2.

6 Types Of NVC

2.6.1 Kinesics

Kinesis (from the Greek work kinesis meaning ‘motion’) is the systematic
study of nonverbal body movement relative to communication. The term was
coined by Ray Birdwhistell whose book Introduction to Kinesics: An Annotation
System for Analysis of Body Motion and Gesture published in 1952 marked the
introduction of formal research on body motion communication, although
anthropologists’ and descriptive linguists’ growing interest for the study of
nonverbal communication was present from the 1940s. In popular discourse
kinesics is termed ‘body language’, a term older than kinesics (Merriam-Webster
Dictionary notes its first known use in 1885) but not used by Birdwhistell since
the definition of ‘language’ only partially corresponds to the meaning conveyed
by the body. While the mouth is busy with word articulation, the body conveys
messages with its posture, gestures, motion quality, facial expression, and does so
in a structured way (analogue to the verbal one).

As with the verbal lexicon, meaning of words in body language can vary,
and the same word may have several different meanings. Only when the word is
put into context (in this case the kinesic context) can its meaning be deciphered.
Patel, D. S (2014) calls kinemes “motion primitives” stating that “much like in a
natural language, syntactic rules are followed to combine these kinemes into more
complex motion structures with social meanings”

Kinesics is very context-dependent meaning that all body movement

should be interpreted only in regard to the context, which ideally comes in a
pattern and is congruent with the verbal message. Birdwhistell warns that “no
position, expression, or movement ever carries meaning in and of itself”
(2010:45). Therefore, we cannot assign the same degree of isolated meaning to
words and movements, but must always interpret kinesic motion as dependent on
the context and the accompanying verbal message. American psychologists Paul
Ekman and Wallace Friesen divided kinesics into five wider areas considering the
function of body movements and facial expression: emblems, illustrators,
manipulators, regulators, and emotional expressions. American psychologists Paul
Ekman and Wallace Friesen divided kinesics into five wider areas considering the
function of body movements and facial expression: emblems, illustrators,
manipulators, regulators, and emotional expressions (Ekman & Paul 2003).

2.6.1.1 Eye Contact

Eye contact is a fundamental aspect of nonverbal communication and

social interaction from birth throughout adulthood (Kleinke 1986). Eye contact is
an important indicator for healthy bonding between mother and child at early ages
and for the diagnosis of psychiatric disorders later in life (Auyeung et al. 2015;
Farroni et al. 2002). Furthermore, it is a fundamental factor in interpersonal
relationship building (MacDonald 2009). Not surprisingly, eye contact has been
the focus of research in various disciplines, such as communication sciences,
social psychology, and psychiatry, and various approaches have been used to
asses it. Health communication research has, for example, focused on eye contact
between patient and physician and on turn-taking in conversations.

The focus of such research has been on the impact of eye contact on
patients’ levels of trust, anxiety, and satisfaction (Farber et al. 2015; Hillen et al.
2015; Pieterse et al. 2007). Within this line of research, researchers have used
video cameras to observe the gaze behavior of patients and physicians (Farber et
al. 2015; Pieterse et al. 2007). Clinical consultations were flmed and,
subsequently, physicians’ and patients’ gaze behaviors were coded by researchers
using software for behavioral coding (Farber et al. 2015; Pieterse et al. 2007). As
regards turntaking, studies have observed people involved in a conversation and
have, for example, related their amount of gaze to their proportion of speaking
time to gain insight into the ‘smoothness’ of encounters (Kalma 1992; Kendon
and Cook 1969). These studies have identifed patterns of gaze in interactions
indicating that someone is speaking, listening or inviting another interactor to take
over.

In the feld of social psychology, eye contact has, for example, been
studied as a way for diferent individuals or groups to approach or deceive each
other (Kleinke 1986). To understand how eye contact enables approaching
behavior, eye contact is usually experimentally enhanced or obstructed during
social encounters. Afterwards, efects are assessed on outcomes such as distance
and afliation (Argyle and Dean 1965; Knightet al. 1973). Studies focusing on
deception and manipulation have compared the amount of eye contact between
participants instructed to lie with a control group of truth-tellers (Jundi et al. 2013;
Mann et al. 2013).

Research on eye contact within psychiatry often focuses on disturbed eye

contact patterns as a potential indicator of psychiatric pathologies (Guillon et al.
2014; Papagiannopoulou et al. 2014; Schulze et al. 2013). Such studies have, for
instance, found that individuals diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder tend to
gaze less at the eye area compared to healthy individuals (Guillon et al. 2014;
Papagiannopoulou et al. 2014; van der Geest et al. 2002).

These studies generally use the amount of eye-directed gaze as a proxy for
eye contact. For example, in a recent study, individuals diagnosed with autism
spectrum disorder were instructed to look at the eye-region of faces in pictures.
This allowed the researchers to examine the neurological efects of their gaze
behavior inthe subcortical system using fMRI (Hadjikhani et al. 2017). As
illustrated, eye contactis central to research in various disciplines focused on
understanding human interaction, using a variety of measurement strategies. As
eye contact is such a crucial indicator of interpersonal relationships, clarity is
needed about how it is defned. Moreover, valid and reliable methods should be
chosen to assess it, appropriate for the specifcresearch aim and population. If we
want to aggregate and advance research on interpersonal eye contact, we need a
clear overview of the diferent methodologies and their interpretations.

Several previous reviews have grouped the literature on eye contact. For
example, the importance of eye contact in patient-physician communication was
reviewed by MacDonald (2009). Furthermore, Senju and Johnson (2009)
reviewed the efect of (perceived) eye contact on cognitive processing. More
recently, Grossmann (2017) reviewed eye contact from an ontogenetic,
phylogenetic, neurological, and neuro-hormonal perspective. These reviews have
proposed multiple interpretations and models for understanding eye contact.
 However, they did not take into account the methodological variations in
empirical studies on eye contact. A methodological review may provide insight
into the implicit assumptions made by researchers about what eye contact is.

2.6.1.2 Facial Expressions

The most influential nonverbal communication channel for expressing

attitudes and emotions to other people is the face. Argyle says, “The thoughts of
the mind and feelings of the heart often find expression on the face” (pg. 19). As
depicted in Figure 3, there are six commonly accepted facial expressions: anger,
disgust, fear, joy, sadness, and surprise (Argyle, 1999)

Knowledge of how facial expressions represent the attitudes and emotion

of others in a work environment can be very beneficial. For example, the smile is
a very powerful form of facial expression. A smile carries great significance in
establishing and sustaining relationships. Salesmen use this concept in hopes to
seem friendlier to customers in order to have higher sales.

The face is considered the mirror of the mind This is because many
emotions are authentically expressed through the face. An aspect of facial
expression is eye contact. The amount of time spent looking into another’s eyes
helps to determine authenticity. If one is avoiding eye contact or continuously
stares into your eyes it often shows dishonesty. Also, a prolonged period of eye
contact can create discomfort. It is recommended to have periods of eye contact
and then look away for a couple seconds and return to the eye contact. (Ekman,
1982).

2.6.1.3 Gestures

McNeill (1992) provides an explanation that gesture is a primitive form

of language expression which is a body movement to express a concept, belief,
and feeling. It can easily be conveyed that gesture is a body language that arises
spontaneously as a primitive instinctual form of the language of human
expression. Gordon, Chernyak and Cordes. (2019) also mentioned that gestures
can be defined as a whole body movements, especially the arms and hands,
whether or not it is integrated with an utterance to communicate something.
 Other research explains that gesture is also an expression language that
arises when spoken language is unable to bring up the meaning to be conveyed,
this is explained by Gordon, Chernyak and Cordes. (2019). The research explains
that by using gestures, children are able to find answers or have a process of
thinking about the various possible answers to the problem at hand. In this case,
the researcher wants to convey that gesture encourages cognitive processes to
solve problems. Dermina & Thea also expressed their view that gesture is a form
of communication using simultaneous limbs with speech as a form of
comprehensive cognitive processes in the visual, motor and spatial aspects of
experience. This agrees with Mc Neill (1992) who argues that gesture is an
integral process in spoken language. Gesture plays as a companion or even a
driver of the verbal speech.

These views lead to the conclusion that gesture is a form of

communication expressed through body language that can strengthen verbal
expression and language or which becomes a substitute for spoken language to
communicate an opinion that is not conveyed orally. The last opinion links with
cognitive processes that occur in individuals but have not been able to convey
simultaneously with spoken language.

2.6.2 Paralanguage

Paralanguage is defined as “all means of human communication other

than words”. It is also referred to as non-verbal communication. It is a form of
face to face interaction, which is similar to sign language. Examples of
paralanguage are gesture and body posture. The interpretation and meaning of
paralanguage is context- and culture dependant. Non-verbal communication has
diverse meanings; its meanings differs across communities and cultures. It may
support spoken communication and it can communicate specific meanings. Sign
language is defined as a visual communication system used primarily by the Deaf
Community. Spoken languages rely on sound and hearing, whereas sign
languages are a visual-gestural apparent through the Signs may have different
meanings across different countries and cultures (Argyle, M. 1988).
 It is important to remember that different national sign languages may
not be mutually intelligible. However, they do use similar broad mechanisms to
express grammatical structures. Each sign has to be learned and transmitted, and
sign language users pass through the same acquisitioned stages as a child learning
oral language. This also relates to the way we learn written language through
school and we can also adopt certain gestures through observation as we grow. It
is important to note the fact that sign language is comparable to paralanguage in
the way that it varies across the globe.

In sign language, the signer uses body movement, eye contact and facial
expression to emphasise the meaning of what they are signing. They are adopting
similar modes of paralanguage that is used by speakers. “Sign language research
has shown that four components are important for the identification and
distinction of visual sign: the location of the sign in space, the handshape used to
make the sign, the type of movement made by the hands and the orientation of the
palms of the hands”. We can compare all of these components to paralanguage
factors, particularly postural congruence, gestures and facial (Pease, A. & Pease,
B. 2017)

2.6.2.1 Vocal Characterizers

Vocal characterizers a types of paralinguistic symbols. Paralanguage

includes accent, pitch, volume, speech rate, modulation, and fluency. Some
researchers also include certain non-vocal phenomena under the heading of
paralanguage: facial expressions, eye movements, hand gestures, and the like.
"The boundaries of paralanguage," says Peter Matthews, "are (unavoidably)
imprecise." Although paralinguistics was once described as the "neglected
stepchild" in language studies, linguists and other researchers have recently
demonstrated greater interest in the field. The rise in recent decades of non-face-
to-face communication through email, text messaging, and social media led to the
use of emoticons as a substitute for paralanguage.sounds that can stand alone as
symbols because they can be interpreted as having a specific meaning e.g.,
laughing, yelling, crying, grunting (Argyle, M. 1988)
2.6.2.2 Vocal Qualifier

Vocal qualifiers refer to the manner in which a verbal statement is

presented. For example, whining, chuckling, rasp, general high pitch, that may
accompany the articulation of the vowels and consonants of an utterance, which
may reflects psychological arousal, emotion, and mood. Vocal qualifiers may also
convey social information, as in a sarcastic, superior, or submissive manner of
speaking. The non-technical term, tone of voice, means the same thing as vocal
qualifiers.The voice is an extraordinary human instrument. Our voice reveals our
gender, age, geographical background, level of education, native birth, emotional
state, and our relationship to the person spoken to (Gupta, N. 2013).

All these clues (and many more) are contained in even small fragments
of speech, and other people can read our voice with remarkable accuracy—
whether it is standard or non-standard speech, it contains regional or national
accents and reflects emotion and true feelings. Voice quality reveals the emotional
state; for example, depressed people speak in a low, slow voice, with falling pitch.
It can also indicate the attitude towards the other—friendly or hostile, dominant or
submissive. Besides, accent shows social class and regional origins. All this
information can be obtained from a single, short utterance. People with deeper
voices communicate more authority; what they say appears truer or more
important (Gupta, N. 2013).

2.6.2.3 Vocal Segregates

Vocal segregates are short non-lexical utterances such as 'mm-hmm'.

They are frequently observed in natural dialogue, which they help to regulate and
maintain. Twenty-five naive subjects were asked to identify the meanings of
isolated vocal segregates recorded by unfamiliar speakers.The human voice is a
unique tool that is specific to everyone and like a fingerprint, it is an identifier.
The voice has varied qualities that make each voice distinct.

They are tone, rate and pitch etc. According to Reiman “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 cord...” The
voice is usually expressed by sounds made while whispering, giggling, talking,
singing, laughing, crying etc. Smiling and crying are innate non-verbal actions.

The voice can be modulated to be creaky, husky, and nasal etc, to create
whichever effect that is desired. Horror films are made using creaky voices to
create a chilly effect. Some advertisements are made with low breathy voices to
create a charming effect. Babies are usually cooed with lip rounding. When
people are angry or excited, their speech becomes higher and faster. It slows down
when they are bored or feeling down and is abrupt when they are feeling
defensive. Anxiety can be observed in ones vocal behavior. A speech can be said
to be eloquent when there are reduced unfilled pauses like Ah!, Oh!, Eh!, Aaaaah!
Etc. These are at times caused by tension, emotional instability or stress. There are
equally other vocal behaviors that can lead to speech disturbances. Example:
Stammering, omission, tongue slip etc. The voice can be used to control the
direction of speech air according to Poyatos

While the direction of speech air is almost always egressive, the use of
ingressive air is possible, first of all, in linguistic reflex-like verbal utterances of
surprise, expectancy or fear..., emotional questioning....the ‘Yeah’ and ‘No’, as a
repeated affirmation or negation. Para linguistically, ingressive air is used to utter,
for instance, a reflex hiss when physically hurt, a contemptuous sniff, a single-
pulse laugh or a fearful gasp...spasmodic laughter; the duration must be
differentiated between fast, as in a gasp or a panic-stricken ‘Help!’, and prolonged
or slow, as in a long, anguished ‘Aaaaah’ (Bruneau, Thomas J. 1980)

2.6.3 Proxemics

Proxemics was founded by the American anthropologist Edward Twitchell

Hall (1914–) in the late 1950s and early 1960s (1959, 1963a, 1963b) after his
systematic study during World War II, when he served in the US Army in Europe
and the Philippines, of the zones people maintain. Hall came to realize that
failures in intercultural communication arose typically from unconsciously coded
differences in the ways that members of different cultures perceived interpersonal
distances and in the ways they acted within them. Hall developed proxemic
methodology throughout the 1960s and 1970s (1959, 1963a, 1963b, 1964, 1966,
1968, 1974, 1976, 1983). Using American culture as his test case, he showed how
it is possible to measure and assess critical interpersonal zones.

In 1963, Hall defined proxemics broadly as “the study of how man

unconsciously structures microspace – the distance between men in conduct of
daily transactions, the organization of space in his houses and buildings, and
ultimately the layout of his towns” (Hall, 1963b: 1003). A year later, he limited its
purview somewhat to “the study of the ways in which man gains knowledge of the
content of other men's minds through judgments of behavior patterns associated
with varying degrees of proximity to them” (Hall, 1964: 41), which he restricted
further a few years later to the study of “the interrelated observations and theories
of man's use of space as a specialized elaboration of culture” (Hall, 1966: 1).

Hall's proposal to study the distances people maintain between each other
has led to a large body of data on this aspect of social behavior. Most of the data
shows that interpersonal zones are measurable with statistical accuracy, varying
predictably and systematically according to age, gender, and other social variables
(e.g., Segaud, 1973; Loof, 1976; Pinxten et al., 1983; and Watson and Anderson,
1987). Today, proxemics is a robust area of research pursued by all kinds of social
scientists (Mehrabian, 1969, 1972, 1976; Sundstrom and Altman, 1976; Canter,
1977; Moles and Rohmer, 1978; Harper et al., 1978; Argyle, 1988; Lawrence and
Low, 1990; Niemeir et al., 1998). Hall did not explicitly use semiotic notions to
study proxemic behavior, but his whole outlook and framework are, de facto,
semiotic in nature. The inclusion of proxemics as a branch of nonverbal semiotics
started with Eco (1968: 344–349) and Watson (1970, 1974).

2.6.4 Haptics

Haptic is the term derived from the Greek word, “haptesthai”, which means
‘sense of touch’. Haptic is defined as the “science of applying tactile sensation to
human interaction with computers”. Haptic permits users to sense (“feel”) and
manipulate three- dimensional virtual objects with respect to such features as
shape, weight, surface textures, and temperature. By using Haptic devices, the
user can not only feed information to the computer but can receive information
from the computer in the form of a felt sensation on some part of the body. This is
referred to as a Haptic interface.

Haptic Technology promises to have wide reaching applications as it

already has in some fields. For example, haptic technology has made it possible to
investigate in detail how the human sense of touch works by allowing the creation
of carefully controlled haptic virtual objects.Haptics technology can be used to
train people for tasks requiring hand-eye coordination, such as surgery and space
ship maneuvers. Although haptic devices are capable of measuring bulk or
reactive forces that are applied by the user, it should not to be confused with touch
or tactile sensors that measure the pressure or force exerted by the user to the
interface. Through haptic interface, human can interact with the computer through
body sensation and movement. Several applications such as surgical training,
gaming etc use haptic technology. Haptic technology has made it possible to
investigate in detail how the human sense of touch works by allowing the creation
of carefully controlled haptic virtual objects (Harris, W 2008)
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