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Nonverbal and Para verbal Communication

Non Verbal Communication (NVC) can be communicated through gestures and

touch (Haptic communication), by body language or posture, by facial expression and eye
contact.
Speech contains nonverbal elements known as paralanguage, including quality, emotion and
speaking style, as well as prosodic features such as rhythm, intonation and stress.

Types of Non Verbal Communication (NVC)

✓ Proxemics: physical space in communication and the study of how humans use space
when we're communicating. How close we stand to someone, whether we touch them,
and how comfortable we feel are all part of the study of proxemics.
In order to understand more about proxemics, we need to discuss different kinds of

spaces. There are four kinds of distance that people generally use in communication.

This can vary by place, and different cultures have different standards. These are

known as realms of personal territory. Let's talk about these now.

• Public space is the space that characterizes how close we sit or stand to someone, like
a public figure or public speaker. So, if you are at an event listening to a professor give
a lecture, you are probably about 12 - 25 feet away.
• Social space means we're getting a little closer, about 4 - 12 feet away. This is the
kind of space you're probably in if you're talking to a colleague or a customer at work.
• Personal space is even closer. In this case, you're probably about 1 - 4 feet away from
someone. This is reserved for talking to friends or family.
• Intimate space is for people who you are very close to. In this case, you're probably
less than a foot away and you might even be touching the other person. This is the
space you're in with a romantic partner, for example.

It is important to note that this can vary culturally. These are the standards we

generally find in the United States. But this might not be the case everywhere.

For example, it might be considered rude to stand too close to someone in one place but
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not another. It might be very common to touch someone's arm or shoulder while talking

in one place, but this could be considered rude in other places. In one country, you

might greet someone with a kiss on the cheek, and in other places this might be

considered too intimate.

✓ Movement and body position

* Kinesics (the study of body movements, gestures, facial expressions, etc., as

a means of communication).

* Body posture (The way you place your body and arms and legs, in relation to each
other, and in relation to other people. This includes:

• Body proximity - How far or close to other people.

• Shoulder movements - Up, down, hanging, hunched.
• Arm placement - up, down, crossed, straight.
• Leg and feet placement - straight, crossed, weight placement, feet towards speaking
partner or pointing elsewhere, dangling of shoes.
• The way, in which we sit or stand, walk in walk out tells a lot about us.

• A good posture indicates confident attitude.

* Gesture (a non-vocal bodily movement intended to express meaning. It may be

articulated with the hands, arms or body, and also include movements of
the head, face and eyes, such as winking, nodding, or rolling ones' eyes.
Involuntary movements - Usually called "tells", but "ticks" also fall into
this category. Any body movement you have no control over falls in this
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category. Gesture of a person convey much more than what he speaks.)

Examples of gesture:

• Waving of hand to indicate goodbye or draw the

attention of a person

• Shaking Hands display the friendship

• Shrugging of shoulders indicates indifference

and unconcern

• Pointing index finger indicates allegation or charge

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• Thumbs up sign indicates wishing “Good Luck”

* Haptics: touching in communication

✓ Facial expression
The face has many muscles that move several areas of the face. Each combination of
movements of the following face elements communicates a state of mind:
• Eyebrows - Up, down, frowning.
• Eyes - Left, right, up, down, blinking, eye dialiation.
• Nose - Wrinkle (at the top), flaring of the nostrills.
• Lips - Smiling, snarling, puckered, kissing, opened, closed, tight.
• Tongue - In, out, rolled, tip up or down, licking of lips.
• Jaw - Open, closed, clinched, lower jaw left or right.
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Examples of facial expressions

• A Smile expresses
friendliness and
affection

• Raised eyebrows convey surprise

• Furrowed forehead
expresses worries and
anxiety

• Frown shows dislike or suspicion

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✓ Eye contact needs to be neither too little nor too much. Amount of eye contact is
related to various things, such as personality type.

• Eye contact has very much in face-to-face communication.

• Absence of eye contact shows lack of interest & understanding.
• We look faster than listen or talk.
• Eyes are human windows except them there is no life.
• The speaker must look into the eyes of the audience from right to left and left to
right
this will build up the confidence and eliminate the nervousness.
• It builds the rapport between the speaker and the listener.

Eye contact

✓ Paralanguage: nonverbal cues of the voice (various acoustic properties of speech

such as
❖ tone (= a modulation of the voice expressing a particular feeling),
❖ pitch of the voice (= a standard degree of highness or lowness used in
performance),
❖ pace (= speed of speech : quick/slow),
❖ intonation (the way that your voice rises and falls as you speak.
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▪ A falling intonation is very common in w/h questions or when we

want to be very clear about something.
▪ A rising intonation is common in yes/no questions
▪ Fall-rise intonation is used to request information or to invite
somebody to do or to have something. Here the intonation pattern
makes the question sound more polite. Fall-rise intonation is also used
in question tags and when we want to say that we are not sure and
we may have more to add.

They are collectively known as prosody, can all give off nonverbal cues).
Paralanguage may change the meaning of words. Prosody may reflect various features
of the speaker or the utterance:
- the emotional state of a speaker;
- whether an utterance is a statement, a question, or a command; whether the speaker is
being ironic or sarcastic; emphasis, contrast, and focus; other elements of language
that may not be encoded by grammar or choice of vocabulary.

References

Noaimi, D. H. (2018). The body language. Bahrain: University of Bahrain.

Pennycook, A. (1985). Actions speak louder than words: Paralanguage, communication and
education. TESOL Quarterly, 19(2), 259-282.