Task 2. Identify the contextual information of the situations given bellow.

1. On the first of May, after their last year together at college, Frank Ashurst and his friend Robert Garton were on a tramp. They had walked that day from Brent, intending to make Chagford, but Ashrust’s football knee had given out, and according to their map they had still some seven miles to go. They were sitting on a bank beside the road, resting the knee and talking of the universe, as young men will.

2. Luis took me to lunch. “To thank you,” he said. “She would have fired me. It was all my fault.”

“These things happen,” I said as I dipped my chicken into some mayonnaise. “Although I’m sure it shouldn’t have.”

“I thought I’d confirmed with them,” he said. “But it was a mistake.”

“Never mind,” I comforted him. “It’s sorted out now.”

“I know.” He sighed. “I thought I was going to be fired.”

“Cheer up.” I laughed. “You just have to do something wonderful to redeem yourself.”

 

Task 3. What conversational maxims have been violated in the following situations? Offer your responses to improve these conversations.

1. – Smith doesn’t seem to have a girlfriend now. – He’s been going to New York quite often recently.

2. – I have something important to tell you… - John began. – I’m running out of time. And I still have to change.- She looked at her watch.

3. – You never come in time. – I came at 8 yesterday.

4. – What’s the address of your brother? – He lives somewhere in the centre of the town.

5. “It’s important that it’s quality,” I said anxiously. “It doesn’t need to be extravagant, but not poor quality.”

“The Hotel Lux never compromises on quality,” he told me pompously.

6. “Hi,” I said unenthusiastically. “How’s it going?”

“Goodness, Isobel, you sound dreadful. What’s wrong?”

 

Task 4. Analyze your classroom discussion as a specific form of discourse according to the set of questions provided.

 

1. What is the purpose of this discourse?

What do I and my partners hope to achieve? Do we agree about the purpose of this interaction? What would mark the success of this discourse, and what would mark its failure?

2. What rules regulate this discourse?

What speech acts are expected of each participant? What speech acts should participants avoid?

3. What are the normal style and structure of this discourse?

What specialized language choices are called for? How does one begin and end interaction? How might meanings here differ from those elsewhere?

4. What are the effects of engaging in this form of discourse?

What values and assumptions are presupposed in this discourse? Do I agree with these beliefs? Can this discourse be used to manipulate or dominate? How?

 

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 American cultures 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.

 

Illustrators

Sometimes the best way to describe an object is to use gestures that indicate its size or shape or movement. If someone doesn’t know what a scalloped edge looks like or isn't familiar with the term zigzag, you can use hand movements to illustrate what you mean. Gestures like these accompany speech and add to the meaning of utterances; they are called illustrators. Illustrators need not describe physical objects, they can also be used to indicate the structure of utterances. A public speaker may gesture each time a new point is raised. The gesture illus­trates the central structure of the argument. People differ in the number of ges­tures they use. Some people are so used to talking with their hands that if their hands were tied behind their backs, they would find it almost impossible to speak.

 

Regulators

Regulators are nonverbal behaviors that act as “traffic signals” during interac­tion. They consist of the head nods and eye and hand movements that allow us to maintain, request, or deny others a turn to talk. As their name implies, they fulfill a nonverbal regulating function. Regulators usually occur so rapidly and automatically that we are not consciously aware we are using them. At a sub­conscious level, however, we are certainly aware of them, for without them con­versations grind to a halt.

Regulators are seldom noticed – unless they are used inappropriately. Then negative attributions are likely. This can be a problem when communicat­ing with people from other cultures, for the rules governing regulators can dif­fer. In comparison to the Japanese, Americans tend to dominate conversations. Whoever has something to say has the floor and tends to keep it for as long as he or she has something to say. The Japanese, on the other hand, distribute the talk more equally, making sure that everyone has equal talking time.

 

Affect Displays

Body movements that convey emotional states are called affect displays. When we want to know what someone is feeling, our first instinct is to look at that person’s face. The rest of the body, however, is equally ex­pressive. In fact, experts on deception tell us that to determine whether someone is lying, we should not necessarily look at the face but at the body. When people lie, they gen­erally experience heightened emotional arousal. If this arousal is not suppressed, it will act as a leakage cue, letting the observer sense guilt, anxiety, and excitement. Facial cues are least likely to leak this information, because liars pay close attention to and control their fa­cial expressions. Body movements are less controlled and are therefore a better source of information. The voice is also a good source of leakage cues.

In addition to leakage, liars may also give themselves away through their use of strategic cues. Strategic cues are behaviors that liars use to disassociate themselves from their messages and to reduce their responsibility for what they’ve said. Liars sometimes seem uncertain or vague, less immediate, and more reticent than nonliars as they try to “back away” nonverbally from their lies. These cues, shown by body movement and spatial behavior, may be de­tected if one knows where to look. Unfortunately, the average receiver is not very good at detecting deception, perhaps because liars control those very types of behaviors that most of us associate with lying: facial and eye behaviors. If you want to detect deception, attend instead to a sender’s body and vocal chan­nels, and compare any suspicious behavior to the sender’s baseline behavior.

Of course, not all emotional displays are attempted deceptions. Most af­fect displays are honest depictions of internal states and are easily detected. In attempting to read emotions, remember to look at the behaviors of the other person’s whole body, including those behaviors that fall into out next category, adaptors.

 

Adaptors

Adaptors, are behaviors that people use to adapt to stresses and to satisfy personal needs. Some (such as scratching) are behaviors that satisfy immediate needs, whereas others (such as pen tapping) may be residual displays of behaviors that were once functional. Fist clenching or foot kicking, for example, may be residual hitting or running motions. Rocking back and forth may be a way of recreating early childhood ex­periences. And playing with jewelry may be the next best thing to carrying around a security blanket. Regardless of where they originate, most adaptors are used to manage stress.

People are often completely unaware that they are using adaptors and for this reason adaptors are a good source of information about emotions. When people touch their own bodies (for example, by rubbing their necks or playing with their hair), they are using self-adaptors. When they touch objects (for ex­ample, by playing with cigarettes or shredding styrofoam cups), they are using object adaptors. By observing these behaviors, you may uncover hidden infor­mation about people’s emotional slates.

 

The Kinesic Code II: Facial Expression and Eye Behavior

The face is the arena most people turn to for information about others. We be­lieve that “the eyes are mirrors of the soul” and that people’s character can be “written all over their faces”. We like people with open, friendly faces, and we avoid “two-faced” people with shifty eyes or thin, mean lips. And when we want to look particularly honest or friendly, we smile and widen our eyes. All these behaviors indicate our faith in the face and eyes as sources of nonverbal communication.

 

Facial Displays

Where do facial displays come from? Experts believe that they are partly innate and partly learned. That is, the form that emotional expressions take is “prewired” into the human brain, but the way these expressions are exhibited is governed by culture-specific rules. Evidence for the basic innateness of facial ex­pression comes from several sources. Studies show, for example, that blind and sighted children have very similar facial expressions, and cross-cultural studies show that basic expressions are shared across many differ­ent cultures. These studies suggest that the reason we smile when happy and cry when sad is that smiling and crying are part of our biological inheritance.

When and where and how much we smile or cry, however, depends on learning and imitation. Within each culture, certain expressions are encouraged and reinforced, whereas others are discouraged. People in every culture learn to modify their facial displays, intensifying certain emotions and deintensifying others. For example, most Americans feel it is impolite to show dis­appointment over a gift or to gloat at our own fortune. We may therefore pre­tend to like a birthday present more than we actually do, or we may downplay pleasure at our own success if a friend has failed. We also learn to neutralize other emotions, swallowing our disappointment by pretending not to care fi­nally, we may mask one emotion with another. Becoming a good communicator includes learning how to modify fa­cial displays. The rules that govern these modifications occur at three levels the cultural, the professional, and the personal.

By following what are called cultural display rules, people in some cul­tures learn to be “stone-faced” and stoic, whereas those in other cultures learn to be highly expressive. In American culture, for example, men follow a cultural display rule that tells them not to show tear in public. Women, on the other hand, are free to show tear but must keep anger in check. Women are also ex­pected to express pleasant emotions and smile more frequently than men. In Japan, smiling is equally important, although the display rules governing smil­ing differ. There the smile is not only a way to express happiness, but also a way to reduce embarrassment and promote harmony.

In addition to modifying facial displays to meet cultural expectations, people also learn to follow display rules at work. Service personnel, such as flight attendants, are taught to inhibit any irritation they feel and to smile no matter what. Nurses learn to be cheerful, calm, and caring, whereas lawyers learn when to put on a “poker face” and when to show justified outrage. Rules for facial expression based on career considerations are called professional dis­play rules.

Finally, people also follow personal display rules. These rules are learned through individual experience and are often, but not always, shared with family members. Researchers have made a number of attempts to identify personal styles in emotional expression. Ross Buck argues that people are either externalizers or internalizes. Externalizers are good at portraying emotion whereas internalizers are less adept at showing emotions.

 

Eye Behavior

Eye behavior serves a number of important functions. For example, human leaders tend to situate themselves where they will command the center or visual attention, such as at the head of a table or the front of a conference room. Thus, eye behavior serves to maintain social position.

Eye behavior is also a good indication of both positive and negative emotions. We stare at sights we find agreeable and avert our eyes when a sight disgusts or hor­rifies us. Studies also show that when our interest and attention are high, our pupil size enlarges. Furthermore, research shows that people with enlarged pupils are judged more physically attractive than those with constricted pupils.

The eyes also signal our willingness to relate to one another. Mutual gaze is the first step in most relationships, for it signals both parties’ awareness of one another. During conversation, eyes act as nonverbal regu­lators, displaying typical patterns for listening and speaking. Listeners gaze more than do speakers, perhaps to pick up turn-taking cues. Speakers look away while formulating their thoughts, perhaps to cut down on vi­sual stimuli that might interfere with concentration.

Finally, like other nonverbal cues, eye behavior is associated with specific character traits. People who make eye contact are judged more friendly, natural, and sincere than those who avoid direct gaze. People who shift their gaze, on the other hand, are judged as cold, defensive, evasive, submissive, or inattentive.

 

Eye Direction

The first time “visual accessing cues” were discussed, was by Richard Bandler and John Grinder in their book “Frogs into Princes: Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP)”. From their experiments this is what they found.

When asked a question a “normally organized” right-handed person looks (from your viewpoint, looking at them):

1. Up and to the left.

Indicates: Visually constructed images.

If you asked someone to “Imagine a purple buffalo”, this would be the direction their eyes moved in while thinking about the question as they “visually constructed” a purple buffalo in their mind.

2. Up and to the right.

Indicates: Visually remembered images.

If you asked someone to “What color was the first house you lived in?”, this would be the direction their eyes moved in while thinking about the question as they “Visually Remembered” the color of their childhood home.

3. To the left.

Indicates: Auditory constructed.

If you asked someone to “Try and create the highest the sound of the pitch possible in your head”, this would be the direction their eyes moved in while thinking about the question as they “auditorily constructed” this sound that they have never heard of.

4. To the right.

Indicates: Auditory remembered.

If you asked someone to “Remember what their mother’s voice sounds like”, this would be the direction their eyes moved in while thinking about the question as they “auditorily remembered” this sound.

5. Down and to the left.

Indicates: Feeling / kinesthetic.

If you asked someone “Can you remember the smell of a campfire?”, this would be the direction their eyes moved in while thinking about the question as they used recalled a smell, feeling, or taste.

6. Down and to the right

Indicates: Internal dialog.

This is the direction of someone eyes as they “talk to themselves”.

 

Paralinguistics: Vocal Behavior

A lot of the meaning in everyday talk lies not in our words but in how we say those words. If we were to read transcripts of conversations, we would have to mentally supply what is left out: the speakers’ intonations, tones of voice, vol­ume, pitch, timing, and the like. Characteristics that define how something is said, rather than what is said, are part of paralinguistics, the study of the sounds that accompany words. The importance of paralanguage was clearly demonstrated in 1974, when former president Richard Nixon, under investiga­tion by the House Judiciary Committee, refused to supply audiotapes of his conversations and instead sent transcripts. Committee members, who needed to determine the truth-value and meaning of the tapes, argued that the tapes were incomplete, because vocal qualities and characterizes were missing. The committee recognized how important vocal modifications are.

Paralanguage includes vocal qualities (characteristics of the voice, such as pitch, tone, and intonation patterns), vocalizations (special sounds that convey meaning, such as groans, cries, moans giggles, and yawns), and vocal segre­gates (pauses and fillers, such as “um” and “uh”). All of these kinds of sounds affect the meaning of our spoken communications. They can be eloquent testi­monies to emotional states, but they can also be cues used to make stereotypic judgments of personality characteristics.

It is a matter of interest that although the judgments we make based on vocal qualities are not necessarily accurate, we think they are. People generally agree about the connotations of different kinds of voices. A light breathy voice connotes seductiveness and a lack of intelligence. A nasal voice may lead others to perceive the speaker as dull, lazy, and whiny. And the big, full, orotund voice associated with preachers and politicians can signify authority and pomposity.

Judgments of social status are also associated with the way we speak. Most cultures define certain accents and ways of speaking as “prestige speech”. People whose grammar, word choice, or accent deviates from these standards are likely to be judged less credible and less intelligent than people who meet paralinguistic norms. On the other hand, speaking a regional or subcultural dialect may lead to higher ratings of benevolence and attractiveness. That is the person who speaks in perfect, pear-shaped tones may appear distant and “snobby,” whereas someone whose language patterns are more regional may seem like a “regular guy”. Certainly, to people within a social group, accent similarity can enhance group solidarity.

An often overlooked aspect of paralanguage is silence. Just as sound cre­ates meaning, so too does the absence of sound. One use of silence is to create interpersonal distance. By not talking to someone, we can send the message “I refuse to admit your pres­ence”. The Amish use a form of silence called “shun­ning” to punish those who have violated important social norms.

A sudden silence can also indicate that a specific remark or behavior is in­appropriate.

Of course, silence is not always negative. If filled by other nonverbal cues (a tender gaze, a touch), silence can signal intimacy and comfort. Silence can also be a mark of respect or reverence. We often fall silent upon entering places of worship, both to show our respect and to concentrate on inner, spiritual con­cerns. We also become silent when someone of high status appears, indicating that his or her words are more important than our own.

But, it needs to be admitted that the matter of silence is culturally determined. Although there are times when Americans value silence, in general, these people like to talk. This is not true in other cultures. According to Keith Basso, who has studied Western Apache culture, silence in this culture is generally valued over talk. Strangers, for example, who jump into a conversation too quicklv are treat­ed with suspicion. Their desire to speak seems to indicate a kind of greed or self­ishness than imposes on listeners. The Apache suspicion of those who speak too much extends to a dislike of detailed descriptions.

 

Chronemics and Proxemics: Time, Territory, and Space

Not only our bodies serve to communicate. We also use the dimensions of space and time to transmit nonver­bal messages. Thus, chronemics deals with time and its influence on human behavior and proxemics studies how we use space and what space means to us.

 

Time Orientations

Are you the kind of person who enjoys dwelling in the past? Do you retell old stories, pore over scrapbooks, and spend your time remembering past events? Or do you like making plans and imagining what the future will hold? Do you place high or low value on being punctual? Do your friends always end up wait­ing for you, or are you the one who’s always early? The answers to these ques­tions can tell you something about your psychological time orientation, the way you habitually think about and experience time.

Alexander Gonzalez and Philip Zimbardo devised a scale called the Stan­ford Time Perspective Inventory to measure individual differences in time ori­entation. Using a variation of this scale, they surveyed more than eleven thou­sand readers of Psychology Today and found seven different time perspectives: two related to the present, four focused on the future, and one concerned with the effects of time pressures. Interestingly, past-orientations were so infre­quent that they were eliminated from analysis. The overwhelming emphasis on the future makes sense, given the values our culture attaches to progress. But members of other cultures have different sense of time.

Two of the perspectives that Gonzalez and Zimbardo describe focus on the present. The present, hedonism orientation involves living for the mo­ment. People who fall into this category are impulsive sensation seekers who like to spend their time playing and going to parties. In contrast, respondents scoring high on present, fatalism orientation focus on the present not because they are pleasure seekers but because they feel they have no control over fate. These people believe it doesn’t make sense to plan, because events will occur unalterably no matter what one does.

Four time orientations focus on the future. The first is labeled the future, work-motivation orientation. People holding this orientation believe in the Protestant work ethic, recognizing the importance of meeting obligations and completing projects no matter how difficult or uninteresting. People who take this view believe it is their duty to work hard. Future, goal-seeking respondents are more positive about the future. They enjoy thinking about what will happen to them and spend their time imagining the success they will achieve when their goals are met. People falling into the future, pragmatic-action category view the future in practical, down-to-earth ways. For them, the future is some­thing to be prepared for in the present. They value behaviors that make the fu­ture secure, such as saving money and buying insurance. Future, daily plan­ning respondents are obsessed with controlling the details of day-to-day events. They are the list makers and daily planners who map out their lives in specific detail. The final orientation is slightly different from the others. Labeled the time-sensitivity orientation, it describes people who feel anxious and pres­sured by time obligations and who are somewhat compulsive about both their own and others’ punctuality.

Gonzalez and Zimbardo believe that lime orientation may be related to the kinds of employment we seek. Thus, semiskilled or unskilled occupations may be attractive to and appropriate for people with present orientations, whereas managerial and professional occupations call for future-oriented indi­viduals. The authors also suggest that we can all benefit from developing more flexibility in our relationship to time. Although punctuality is important for success, we should not let it become an obsession. The world will not come to an end if we are occasionally late. On the other hand, although taking a present orientation may be a fine way to approach one’s social life, it can be a disaster in the world of work. A professional who is consistently a half hour late to meetings will soon be asked to look for other employment.

In addition to being influenced by our psychological orientation to time, we are also controlled by our biological time orientation. Humans, like other animals, seem to have built-in biological clocks that govern our daily rhythms. Metabolic processes, as well as neurochemical activities in the brain, are tied to biological rhythms. When these processes are upset by changes in clock time (for example, by flying into a different time zone or by changing work shifts), we may feel irritated, tired, and even physically sick until we find a way to reset our internal clocks. Some people are extremely sensitive to seasonal changes in the amount of available light. In the short, dark days of winter, they can fall into a depression called seasonal affective disorder.

A third way time affects us is through our cultural time orientation. People from different cultures think differently about the value and uses of time. Judee Burgoon tells that the Sioux have no words for “late” or “wait­ing”, that the Pueblo people start ceremonies whenever “the time is right”, and that the traditional Navajo are extremely present-oriented. And Gonzalez and Zimbardo point out that clashes between different cultural time orientations account for cross-cultural misunderstandings between North Americans and people from Latin American and Mediterranean countries:

From their strong present and past perspectives, they see us as obsessed with working, efficiency, rationality, delaying gratification and planning for what will be. To us, they are inefficient, lazy, imprudent, backward and immature in their obsession with making the most of the moment.

The silent language of time is an extremely important part of nonverbal com­munication.

 

Territory and the Use of Space

Managing territory and distance is another important aspect of nonverbal be­havior. Like birds and mammals, humans need to maintain uniform distances from one another and to occupy and defend territories. Proxemics commonly consists of three areas: territory, spatial arrangement, and personal space.

The need to create boundaries, to control areas of space and make them ours, is called territoriality. Territoriality is a basic human need. We need to have a place to call our own, a place where we are safe from attack and, even more important, where we are free to do what we want without being observed and judged. People often feel most truly themselves when they are in familiar territory.

People occupy several kinds of territories. Stanford Lyman and Marvin Scott describe four: public, home, interaction, and body territories. Public territories are territories that we share with others. City parks and shop­ping malls, for example, are open to everyone in the community, although what people are allowed to do there is often restricted. To avoid the potential disorder that can occur when strangers interact, public territories are usually pa­trolled by police, and anyone thought to be threatening community standards may be asked to leave. When we occupy public territories, we are expected to follow the rules.

Home territories are areas owned and controlled by individuals. In these spaces we have much greater freedom to do whatever we want. A child’s club house with its sign warning Keep Out, This Means You! is a home territory, as is his or her parents’ bedroom. The need to control space is so great that people may even try to make home territories out of public territories. We may, for example, consider a favorite table in a local restaurant “our” table and be irritated or outraged when it is occupied by someone else. You may even consider your seat in your communication classroom as an ex­tension of your home territory.

Whereas public and home territories may be bounded by physical barri­ers, such as walls, gates, or fences, interaction territories are socially marked. Groupings of people at a party or lovers in private conversation occupy interac­tional territories. Like other territories, these arenas may be made off-limits to outsiders. By the way they position their bodies, make or avoid eye contact, or focus their attention, those who are inside the interaction separate themselves from those who are outside and indicate how permeable their invisible bound­aries may be.

Body territories are the most private of all our territories. Our rights to touch and view one another’s bodies are strongly restricted. From the time we are children, we are shown which parts of our own (and others’) bodies can and cannot be touched. We are told how much clothing to wear, and we are ex­pected to decorate our bodies in acceptable ways. In some cultures, practices such as tattooing or nose piercing are encouraged; in others, they are thought to be disgusting.

Lyman and Scott believe that our territories may be encroached in three ways: through contamination, violation, or invasion. In contamination a terri­tory is polluted or made unacceptable. After contamination the territory must be cleansed before it can be used again. In caste societies the presence of a low-caste person is thought to pollute sacred spaces. Vandalism can encroach on home ter­ritories, and dirty jokes can contaminate an interaction. Soiling one’s clothes or spattering someone else with mud are examples of body contamination.

A second form of encroachment is violation, any unwarranted entry into or use of a space. Homeless people sleeping in a park, an outsider stumbling into a private conversation, a dog digging in a neighbor’s flower bed, or a stranger brushing against someone in a crowded subway are examples of violations.

Invasion is perhaps the most serious form of encroachment. It occurs whenever people not entitled to use a space enter and take control of that space. When a motorcycle gang takes over a public park, when a visiting relative won’t leave after two weeks, or when an insensitive boor dominates a conversation, public, home, and interaction territories are invaded. Rape and assault, of course, are invasions of body territories, most cultures consider these acts to be so serious that they are punishable by imprisonment or even death.

Territories are important to us. We build barriers against the approach of others, and we are often willing to defend these barriers to the death. Some bar­riers are easy to identify. Barbed-wire fences and border guards let us know when we are crossing national boundaries. Picket fences or hedges tell us where one yard ends and another begins. But other barriers are not as easy to identify. We do not always know when we are not wanted or when our behavior has vio­lated a social norm. The ability to recognize the nonverbal signs that indicate we are encroaching on another’s territory is an important communication skill.

 

Spatial Arrangement

The ways we arrange home and public territories affect our lives. Architects and interior designers know how important spatial arrangement can be. The way walls and furniture are arranged within structures affects the amount, flow, and kind of interaction in them. Seating choice in classrooms, for example, often predicts which students are likely to talk and which are not. In a seminar-style classroom, students who sit directly next to the teacher are less likely to be called on than those who sit farther down the seminar table. In a regular classroom, most participation comes from the so-called action zone, a roughly triangular area beginning with the seats immediately in front of the teacher and diminishing as it approaches the back of the room.

Furniture arrangement in offices also delivers a number of messages.

 

Office Arrangements

Office arrangements give messages of dominance and power. In which

arrangement is the student treated most like an equal?

 

In arrangement A, chair placement allows cooperative action across the corner of the desk, and space seems equally shared. In arrangement B, the desk acts as a barrier, and the student’s territory is cramped.

 

Seating Arrangements at Rectangular Tables

Seating arrangements make certain kinds of interaction easy. Some seating arrangements encourage friendly conversation and some signify competition.

 

U.S. workers in general prefer private offices or cubicles, but not every cul­ture divides up work space similarly. Bruce Feilor, who lived and worked in Japan, describes a very different arrangement. In Feilor’s office, a large open space, desks were arranged in groups of nine. Within each group, four desks were lined up next to and directly facing another four desks opposite, while a desk for the section chief was placed at one end, perpendicular to the two rows. With all of the desks touching, the work surface was like a giant table top. As Feilor explains, “every conversation and every minor memo became the busi­ness of the whole group”.

Such an office arrangement promotes group interaction but it does not, as it might first appear to an American, promote equality. In Japan group member­ship and hierarchy are valued at the same time, and status markets are often subtly revealed. Feilor goes on to explain:

Younger people sat at the bottom of each line, seniors higher along, and the section chief alone at the end. As a worker advanced along this route, he was allowed to keep more paper on his desk, more cushions on his chair, and perhaps even a pair of slippers underneath. In this office, one desk stood out. It was placed in the center of the room, separate and unequal from the rest. Above the desk a lone sign dangled from a fluorescent light. It read simply, shocho: Director.

 

Personal Space

Each one of us varies in how close we prefer to be to other people. This prefer­ence, called personal space, acts as a kind of portable territory that we carry with us wherever we go. If others come too close, we move away until we feel comfortable. Similarly, if people stand too far away, we move in to establish more intimacy. People with the same personal space norms have little trouble interacting. Those who vary greatly, however, find it difficult to coordinate their needs. They can be observed engaging in a complex dance; as one moves closer, the other counters by backing away.

Factors that affect personal closeness include liking, status, gender, and the way we define the interaction. People who like one another usually stand closer together than do strangers; in fact, closeness is often used as a measure of attraction. The amount of personal space one controls can also indicate status, with people of higher rank being given more personal space than those with low rank. In our culture, gender too makes a difference in the way we use personal space: males generally take up more space than do females. Of course, our personal space also de­pends on the nature of our interaction. We expect to be at a greater distance from a teacher delivering a lecture than from a friend talking to us. Edward T. Hall investigated American cultural norms for personal space and found four kinds of interaction zones. They are as following:

 

Intimate Distance. Extends from contact to about eighteen inches. It is reserved for intimate interaction and very private conversations.

Personal Distance. Extends from eighteen inches to about four feet. It is used for casual, friendly interactions.

Social Distance. Extends from four to twelve feet. It is used for impersonal

business relationships.

Public Distance. Extends from twelve feet to the limits of visibility or hearing. It is used for public performances, lectures, and the like.

 

When one’s personal space needs are violated, he or she experiences crowding. Crowding has been shown to lead to heightened arousal and anxi­ety, decreased cognitive functioning, and increased verbal and physical aggression. To relieve discomfort, crowded individuals often avoid eye contact or ver­bal interaction, use body blocking to decrease their sense of contact, or use objects to build barriers between themselves and others. People whose occupa­tions cause them to violate the personal space of others (such as servers, hair­dressers, or massagers) are often given the status of nonpersons and are thus absolved of responsibility for the violation.

 

Touch

The extreme of personal closeness is touch. To touch and be touched is a basic need. People deprived of touch may develop physical, mental, and social disor­ders. In fact, studies have linked touch deprivation to depression, alienation, and violence. Touch is an important form of nonver­bal communication, and its study is sometimes called haptics.

All cultures regulate how and how often their members touch. Judee Burgoon and Thomas Saine claim that American culture is “restric­tive, punitive, and ritualized” in regard to touch. Affectionate contact between people outside the family is discouraged, and strict norms regulate touch within the family. Mothers, for example, are encouraged to touch male children, but fathers are not. Fathers also face strict taboos about touching postadolescent female children. In general, touch declines from early infancy on, with senior citizens suffering the most deprivation and isolation. Strong antitouch norms also affect heterosexual male-male touch. As Loretta Milandro and Larry Barker tell us, “Physical contact by a man with another man remains so potentially dangerous and unspeakable for many American males that other than a con­strained handshake, no one but the dentist and doctor are permitted to touch the skin surface.”

Touch conveys a number of messages. First, the type of touch (a pat on the back versus a lingering caress) indicates how we feel about others and de­fines a given relationship as playful, loving, friendly, sexual, or even aggressive. In most cultures, negative feelings such as derision are shown by touch avoid­ance. Touch also communicates status, with the person who initiates touch being of higher status. It is a social error, for example, for a management trainee to casually pat his or her manager on the shoulder. Touch initiation is generally considered a dominant behavior; in fact, we often use touch to control or direct the action of others. For this reason, touch initiation is governed by the rules that control other forms ot dominance.

Touch also satisfies our own emotional needs. When we feel stressed or lonely, we may curl up our bodies and hug our knees, wring our hands, or stroke our hair. The use of these kinds of self-adaptors shows a need for body contact. When we feel the need for touch, we may also gain comfort from touching animals. Some nursing homes have recently introduced house pets. Being able to stroke a cat or dog and feel its warmth helps residents overcome isolation and loneliness.

 

Physical Appearance and Object Language

Professional designers – whether they design clothing, graphics, or interiors – are trained in the selection and arrangement of elements to create an overall ef­fect. In a certain way we are all designers. When we go out to face the world each morning, we take with us a material self created by the way we look and dress and by the objects we display. Whether or not we realize it, our design efforts matter. Personal appearance affects the way others act toward us, as well as how we feel, about ourselves. As Mark Knapp has pointed out,

Physical attractiveness may be influential in determining whether you are sought out; it may have a bearing on whether you are able to persuade or manipulate others; it is often an important factor in the selection of dates and marriage partners; ... it may be a major factor contributing to how others judge your personality, your sexuality, your popularity, your success, and often your happiness.

 

Body Type

People have strong reactions to body shape and appearance. All cultures favor certain body types, subjecting to ridicule people who don’t fit the ideal. Cul­tures also form stereotypes about the characteristics thought to go along with various body types. Whether there is any truth to these stereotypes is less impor­tant than that we believe and act upon them.

Researches who study body types classify people according to how closely they approximate three extremes. The endomorph is short, round, and fat, the mesomorph is of average height and is muscular and athletic; the ectomorph is tall, thin, and frail. A person’s somatype is a composite score, using a seven-point scale, of each of these extremes. The somatype of an extremely fat person, for example, is a 7/1/1, that of a trained athlete, a 1/7/1, and that of a very tall, skinny person, a 1/1/7. Mark Knapp reports that former heavyweight boxing cham­pion Muhammad Ali rated a 2/7/1 at the peak of his career, and that Abraham Lincoln is considered to have been a 1/5/6.

Certain personality characteristics are generally associated with each of the three body types that make up the somatype. Descriptors such as placid, con­tented, affable, generous, and affectionate are used to characterize endomorphs. Mesomorphs are seen as energetic, enthusiastic, competitive, leckless, and opti­mistic, whereas ectomorphs seem more self-conscious, precise, shy, awkward, serious, and sensitive.

One’s height and body type can put one at an advantage or a disadvantage when it comes to love and career. In America, height is an advantage, especially for men. A number of studies show that — all else being equal — tall men are hired more frequently than are short men. Tall men are also more successful in romance. Few women seek out a man who is “short, dark, and handsome.”

Generally, North American cultural norms value men who are muscular and women who are slender, even though most Ameticans are overweight. Obesity is especially disliked, and fat people are often ridiculed and avoided. To escape being perceived as endomorphic, Americans will go to great lengths of exercise and diet. Victims of anorexia nervosa are quite literally willing to starve themselves to death to achieve what they consider desirable body type.

 

Dress

According to Desmond Morris, clothing, or dress, serves three major functions. First, it provides comfort-protection, shielding us from extremes of heat and cold. Second, it preserves our modesty by covering areas of the body considered taboo. Most important, it serves as a cultural display, telling others about our place in a variety of culturally defined hierarchies. In earlier times, laws dictated the clothing appropriate for each profession and social class. People who dressed above their station in life could be arrested. Rank could be read in the shape of a coat or the color of a ribbon. In modern, more democratic times, we are more free to dress as we wish. Yet we are still constrained by unwritten laws, and we may still read information about socioeconomic class in others’ cloth­ing choices.

Like other nonverbal signs, clothes are often read as a sign of character and are especially important in creating first impressions. The courtroom is one place where the messages of clothes are carefully scrutinized. Heiress Patty Hearst did not appear at her trial for bank robbery wearing the beret, dark glasses, and fatigues she had assumed as a member of the “urban guerilla” band, the Symbionese Liberation Army. Instead she wore a modest skirt and blouse several sizes too large for her. Her clothing was chosen to ensure that she looked frail and worn, the victim rather than the victimizer.

Clothing choice is important not only for defendants but for witnesses and lawyers as well. If you were going to appear in court, say, as a character wit­ness on behalf of a friend, how would you dress? Take a moment to imagine what you would wear. Then compare your choices to the following descriptions of clothing that, according to Lawrence Smith and Loretta Malandro, increases perceptions of credibility and likeability in a courtroom setting.

To increase their credibility, men are advised to wear classic, conservative two-piece suits made of wools and wool blends Trendy styles, unusual fabrics, and large patterns are to be avoided. Acceptable suit colors are gray and navy, but the only acceptable color for the shirt is white. Jewelry should be limited to one conservative ring, a watch, and a tie bar or tiepin. Conservative tortoiseshell eye­glasses can enhance the image. Hair should be short and conservatively styled.

Advice for women is similar. A traditional two-piece suit consisting of matching jacket and skirt in a solid color should be worn with a cotton or silk (not polyester) blouse with a simple collar. The skirt length should range from just below the knee to two inches below the knee. Shoes should have closed toes and heels approximately two and one-half inches high. Acceptable suit colors in­clude gray, white, off-white, beige, and navy, with a white of light blue blouse. Jewelry should be limited to five points: for example, nondangling earrings, a simple ring, a single strand of pearls, a watch, and a pin on the jacket. As with men, eyeglasses increase women’s credibility. Makeup should be moderate.

Men and women who wish to emphasize their approachability and likeability may modify their dress by wearing jackets that contrast with the rest of the suit. Men are advised to wear tans, beiges, or browns, white women may wear colors in the brown, gray, and blue families, as well as pinks and roses. Eye­glasses should be removed occasionally to increase the perception of approachability.

Although it seems patently obvious that dressing conservatively will not make one any more intelligent or more expert, violating dress norms can have serious effects. Whether or not clothes should be taken seriously, they are. Most businesses and schools have written or unwritten dress codes, and violations of dress norms are still a potent outlet for social rebellion.

 

Object Language

The objects or artifacts we own and display can also be an important mode of communication. Object language can be defined as “all intentional and nonintentional displays of material things, such as implements, machines, art objects, architectural structures, as well as the human body, and whatever clothes or covers it.”

In the 1890s, philosopher William James talked about three aspects of the self, the social self, the spiritual self, and the material self. James believed that a person’s possessions are a fair measure of his or her sense of self. As Franklin Becker notes, James defined a man’s material self as: the sum total of all that he can call his, not only his body and his psychic processes, but his clothes and his house, his wife and children, his ancestors and his friends, his reputation and works, his lambs and horses, his yacht and bank account. All things give him the same emotions. If they wax and prosper, he feels “triumphant”; if they dwindle and die away, he feels cast down – not necessarily in the same degree for each thing but in much the same way for all.

Even today our possessions act as public symbols of our values, status, and fi­nancial success, informing others of our identity and reinforcing our own sense of self.

Nowhere is our status so clearly displayed as in the buildings we construct. From the outside, the look of a building tells people what to wear, how to act, who is allowed in, and what services they can expect. Once inside, interior design elements give off additional messages. Burgoon and Saine list a number of fac­tors that affect communication in built environments. In addition to furniture arrangement Burgoon and Saine cite size, shape, and texture of materials, linear perspective, lighting, color, temperature, noise, and sensory stimulation as important communicative factors.

In terms of size, massive spaces create a sense of awe, whereas smaller spaces are more cozy and more comfortable. Of course, if spaces are too small, we can feel cornered. The size of furnishings within spaces also sends messages. Large furniture (for example, a massive desk with a high-back swivel chair) often indicates power. The boss’s and the secretary’s desks are usually not the same size. The materials used to decorate a room can affect mood and comfort level. Rough surfaces give an effect different from smooth ones, softness invites us to relax, whereas hardness makes us more tense. A hard-edged modern office with highly polished metal furniture creates an atmosphere very different from a more traditional, wood-paneled room with leather-upholstered furniture.

Lighting can vary our perception of the size of a room, as well as make us want to linger or to escape. A restaurant that wants to encourage leisurely din­ing usually uses muted lighting, whereas a restaurant designed for high volume and quick turnover uses harsher, brighter light. Color also atfects moods; cool colors (such as blues and greens) are relaxing, whereas warm colors (reds, or­anges, and yellows) are more stimulating. Colors also carry symbolic value. Most men would think twice before painting their dens pink, because pink is considered a feminine color.

Temperature and noise can either increase or decrease tension and irri­tability, as can the overall level of sensory stimulation. Environments must strike a balance between satisfying the needs for novelty and excitement and the need for consistency and stability.

 

Increasing Nonverbal Skills

To become a successful communicator one should be aware of and make eff­ective use of the unspoken languages available. There are some ways to improve nonverbal skills.

Firstly we should learn to be cautious in interpreting nonverbal messages. Most of us share the folk belief that it is possible to read another per­son like a book if we are sensitive to that person’s nonverbal behavior. Most of us have our own theories about what to look for to judge another’s character, and we use these theories as a kind of early warning device to avoid unpleasant interactions. That we never stop to test these stereotypes seldom bothers us. Yet many of our most cherished nonverbal stereotypes are false. It’s important to re­member that nonverbal behaviors can have many different meanings. When Anne crosses her arms over her chest, she may be inadvertently indicating a need to protect herself from contact, or she may simply find that posture com­fortable. When Larry’s eyes shift during a conversation, he may be lying, he may be nervous, or he may have been distracted by some extraneous stimulus.

It is not a good idea to read deep meaning into every gesture, yet it is im­portant to give proper attention to nonverbal cues. Just as some people seem too sensitive to nonverbal cues, others seem completely insensitive. People will sometimes tell us nonverbally what they will not tell us with words, and we should not ignore those silent messages.

In addition to becoming more aware of others’ messages, you should also become aware of the messages you may be inadvertently sending. As we’ve seen, people jump to conclusions about nonverbal behavior. And if they form judg­ments about other people in this way, you can bet that they also form judg­ments about you. Remember that what you do is as important as – and some­times more important than – what you say. We’re used to considering our words but much less used to monitoring our nonverbals. Think about the ways you habitually use all of the nonverbal codes. Some of these ways will be obvi­ous to you, but others will not. Most people check out their clothes in a mirror, but fewer are aware of vocal habits, and still fewer stop to think about their use of space and time. If you’re not sure what messages you’re sending, ask some­one you trust to give you feedback.

It’s also wise to remember that nonverbals you consider to be perfectly innocent can be invasive and even threatening to others. When we stare at people, enter their personal space, use objects that belong to them, or make them wait for us, we may be offending them in ways we scarcely realize. That these things don’t bother us doesn’t mean that they don’t bother others. And the potential for inadvertently committing offense is compounded whenever cultural differences exist. Take the time to find out the nonverbal meanings of others, and try to re­spect those meanings.

The silent messages that make up the nonverbal codes are subtle and are easily misinterpreted. Yet they are powerful modes of communication, and complete communicators are as aware of their own nonverbal messages as they are of their spoken words. If we overlook nonverbal communication, we overlook a world of meaning.

 

II. DISCUSSION

 

Task 1. Discuss the following questions.

 

1. Provide examples of emblems that are common for more than one culture.

2. Provide examples of emblems that are culturally defined? Have you ever been misled by such gestures? Give some details of the situation.

3. Provide examples of self-adaptors and object-adaptors that are commonly used by your groupmates.

4. What cultural display rules are followed in your country?

5. Have you ever come across professional display rules. Provide some examples.

6. What personal display rules are shared with your family members?

7. What does eye behavior indicate?

10. How can silence affect communication?

11.What cultural time orientation is common for your country?

12. What kind of territories can be occupied by people?

13. Dwell on how territories may be encroached.

14. Analyze how seating choice in classrooms, offices affects communication.

15. Speak on the main factors that affect personal closeness and the way these factors influence communication.

16. What information does touch convey?

17. Have you ever been affected by body type as far as personal relations, studies, career are concerned?

18. How can clothes affect the process of communication?

19. What message do such objects as buildings, as well as size, materials convey?

20. Dwell on the main ways to improve language skills.