Types of nonverbal communication

Communication doesn’t require verbal language all the time. When you make a heart with your hands, the other can figure out the message that you have a good feeling to him or her even if the other person doesn't hear anything from you. According to Adler et al. (2017), nonverbal communication is “messages expressed through nonlinguistic means.” In this post, I will think about the different types of nonverbal communication.

1.       Body movement

The most noticeable nonverbal communication is body movement. Body movement includes posture, gesture, face and eyes expression. Two or more expressions can be combined and show different emotions. According to Adler et al. (2017), gestures are a fundamental element of communication and manipulates another part. (p.167)

 

2.     Voice

The tone of voice simply can change the meaning of the message you want to communicate by changing pitch, intonation, volume, and tempo. According to Adler et al. (2017), listeners pay more attention to the vocal messages than to the words that speak when asked to determine a speaker’s attitudes. (p.170)

For example; 

He is a famous doctor. (you emphasize he is a doctor.)

He is a famous doctor.  (you emphasize he is a famous, not ordinary doctor)

3.     Appearance

Practically, most people prefer others who have a more attractive appearance and wears nice clothes. The meaning of attractiveness includes physical attractiveness and also being sensitive, kind, strong, sociable. (Adler et al., 2017, p.170) Physical attractiveness can give a good first impression but, inner beauty can be revealed over time spending together.

4.     Touch

According to Adler et al. (2017), tough can elicit a powerful emotional reaction in the receiver. You can get encouraged by a supportive pat on your back or a high five, in vice versa, you might feel upset when someone hits you head for any reason.

5.    Space

You can communicate by keeping the space between you and others. We consider space or distance is our territory. We are asked to keep the social distance due to Corvid 19 these days. The social distance ranges from 4 to 12 feet. Intimate distance ranges to about 18 inches, and it involves interaction with people to whom we’re emotionally close. (Adler et al., 2017, p.173) If a stranger approaches into your intimate distance, you can feel uncomfortable or consider as an attack. It is so sad that one woman pushed an old woman to death because the old lady was standing too close to her. The woman must have felt the too close distance of a stranger the same as the threatening of Covid 19.

6.     Environment

According to Adler et al. (2017), an environment can shape of interaction. Your places reflect your habits and attitude the way you think. Approaching the other side, people can achieve high performance when they work in a nice environment than ugly or dirty. (p.174) As revealed by researches, when people work in a nice environment,  they think that they are valuable to the company which provides the environment for them. It motivates them to work well.

7.    Time

According to Adler et al. (2017), the way people handle time can express both intentional and unintentional messages.

The people of the polychronic time-oriented culture (p-time culture) do many things simultaneously, are more concerned with people and the present moment than with schedule and believe that they are in command of time rather than being controlled by it. P-time culture is found bordering in the Mediterranean, Africa, and South America. It can say that polychronic culture has more flexibility than monochronic but people from the M-culture are hard to adjust the P-time culture. (Samovar et al. 2012, p.313) 

The people of the monochronic time-oriented culture (m-time culture) organize their lives around time by relying heavily on-time keeping instruments like clocks, calendars, computers, and cell-phone reminders. They emphasize schedules the segmentation of times and promptness. (Samovar et al. 2012. p.313). In a culture that values time highly, like the United States, waiting can be an indicator of status. A lower-status people must never make more important people wait. 

You may think Korean is rude or no manner when you see people ask something to a cashier even it is not their turn. Korean people believe it is ok that they ask something to cashier unless it is not about ordering or taking a long time to do it. But in America, that is not acceptable. My husband says if I barge in like that, Americans look down me like no manner person. This example represents Korean culture is more polychronic time-oriented. They put more value to do multitasks in a short time and consider that that flexibility is an individual's abilities.

References

Samovar, Porter, McDaniel (2012). Intercultural Communication (13th ed.). U.S.: Wadsworth Nelson Education.

Adler, Rodman, and du Pre (2017). Understanding Human Communication (13th ed.). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Linguistic Relativism

According to Adler et al. (2017), the language we speak shapes the way we view the world. In other words, the world people in different cultures have different world views. This hypothesis was mentioned by Benjamin Whorf and Edward Sapir in the 1900s. The grammar and vocabulary you learned participate in shaping your thinking and talking.

For example, in English, there is only one word for “rice”, you can say steamed rice or fried rice but eventually rice can be described as the word “rice”. But in Korean, there are several words of rice. If the rice is cooked, Korean call “Bap”. If the rice is not cooked, they call “Ssal”. If the rice is not harvested yet, they call “Byuh”. Because rice is the main source of food in Korea, they have a more detailed vocabulary for rice than Americans.

If the hypothesis of Sapir and Whorf is true, a language gives a strong impact on a person’s perspective. The people who speak the gendered language have more strong gender distinguish concept than non-gendered language speakers because they are taught since their childhood.  As the gendered languages categorize most words by a male, female, the people who speak gendered languages have a strong resistance to the trend of advocates for new gender diversities. The distinction between men and women is the root of their thought and culture. It is not surprising that they opposed to making the language more gender-neutral and insist that it will cause social chaos.

                       

References

McAuley, James. (2017, Oct. 27). Gatekeepers say gender-neutral pronouns pose ‘deadly danger’ for the French language. The Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/10/27/is-making-french-less-sexist-a-threat-to-the-language-the-academie-francaise-says-oui/

Adler, Rodman, and du Pre (2017). Understanding Human Communication (13th ed.). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Reasons for Poor Listening

If we know why we lose our attention during the communication, we can find ways how to overcome and enhance understanding people more. There are several reasons we fail to listen to well.

Too many messages make us easily lose our focus during the conversation. Unintentionally, we are in the deluge of communication like emails, texts, messages, and mass media. That overwhelmed information become disturbances to us.

When the speed to talk is too fast, we fail to listen well. According to Adler, Rodman, and du Pre (2017), we have a great deal of mental “spare time” to spend while someone is talking. The trick is to use this spare time to understand the speaker’s ideas better rather than to let your attention wander.

When we concern about other things than communication, it is easy to lose a point of the conversation because a listener is already preoccupied with noises from his or her cognition.

Like psychological noise can be a distraction of your listening, physical noise is the same. When you are tired or have something discomfort, you can’t listen well. Even the best intentions aren’t enough to ensure a clear understanding. (Adler et al., 2017, p.130)

If you have hearing problems, the Defects of hearing make trouble to listen. Older people aren’t the only ones affected. According to Adler, Rodman, and du Pre (2017), the number of young people with hearing loss is on the rise, in part because of earbuds and similar technology that make it possible to blast our eardrums with a dangerously loud noise.

When you don’t have enough understanding of cultural differences between you and others, it may lead to miscommunication. Listening styles can be varied depending on cultures and become more the function of habit than of conscious choice, and people often come to rely on a predominant listening style (Dragan & Sherblom, 2008, p.174). Individual cultures show action-oriented listening versus collectivist cultures more people-oriented listening style. People’s listening styles reflect the influence of that person’s cultural background. (Langer, 1980)

How well listen has a profound effect on how well understand in our communication. We can't control how the other person conveys their information. Still, as a listener, we can improve the quality of communication by sorting necessary information and improving the ability to listen by avoiding the distraction of unrelated thinking and maintaining good physical condition.

Reference

Dragan, D. & Sherblom, J. (2008). The Influence of Cultural Individualism and Collectivism on US and Post Soviet listening Styles. Human Communication, Vol. 11 Issue 2, p173-188.

Adler, Rodman, and du Pre (2017). Understanding Human Communication (13th ed.). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Rules of Language

Pezi presentation about Rule of language

I made a Prezi presentation regarding the rules of language. You can check it out by clicking the link provided above.
As I summarized in the presentation, there are four rules governing language, which are phonological, syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic rules. To make it simple, the phonological rule is about sounds and pronunciation, the syntactic rule is about the structure of sentences, the semantic rule is about the meaning of words, and lastly, the pragmatic rule is about language in everyday interaction.

As a person who speaks English as a second language, I have struggled with the aspect of the syntactic rule between English and Korean. According to the Youtube video, which is  "Are sentences more like a bracelet or a mobile?" it is important the linear structure of sentences, and also the relationship of words in sentences. If a language can be explained only with linear structures, it may not be challenging to learn that much. Unfortunately, a language has a very detailed and complicated relationship between words, so that learning a second language consumes lots of time.  


Reference

Adler, Rodman, and du Pre (2017). Understanding Human Communication (13th ed.). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Private-self and Public-self

According to Adler, Rodman, and du Pre (2017), we acquire the views to see ourselves and others by communication. Therefore, the way to see each other is an essential component of understanding communication. There is a difference between the way I see myself and the way I want to show others. The way I see myself is the private self, and the way I want to show others is the public self.

The private self shows the expression of self-concept and can be found when you look at yourself honestly in a private setting. Others might not notice your private self unless you want to disclose it. The private self is not the same as ideal selves either. In many cases, your private self has many aspects you want to hide or not share with others.

From the other side of view, the public self is the way you want to show to others. Most likely, a public-self image is similar to a socially approved image(p55), such as a smart kid, faithful partner, skillful technician, famous writer, etc. Sociologist Erving Goffman described the image to show to others as a face. According to Goffman (1955), the face is the positive public image you seek to establish in social interactions. Because humans are social animals, they tend to create their own image in a way that is socially recognized. Goffman said that people try to create a “face” with verbal and nonverbal behaviors. He called it facework. The reason why one refrains from expressing emotions quickly and directly even he/she gets mad comes from the desire to make the “face” look good, and that is the facework. According to Merkins(2004) said that long-term oriented cultural members value willingness to subordinate one's self for harmony and cooperation in her article. I think facework is one of the characters of collectivism.


Reference

Merkin, Rebecca S. Cultural Long-Term Orientation and Facework Strategies. Atlantic Journal of Communication. 2004, Vol. 12 Issue 3, p163-176. 14p. DOI: 10.1207/s15456889ajc1203_3.

Adler, Rodman, and du Pre (2017). Understanding Human Communication (13th ed.). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.