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Non Verbal
Communication
IMD 121- COMMUNICATION SKILLS FOR INFORMATION
PROFESSIONAL
Chapter Goals 2

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 Identify the major channels of nonverbal communication and give examples of
the messages sent and received through these channels.
7 CHANNELS OF NON-VERBAL 3

COMMUNICATION

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 Body communication
 Facial and eye communication
 Spatial communication
 Artifactual communication
 Touch communication
 Paralanguage and silence
 Time communication
NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION 4

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 Nonverbal communication is communication without words.
 Anything beside words that can communicate a message is called nonverbal message.
 It can be identify through bodily action, gesture, facial expression, eye movements,
spatial relationship, clothing and color, touch, vocal rate, volume and even the way you
treat time and etc.
 The topic focuses on how nonverbal used in communication.
 The 7 channels of non-verbal communication;
 Body Messages
 Facial & Eye Movement
 Spatial Messages
 Artifactual Communication
 Touch Communication
 Paralanguage and Silence
 Time Communication.
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BODY COMMUNICATION

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Two areas of the body are especially important in communicating messages;
1. Body movement (body gesture)
2. Body appearance
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BODY COMMUNICATION (cont)

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1. Body movement (body gesture)
i. Emblems - body gestures that directly translate words or phrases.
ii. Illustrators - nonverbal behaviors that accompany and enhance (literally ‘illustrate’) verbal messages.
iii. Affect displays - nonverbal movements of the face, hands and body that communicate emotional meaning.
iv. Regulators - behaviors that monitor, control, coordinate or maintain the speaking of others.
v. Adaptors – gestures that satisfy some personal need, such as scratching to relieve and itch or moving your
hair out of your eyes.
a. Self-adaptors - self touching movements.
b. Alter-adaptors - movements directed at the person with whom you are speaking.
c. Object-adaptors - gestures focuses on objects.
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BODY COMMUNICATION (cont)

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2. Body appearance
 General body appearance and attractiveness also communicates.
I. Heights and weight.
II. Hair length, color and style.
III. Skin color.
IV. Attractiveness.
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FACIAL AND EYE COMMUNICATION

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Facial Communication – communicates the degree of pleasantness,
agreement, sympathy felt.
 facial movements communicate at least 8 emotions - happiness, surprise, fear, anger,
sadness, disgust, contempt and interest.
 Facial management techniques;
 Intensifying to exaggerate a feeling.
 Deintensifying to underplay a feeling.
 Neutralizing to hide a feeling.
 Masking to replace or substitute the expression of one emotion for another.
 Simulating to express an emotion you didn’t feel.
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FACIAL AND EYE COMMUNICATION
(Cont)

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Eye Communication – the eyes are regarded as the most important nonverbal
message system.
 The messages communicated by the eyes vary depending on duration, direction and the
quality of the eye behavior.

 The functions of eye movements;

 To seek feedback.
 To signal openness in the communication channel.
 To signal the nature of a relationship.
 To change the psychological distance between you and another.
 To help others maintain privacy through ‘civil inattention’ (eye avoidance).
 To signal lack of interest through eye avoidance.
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SPATIAL COMMUNICATION

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Edward T. Hall (1959,1963,19760 pioneered the study of spatial
communication and call this research area proxemics (the way you
treat and communicate through space).
Space communication;
 Proxemic distances (spatial distances)
 Territoriality
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SPATIAL COMMUNICATION (cont)

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Space communication;
 Proxemic distances (spatial distances)
 the distances that define types of relationships between people;
I. Intimate – actual touching to 18 inches (intimate relationship).
II. Personal – 18 inches to 4 feet (personal relationship).
III. Social – 4 feet to 12 feet (social relationship).
IV. Public – 12 feet to 25 feet
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SPATIAL COMMUNICATION (cont)

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Space communication;
 Territoriality - a possessive reaction to an area or to particular
objects.
 Human basically interact with three types territories;
 Primary territories – your own area; your exclusive preserve areas
 Secondary territories – areas that don’t belong to you but which you
have occupied and with which you’re associated.
 PublicTerritories – areas that open to all people and may be owned
by some person or organization.
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SPATIAL COMMUNICATION (cont)

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Space communication;
 Territoriality
 Human uses three types of markers to signal ownership;
 Central markers – marker used to reserve territory.
 Boundary markers – boundaries set between your territory and the others.
 Ear markers – marker used to identify one’s possessions.
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ARTIFACTUAL COMMUNICATION

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 Message that convey through objects or arrangements made by human.
 Color Communication – evidence suggests that colors may influence our physiologically,
perceptions and behaviors.
 Clothing, Body adornment and Odor – people make inferences about who you are- in part –
by the way you dress.
 Space Decoration – how you decorate your private spaces communicates who you are.
 Smell Communication (Olfactory) – the communicative function of odor;
 Basically, smell communicates two important messages;
 Attraction messages – smell used to enhance attractiveness.
 Identification messages – smell often used to create an image or an identity for a product.
 Memory messages
 Taste messages
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TOUCH COMMUNICATION

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 Touch Communication (tactile) - the communication function of
touch and touching behavior.
 The meanings of touch;
 Positive emotions.
 Playfulness.
 Control.
 Ritual.
 Task-relatedness.
 Touch avoidance – our desire to avoid touching and being touched by others.
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PARALANGUAGE AND SILENCE

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 Paralanguage – the vocal (but nonverbal dimension of speech).
 It has to do with how we say something rather than what we say.
 It includes vocal characteristics to communicate your meanings and to add interest
and color your messages.
 Emphasizing the same term with different paralinguistic features (vocal
characteristics) will result different meaning received by different people.
 The use of paralanguage enables other peoples make inference about other
peoples’ personality;
 Judgments about people – you make judgments about another’s personality on the basis
of that person’s paralinguistic cues.
 Judgments about communication effectiveness – how fast you talk influence how others
perceive you.
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PARALANGUAGE AND SILENCE
(cont)

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 Silence – the absence of sound (but not of communication).
 Functions of silence;
 Allows the speaker time to think.
 May be used to hurt others.
 May be used as a response to personal anxiety, shyness or threats.
 May be used to prevent communication of certain messages.
 Used to communicate emotional responses.
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TIME COMMUNICATION

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 Time Communication (Chronemics) – the use of time; how you
treat, organize and react to time.
 Cultural time
 Psychological time
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TIME COMMUNICATION (cont)

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 Cultural time – Culture influences time communication in a variety
of ways;
 Informal time – general time terms (e.g. forever, immediately, soon).
 Monochronism and Polychronism.
 Monochronism people or cultures compartmentalize time (e.g USA, Germany,
Switzerland).
 Polychronism people or cultures schedule several things at a time (e.g. Latin
America, Mediterranean countries, Arabic countries).
 The Social clock – the right time according to your culture and society to do a
variety of important things (e.g. dating, graduating from college, having
children).
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TIME COMMUNICATION (cont)

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 Psychological Time – the relative importance we place on the past,
present or future.
 Past orientation – people that have a particular reverence for the past.
 Present orientation – people who live in the present-for now and without
planning for tomorrow.
 Future orientation – people who look toward and live for the future.