 VERBAL COMMUNICATION: Much of the communication that takes

place between people is verbal; that is, it is based on language.

Verbal communication of the vocal category includes spoken
language. It is of two types:
1.WRITTEN COMMUNICATION: effective writing involves careful
choice of words, their organization in correct order in sentences
formation as well as cohesive composition of sentences.
MERITS OF WRITTEN COMMUNICATION
 It is accurate, precise and explicit
 It can be repeatedly referred to
 It is a permanent record
 It is a legal document
 It helps in assigning responsibilities
 It has wide assess.
 It is suitable to transmit complex information and statistical data
 It is formal and authoritative.
 Can reach a large number of people simultaneously.
 LIMITATIONS OF WRITTEN COMMUNICATION
 It is time-consuming

 It may be costly
 Quick clarification is not possible

 Need to be literate

 Risk of leakage
KEY TO WRITTEN COMMUNICATION
 Use short sentences

 Use common words

 Use subject-verb object constructions

 Use active verbs

 Make lists-when you have several items

 Reduce and remove that which adds no
meaning or value
 Edit and proof.
2. ORAL COMMUNICATION
Communicating through speech is quite a broad
and complicated endeavor. It includes individuals
conversing with each other, be it direct
conversations or telephonic conversations.
Speeches, presentations, discussions are all
forms of oral communication.
MERITS OF ORAL COMMUNICATION
 Saves time, money
 Powerful means of persuasion and control
 Transparency
 Can convey shades of meaning
 Immediate feedback and clarification
 Clarification
 Helps to promote friendly relations
LIMITATIONS OF ORAL COMMUNICATION
 Lengthy messages are not suitable

 No retention value
 No legal validity

 Chances of misunderstanding

 Responsibilities for mistakes cannot be easily

assigned.
ELEMENTS OF SPEAKING:
Body language
Voice quality
Intention
Manner: directness, sincerity
Dress and clothing (style, color, appropriateness for
situation)
Visual aids, animation
Eye contact
Emotional content, energy, strength
Self-concept
Concept of others Listening, hearing the underlying
message
Speaking from the heart
Energy
Setting, time, place, timing
How the messenger holds the message
Sensitivity
Rhythm and pacing
Attitude and confidence
Rapport
Agenda
Purpose of communication - knowing what
you want to communicate
Clarity
Silence, centering, looking
 Non-verbal communication consists of all the
messages other than words that are used in
communication. nonverbal communication refers to
communication that is produced by some means
other than words (eye contact, body language, or
vocal cues, for example) (Knapp & Hall, 2002).

The five primary functions of Non-verbal Behavior (Argyle,

1988) are:
1. Expression of Emotion — emotions are expressed mainly
through the face, body, and voice.
2. Communication of Interpersonal Attitudes — the
establishment and maintenance of relationships is often
done through nonverbal signals (tone of voice, gaze,
touch, etc.).
3. Accompany and Support Speech — vocalization and
nonverbal behaviors are synchronized with speech in
conversation (nodding one’s head or using phrases like “uh-
huh” when another is talking).
4. Self-Presentation — presenting oneself to another through
nonverbal attributes like appearance (Artifacts).
• Clothing

• Jewelry

• Perfume

• Beauty Aids

5. Rituals (Tactile Communication) — The use of greetings,

touch, handshakes or other rituals.
Space:
When we discuss space in a nonverbal context, we
mean the space between objects and people.
Territory and Personal Space (Proxemics) —
Personal space refers to the space an individual
maintains around him or herself, while territory is
a larger area an individual controls that can
provide privacy (for example, an office or a
specific chair in the conference room). Invading
another’s territory may cause that person
discomfort and the desire to defend his or her
space (by turning away or creating a barrier, for
example) (Argyle, 1988).
 Hall (1966) was the first to define the four distances
people regularly use while they communicate. His
categories have been helpful in understanding the
communicative behavior that might occur when two
people are a particular distance from each other.
Beginning with the closest contact and the least
personal space, and moving to the greatest distance,
Hall’s categories are intimate distance, personal
distance, social distance, and public distance.
• Intimate distance extends from you outward to 18
inches, and it is used by people who are relationally
close to you. Used more often in private than in
public, this intimate distance is employed to show
affection, to give comfort, and to protect. Graves
and Robinson (1976) and Burgoon (1978) note that use
of intimate distance usually elicits a positive
response because individuals tend to stand and sit
close to people to whom they are attracted.
•
• Personal distance ranges from 18 inches to 4
feet, and it is the distance used by most
Americans for conversation and other non
intimate exchanges.
• Social distance ranges from 4 to 12 feet, and it
is used most often to carry out business in the
workplace, especially in formal, less personal
situations.
The higher the status of one person, the greater
the distance.
• Public distance exceeds 12 feet and is used most
often in public speaking in such settings as
lecture halls; churches, mosques, and
synagogues; courtrooms; and convention halls.
Professors often stand at this distance while
lecturing.
Distance, then, is a nonverbal means of
communicating everything from the size of your
personal bubble to your relationship with the
person to whom you are speaking or listening.
 Bodily Movements and Facial Expressions
SOMETIMES WORDS FAIL US
The study of bodily movements, including posture, gestures, and
facial expressions, is called kinesics, a word derived from the
Greek word kinesic, meaning “movement.”
A body gesture is a movement made with a limb,
especially the hands, to express, confirm, emphasize or
back up the speaker’s attitude or intention. This non-
verbal activity is regularly used in oral discourse. The way
you sit or stand can convey your attitude or feelings
about what you are doing or thinking. Therefore, a
slumped posture can indicate despondency or boredom; a
relaxed posture may suggest a person is calm and
unnerved; a shifting posture might be associated with
uneasiness or discomfort.
 Turning only slightly from your desk, keeping pen in hand and avoiding
eye contact can communicate to a colleague who has interrupted ‘I am
busy’ (Adler & Elmhorst, 1999).
 KINESICS-The study of body language is the most important
aspect of non-verbal communication. Body language
includes facial expression, gestures, body movements,
posture, eye contact and touch.
 1. Facial Expression: Face is the index of the mind. A
glance at someone‘s face is enough to give them clues
about the subject‘s mental state.
 2. Gestures: A gesture is a movement of the head, hands
or legs to express an idea, feeling or emotions. 3. Body
Movements: Body movements refer to the positioning or
movement of the body.
 4. Posture: Posture means the way in which someone
usually stands or sits or holds his shoulders, neck and back.
5. Eye Contact: Eye contact is a very subtle aspect of body
language. It regulates interaction. 6. Touch: Like gestures,
touching is also one of the earliest methods of
communication among human beings.
Ekman (1993, 1997, 1999a, 1999b) and Ekman and Friesen
(1969) categorized movement on the basis of its functions,
origins, and meanings. Their categories include emblems,
illustrators, affect displays, regulators, and adaptors.
• Emblems are nonverbal movements that substitute for
words and phrases.
Examples of emblems are a beckoning first finger to mean
“come here,” an open hand held up to mean “stop,” and a
forefinger and thumb forming a circle to mean “OK.” Be
wary of emblems; they may mean something else in
another culture.
• Illustrators are nonverbal movements that accompany or
reinforce verbal messages.
Examples of illustrators are nodding your head when you
say yes, shaking your head when you say no, stroking your
stomach when you say you are hungry, and shaking your
first in the air when you say, “Get out of here.” These
nonverbal cues tend to be more universal than many in the
other four categories of movement.
• Affect displays are nonverbal movements of the face
and body used to show emotion. Watch people’s
behavior when their favorite team wins a game, listen
to the door slam when an angry person leaves the room,
and watch men make threatening moves when they are
very upset with each other but don’t really want to
fight.
• Regulators are nonverbal movements that control the
flow or pace of communication. Examples of regulators
are starting to move away when you want the
conversation to stop, gazing at the floor or looking away
when you are not interested, and yawning and glancing
at your watch when you are bored.
• Adaptors are nonverbal movements that you might
perform fully in private but only partially in public. For
example, you might rub your nose in public, but you
would probably never pick it.
Facial Expressions and Eye Gaze:
Facial expressions provide a rich source of non-verbal
information, particularly in conveying emotion. Sometimes
emotions can be communicated clearly, for example, a
student’s confused expression can indicate the need to
continue with an explanation, smiling and nodding may
demonstrate that they have understood.
Eye movement is a key part of facial behavior because the
eyes are invariably involved in facial displays. It has long
since been recognized that the eyes communicate a great
deal with expressions such as ‘the eyes are the windows of
the soul’ in common parlance. Think about how it can be
difficult to deal with someone wearing sunglasses, for
example. Eye contact can indicate engagement or
involvement with the speaker and complete lack of eye
contact can suggest detachment, nervousness or that the
person is hiding something. Use of eye contact can serve a
number of purposes – for example, a sequence of breaks
and contact in eye gaze is used to regulate the flow in
conversation, with the speaker typically engaging in eye
contact as they come to the end of their speech turn
Facial expressions are important in
conveying information to others and in
learning what others are feeling. Bodily
movement and orientation adds to that
information by suggesting how intense the
feeling might be. When you are able to
observe and interpret both facial expression
and bodily movement, you gain a fuller
understanding of the other person’s message.
Elements of Non-Verbal Communication

Intonation

Tone of
Pause
Voice

Non-Verbal
Communication

Body Facial
Gestures Body Expressions
Postures
Vocal Cues:
The term paralinguistics refers to features such
as speech rate, pitch, articulation, pauses
emphasis and volume as well as non-verbal
vocalisations such as ‘ahhh’ or sighing.
The human voice is composed of a multitude of
different components, making each voice
different; namely, pitch, tone, and rate. The
human voice has many components and is
created through a myriad of muscle
movements.
 Pitch: the highness or lowness of your voice.
Pitch is an integral part of the human voice. The
pitch of the voice is defined as the "rate of
vibration of the vocal folds" . The sound of
the voice changes as the rate of vibrations
varies. As the number of vibrations per second
increases, so does the pitch, meaning
the voice would sound higher.
 Inflection: The variety or changes in pitch.
A change in pitch is known as inflection and
humans exercise this naturally all the time.
People tend to exercise conscious control of
the pitch of their voice when refraining from
screaming, because it tightens and strains the
vocal cords, or changing the pitch of our voice
to mimic someone, for instance. The voice
tends to change, sliding up and down the pitch
scale, as we express different emotions,
thoughts and feelings.
Rate of Speech: How rapidly or slowly you
speak(WPM).
 Slow speech is usually regarded as less than
110 wpm, or words per minute.
 Conversational speech generally falls
between 120 wpm at the slow end, to 160 -
200 wpm in the fast range.
 People who read books for radio or podcasts
are often asked to speak at 150-160 wpm.
 Auctioneers or commentators who practice
speed speech are usually in the 250 to 400
wpm range.
Tone of voice
The tone of voice is a means by which the speaker
implies his or her attitude to the message. It is
also a means by which he seeks a reaction from
the hearer. In a political debate, for instance, the
tone of voice is likely to be rousing, whereas on
television the daily news is communicated in a
more factual tone. Other examples of tone of
voice are: Formal, Serious, respectful, aggressive,
critical, nervous, disappointed, monotonous,
friendly, enthusiastic, vivid, persuasive, etc.
The way we tell our message in both written and
spoken form.
 Intonation
Intonation is the way that the sender’s pitch of
voice rises and falls when speaking. For example,
it shows the interpreter whether the speaker
expresses his or her message in the form of a
question or statement. In the first case, the voice
rises at the end of the phrase or the sentence and
in the second case, it falls. At the same time,
intonation indicates the end of an entity of
information, which – in written communication – is
shown by means of a comma, semicolon, point,
exclamation mark or question mark. Another
function of intonation is to lay emphasis on a
particular word or idea, a detail that the
interpreter must not fail to be aware of.
 Volume: The loudness or softness of your
voice. Quality of power of sound, degree of
loudness.
 Quality:

The unique resonance of your voice, such as

huskiness, nasality, raspiness, or whininess.
Voices are as distinctive as our faces - no two
are exactly alike.
 Non word sounds: “mmh,” “huh,” “ahh,” and
the like, as well as pauses or the absence of
sound used for effect in speaking.
Pronunciation: whether or not you say a word
correctly.
Articulation: whether or not your mouth,
tongue, and teeth coordinate to make a word
understandable to others (such as a lisp).
Enunciation: whether or not you combine
pronunciation and articulation to produce a
word with clarity and distinction so that it can
be understood. A person who mumbles has an
enunciation problem.
Silence: the lack of sound
 Pause
A pause can have two different functions:
1. It can be a brief suspension of the voice to indicate the
limits and relations of sentences and their parts. A pause
then assumes a similar function in oral discourse to
intonation.
2. It can consist of a temporary vocal inaction revealing the
speaker’s uncertainty, hesitation, tension or uneasiness. In
this context, a pause can also be judgmental by indicating
favor or disfavor, agreement or disagreement.
Consequently, the non-verbal cue of a pause can give rise
to problems when interpreting it because its meaning can
vary considerably. It can have a positive or negative
influence on the process of communication.

These vocal cues are important because they are linked in

our minds with a speaker’s physical characteristics,
emotional state, personality characteristics, gender
characteristics, and even credibility.
 Time
Temporal communication, or chronemics,
refers to the way that people organize and
use time and the messages that are created
because of their organization and use of it.
Characteristics of non-verbal communication
 Spontaneous
 Not suitable for lengthy and complex
messages.
 Present in all communications
 Mean different things
 May be intentional or unintentional
 Provide information
 May contradict verbal message
 May outweigh verbal message
 Depends on the total environment
 May have positive or negative effects
Exercise
Read through the following scenario, and consider the questions at the end.
This interaction took place between the Practice Educator and student at an appraisal meeting,
arranged by the P.E. at short notice when another meeting had been cancelled.
P.E.: As you know, I need to fill out this performance appraisal form before the end of the month, to
show how you have been doing now that you are half way through the placement here. (Looking
through papers on the cluttered desk, then glances over at the student and smiles). So, how do
you think things have been going? Ah, here it is.
STUDENT: I think things are going well. I’m really learning a lot and it has been a valuable experience
so far. (Speaks in a monotone, posture slightly slumped, worried expression).
P.E. Good, Good. (Reading through the form, then looks up at the student and frowns slightly).
(Phone rings). Yes….Yes…OK, just give me 20 minutes or so. Bye. (Looks at the form again). Where
were we? Oh yes. Lets start with the action points from the last meeting…Have you met these?
STUDENT: Yes…I think..emmm…Most things I think. (Tone of voice is higher pitched, blank facial
expression, leaning forward to read action points, no eye contact).
P.E.: Actually, I noticed that you haven’t done point 3 or 4. It seems that you haven’t been keeping up.
Oh dear. (Smiles at the student) I know that you will remedy this by the end of the month though.
(Smiles again) Won’t you?
STUDENT: It’s just that things have been a bit…(Glances at the P.E. (who continues to read through the
form), then looks at the floor, hand covers mouth, sighs).
P.E.: Is something wrong? You know you can speak freely to me. (Smiles, glances at clock behind
student’s head, then looks back at student).
STUDENT: No, I’m fine. Sorry. Yes, I’ll get that sorted out. No problem. (Spoken in a monotone,
expression blank, sitting back in chair, looks at the P.E., then looks away).
P.E.: Good. Moving on then…
1. What non-verbal signals are accompanying
the words spoken by the practice educator
and student?
2. How might the interpretation of the
practice educator’s and student’s verbal
messages be altered by the nonverbal
information?
3. In the light of your interpretation, how
might the practice educator respond to the
student in both verbal and nonverbal
terms to maximize the effectiveness of the
communication?
Suggested answers:
1. What non-verbal signals are accompanying the words spoken by the practice educator and student?
2. How might the interpretation of the practice educator’s and student’s verbal messages be altered by the nonverbal
information?
The practice educator initially does not give the student his full attention, and eye contact is largely lacking as he hunts
for the form. The student’s monotone, slumped posture and worried expression contradict her words and perhaps
suggest a sense of anxiety, defeat and weariness. It is unclear by his frown whether the practice educator is
beginning to pick up that all is not well, but becomes distracted by the phone ringing.
The student’s lack of eye contact and raised tone of voice when ans wering the question about achievement of action
points, may convey a sense of her hiding something. However this is not clear. Remember, non-verbal signals can be
highly ambiguous.
The practice educator smiles while conveying some criticism ‘It seems that you haven’t been keeping up. Oh dear.’ This is
a mixed message, and when words of criticism are accompanied by a cheerful, smiling face, the result can be the
creation of tension and distrust. The receiver senses that the communicator is being less than candid, and in
addition, the verbal message is watered down.
The student’s words and non-verbals in response, look as if she wants to disclose something or give an explanation.
However, the hesitation and hand covering her mouth then suggest that she has decided not to go further. The practice
educator’s verbal invitation to open up is strongly contradicted by his glancing at the clock, which might be
construed as ‘I’m not really interested’ or ‘I haven’t got time’. Remember, when verbal and non-verbal signals
contradict each other, it is the non-verbal that is most often believed. The student’s monotone, blank expression and
looking away at the end of this segment, could perhaps suggest a returned sense of defeat.
3. In the light of your interpretation, how might the practice educator respond to the student in both verbal and
nonverbal terms to maximise the effectiveness of the communication?
There are various points during the communication where the practice educator could have responded differently to
maximise the effectiveness of the exchange. The following gives some basic points as guidelines, and you may come
up with more.
The practice educator could have used good attending skills to indicate that he was listening, throughout the meeting and
especially when asking the question ‘is something wrong?’ (see section 2). He could have used a better, ‘open’ question to
begin, (i.e instead of ‘So, how do you think things have been going?’, asking ‘What are your feelings about the
placement so far?) (See section 5 on questioning techniques).