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Nonverbal communication

Юканькина Светлана. Алтайская государственная академия образования им. В.М.Шукшина, Бийск, Алтайский край, Россия

What does the phrase ‘nonverbal communication’ mean? Does it help us to understand people of other cultures?

First of all I’d like to give the definition of ‘nonverbal communication’. It is communication without words. People ‘talk’ with the help of their bodies. We should remember that one and the same gesture can be interpreted in different ways. It depends on the culture. For example in Greece and Turkey one shouldn’t show two fingers to the waiter, pointing at two cups of coffee. In these countries it is considered as offensive as spitting in someone’s face.

So, we have discovered that it is important and useful to know the national peculiarities in order not to get into trouble at work and in day to day life. Furthermore, gestures can expose the true feelings or desires of our opponent, because people strike a pose without paying attention to its meaning. For instance when during a conversation somebody’s feet are turned in the direction of exit, it could mean that he or she wants to leave the place of discussion because of boredom.

As you can see, we should consider gestures and poses equally with situations of their usage.

Now I’d like to speak about certain cases of nonverbal communication.

The positional relationship of the pupils(their constriction or broadening), the position of eyebrows, eyelids, forehead is also important.

When a thought is starting to form in the mind, one doesn’t look in their partner’s eyes. The situation is different, when everything has already been determined, and there is something worth saying. In this case the listener is in the active position. He shows the speaker that he is eager to listen, and he is interested in what is being said. If the connection between the speaker and listener isn’t completed, there is reason to question whether or not both partners are interested in the conversation.

As it was mentioned above, the direction of look is also important. There are three types of look: business, social and intimate. The business look is concentrated on the imaginary triangle on the forehead of the partner and creates a business atmosphere. When a person focuses on the triangle on your face in the area of the eyes and mouth, it is a social look. The intimate look is expressed by looking someone in the eyes only. One shouldn’t use this look in solving business problems because of the risk to be misunderstood.

Another source of information is the pose of a person, either dynamic orstatic. There are more than one thousand such poses, depending on nationality, sex, age, and cultural and religious peculiarities of people. When we talk about ‘closed’ poses, the non communicative partner covers the most vulnerable parts of the body: the stomach and chest. In this case it is not difficult to understand that the conversation wouldn’t be constructive.

If a person shows his ‘open’ hands, stands straight, looks at you, he is showing that he is eager to speak.

What can I add about gestures? First of all they can be glaring and very expressive. It is necessary to mention that Mexicans use gestures one hundred eighty times, Frenchmen – one hundred twenty times, Italians – eighty times, Finns – only one gesture during a conversation. Russian people, on the other hand, are very restrained, and lively gesticulation is a sign of bad manners.

Again speaking about two fingers: in Australia, New Zealand and Great Britain this gesture is regarded as an insult if the palm is turned towards the speaker. But with the palm turned towards the listener, it means victory. In Europe these two gestures are not distinguished and serve to show victory or the number of items.

One more interesting fact concerns personal space. It can differ with nationality. Scientists, dealing with the investigation of people, singled out five personal space areas: the hidden intimate, intimate, personal zones, the zone of communication, and the open zone. These zones have an influence on people’s emotions and actions.

The hidden intimate zone includes from one to fifteen centimeters of distance between the speakers. It is evident that only relatives, good friends and loved ones are allowed to stay this close, because they want to touch or to hug you. In the case of sudden invasion by someone else into this zone, a person can react with rudeness and hostility. The second area is the intimate. It includes the distance in the next thirty centimeters. People find it necessary to protect this zone from strangers, as an intrusion can make us feel lack of comfort and safety. If a person doesn’t like someone to be close during communication, it is better to stop bothering him in order not to put a strain on him. The next is the personal zone, including from forty six up to one hundred twenty centimeters. Western people prefer this distance during public occasions and events. The zone of communication is measured from one hundred twenty centimeters to three hundred sixty centimeters. The communication within the scope of this area can be observed in the street, shops and even at home, or when a client or a customer talks with a shop assistant or messenger. Some types of discussions on business matters are also fulfilled within the radius of this area. The open zone is when an orator, for instance, speaks with the audience at a distance of three hundred sixty centimeters.

However, as it was mentionedabove, one and the same gesture may have completely different meaning in different cultures.

The gesture which Russian people use to demonstrate loss, Croatians use to show success and

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