent Language):

Messages of Action, Space, Time and Silence

Nonverbal
Communication
Usually responsible for first impressions Doesnt lie (a clenched jaw shows youre angry or stammering speech shows that youre nervous) Is culture bound

Nonverbal
Communication
Two General Classifications 1. Those primarily produced by the body (appearance, movement, facial expression, eye contact, touch, smell, and paralanguage) 2. Those combined with setting (space, time and silence)

Nonverbal
Communication

There is a story about the presidential debate of Nixon and Kennedy in 1960 where people listening via radio awarded the victory to Nixon while those watching the debate on television awarded the victory to Kennedy. This was explained by the fact that though President Nixon had very persuasive words during the debate, he was tense, sweating and seemed quite uncomfortable. On the other hand, President Kennedy was relaxed and able to convey a positive and convincing body language during the debate. Since that incident, researchers have demonstrated that a message is perceived in 3 different ways:

Nonverbal
Communication
Body Language (kinesics) Kinesics are the physical cues that are visible and send a message about 1) your attitude toward the other person, 2) your emotional state, 3) your relationship with the environment Kinesics includes body posture, body motion, gestures, facial expressions, eye contact.

Nonverbal
Communication
Eye Contact
In American culture, we reveal whom we like and dislike just by the amount that we look at them. We generally look most at those whom we like . In general, people avoid looking at someone they dont like. As people increase their liking for one another, they increase the amount of mutual gazing that they do. (Mutual gaze is when two people are looking into each other's eyes). The most obvious example of this occurs along the continuum of relationships. Romantic relationships have the highest amount of mutual gaze. What about other cultures?
.

Nonverbal
Communication
Sense of Touch (haptics) Who can touch whom, where, when and how

Nonverbal
Communication
Physical Appearance: Body artifacts (clothing, piercings, tattoos) and attractiveness

Nonverbal
Communication
Environmental Factors Elements of setting that affect how we feel and act (color, temperature, lighting, room design)

Nonverbal
Communication
Space and Distance (proxemics) Personal space (intimate, personal, social and public Seating Furniture arranging

Nonverbal
Communication
Time (chronemics) Informal time (how late is late?) Perceptions of past, present and future Monochronic (fixed) and polychronic (holistic time) (Edward T. Hall)

Nonverbal
Communication
Paralanguage: Paralanguage are the sounds that dont have written form that modify meaning or convey emotion.

Includes: rate, sounds, murmurs, gasps, volume, pitch, inflection, laughing, high speed

Nonverbal
Communication
Silence : East vs. West What is real is, and when it is spoken it becomes unreal. (Buddhism) The squeaky wheel gets the grease. (American saying)

Nonverbal
Communication
Artifacts

Elements of the environment that communicate by virtue of peoples use of them.