Non-Verbal Communication
When we communicate, we tend to focus on what people are saying and their emotions, while paying very little attention to their body language. We're all aware of some non-verbal cues but "body language is about more than how we move and stand and the signals we give off in any interaction have more influence than the words we say" (Gray, 53). In fact "only 5 per cent of communication involves the words we use and 38 per cent involves speech as a whole. A staggering 55 per cent is attributed to body language" (53).
This would entail that during the majority of the conversations and communications we have with people often take place without us realizing the non-verbal signals that we are giving off in our body language. "Up to 93% of all face-to-face communication is sent through nonverbal means. This implies the room for miscommunication is awfully wide" (Fazzi, 89).
It's important for people to have a basic understanding of these non-verbal cues so that it can aid them in knowing how to respond to people as well as how well they are responding to others. With this in mind, we must also understand that there are cultural differences in body language and some of the basics that we all seem to know (i.e: 'hands on hips' means 'defiant' (Pierce-Rusunen, D.1)) may not cross over into other cultures. "Problems arise when generalizations are made about body language" (D.1) and it is therefore significant to gain "literacy in foreign body languages" because "body language is often culture-specific" (D.1).
Body language essentially includes a variety of facial expressions, posture, eye contact, and other parts of the body. This is coupled with aspects of speech that include "intonation, stress, rate of speech, loudness and accent"...
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