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Humans as the social creatures will always be faced with interaction between them in
social life. This interaction can be called as communication. Watzlawick and Beavin in
(Liliweri: 1994, P.v) stated in their theory that human cannot avoid communication. If people
called as communication. The later is composed of two dimensions; verbal and non-verbal.
without using words. Nonverbal communication includes most of the aspects of human
communication except the verbal aspect. Nonverbal relates to the unspoken word and a means
to send messages that are “not sanctioned for verbal delivery by our culture” (Wiemann,
1975), Doi (2009, P.1) states that nonverbal communication is the process of communication
through sending and receiving wordless (mostly visual) cues between people. It is sometimes
much more and not limited only to: use of voice (paralanguage), touch (haptic), distance
In 1507, Leonardo da Vinci revealed his new legendary painting Mona Lisa. Studied
by many and known by all, this painting was the first study to look at body language. It
intrigues so many people because the painting is so complex, just like body language. The
most interesting aspect of this painting is Mona’s smile. This smile portrays more than just
one emotion. In addition, Mona’s gaze follows the viewer no matter the angle she is viewed
from. There are many meanings and emotions hidden in this picture and that is why it
arguably is the best-known painting in the world (Riding, 2005, lines 4-6).
The first scientific study of non-verbal communication was Charles Darwin's book
The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872): (as cited in Anderson, 2001). He
argued that all mammals show emotions reliably in their faces. In his book, The Expression of
the Emotions in Man and Animals, Charles Darwin (1872) looked at how our emotions
express our feelings and thoughts. Through his many studies, Darwin was able to prove that
our expressions of emotions portray more than words. Darwin studied the eyes, nose, arms,
voice, and many other body features in order to verify a correlation between body language
and others’ perceptions. Often, our facial features correlate with our tone of voice in order to
express a certain feeling, “The pitch of the voice bears some relation to certain states of
feeling is tolerably clear” (Darwin, 1872, p. 303). This being true, one can easily sense
another’s emotion, such as high spirits, by simply focusing on the unspoken word.
Jurgen Ruesch and author Weldon Kees in the book "Nonverbal Communication: Notes on
Bacon observed that "the lineaments of the body do disclose the disposition and inclination of
the mind in general, but the motions of the countenance and parts do further, disclose the
Studies now range across a number of fields, including, linguistics, semiotics and
social psychology. Non-verbal messages often work in concert with verbal messages. While
the complementary ability of non-verbal cues is significant, several studies advocate the role
their own behavior and its meanings to students, and they learn to observe and detect non-
verbal information from students. He also stated that non-verbal training and skill
development are in the beginning stages and mentioned the difficulties facedby the
researchers to study and analyze the non-verbal data - (i) when to look (ii) what to look for
verbal communication for teacher education by stating that the teacher educator enhances the
study of pedagogy when studies of non-verbal cues are included in the information has
attitudes in facial and vocal channels. He found that within a two-channel communication
process, 41.4% of the message was decoded via facial expression and 19.3% was decoded via
vocal channels, supporting the theory that non-verbal—in this case, facial—messages have a
stronger effect Than vocal messages. Moreover, the non-verbal aspect of this research
Hinton (1985) reported in his article that when two people say something or, just as
importantly, say nothing, communication is taking place. No matter how one may try, one
cannot not communicate. Activity or inactivity, words or silence, all have message value: they
influence others and these others, in turn, cannot not respond to these communications and are
instructor the ability to stay away from non-verbal cues that can hinder learning.
The importance of Non-verbal communication:
People use body language to help drive interaction and keep others engaged. But what
happens when our body language is not the same “language” as someone from another
country? This poses a problem not only in society but in classrooms as well. Teachers are
being asked more and more to create an atmosphere of inclusivity in order to accommodate
for diverse populations including gender, ethnicity, religion, and ability. Debra Pitton et. al.
(1993) stated teachers have a responsibility to provide the best possible educational
experience day to day and this experience must include body language for many reasons:
culture, ethnicity, and gender as important variables in everyday life. This will
diversity when they assume their future roles as parents, teachers, community
Teachers’ goals are to help their students be active participants in their community and in
society. In order to do so, students must be able to understand verbal and nonverbal
communication signals as they relate from one person and one context to the next.
a roll of the eyes allows us to say, "I don't like you," without uttering a single word. Better
yet, a warm smile and an outstretched hand says, "I'm so glad to see you."
people do the appropriate non-verbal signs in communication. Based on Liliweri (1994, P.98-
communication. Both verbal and non-verbal communication influences each other in the
process of communication.
Based on Verdeber in Liliweri (1994, P.106-107), there are 3 steps to show that nonverbal
In delivering message, gestures or signs are very useful to empower what the speaker want to
say. Speaker can show how the thing looks like by gesturing his/her hand. Non-verbal signs
can be also used to give direction while verbal communication explains about the cognitive
information. This non-verbal signs strengthen the message that speaker want to deliver to the
receiver.
2. Non-verbal Communication as Independent Sign
independent in delivering message. For example, after football match, the result of the match
can be seen from the players’ expression or gesture. The players do not need to say if they
were winning or not. They just need to express it through non-verbal signs.
In this case, non-verbal message is not only the complement of verbal communication.
Non-verbal takes the control of the message by changing its meaning. For example, when
someone is angry, even he/she says “I’m not angry” verbally, but if his/her non-verbal
message sends different message, such as slamming the door. It is enough to show that the
person is angry.
There are many different forms of nonverbal communication. The main categories of
1. Kinesics (or body movements): Body language is the way someone situates their body
naturally depending on the situation, the environment and how they are feeling.These
affirmative head shake. This is one of the most easily controllable of the nonverbal
forms of communication.
between people when they communicate. The standard amount of personal space
3. Posture: The way that you sit or stand and how open your body is to others around
5. Haptics: Is delivering the message through touch. Many interactions begin with an
should be used sparingly and only when you know how the receiving party feels about
touch
6. Paralanguage: This category covers vocal qualities like loudness or tone of voice.
Paralinguistic signals are any aspect of the sound of a voice outside a direct verbal
7. Facial expressions: The human face is extremely expressive, able to convey countless
emotions of someone’s attitude without saying a word. And unlike some forms of
nonverbal communication, facial expressions are universal. The facial expressions for
happiness, sadness, anger, surprise, fear, and disgust are the same across culture.. An
To be understood and to understand are simple and basic human needs; however, they
are made complex when cultural differences are part of the equation.In our increasingly
communicators.
Birdwhistell(1955), one of the pioneers in research on non-verbal communication,
level is conveyed non-verbally. This implies that a considerable part of any message that we
are sending and receiving is encoded and decoded non –verbally. Consequently, although
only recently ,non-verbal phenomena have become a focus of interest in various disciplines