.

Q) Explore the significance of nonverbal communication as a

supplement to verbal communication. Provide examples from daily
life and discuss how nonverbal cues such as body language,
paralanguage, and gestures enhance or sometimes contradict the
verbal messages we convey.

INTRODUCTION

While the key to success in both personal and professional relationships

lies in your ability to communicate well, it’s not the words that you use
but your nonverbal cues or “body language” that speak the loudest.
Body language is the use of physical behaviour, expressions, and
mannerisms to communicate nonverbally, often done instinctively
rather than consciously.

Whether you’re aware of it or not, when you interact with others, you’re
continuously giving and receiving wordless signals. All of your
nonverbal behaviours—the gestures you make, your posture, your tone
of voice, how much eye contact you make—send strong messages.
They can put people at ease, build trust, and draw others towards you,
or they can offend, confuse, and undermine what you’re trying to
convey. These messages don’t stop when you stop speaking either.
Even when you’re silent, you’re still communicating nonverbally.
In some instances, what comes out of your mouth and what you
communicate through your body language may be two totally different
things. If you say one thing, but your body language says something
else, your listener will likely feel that you’re being dishonest. If you
say “yes” while shaking your head no, for example. When faced with
such mixed signals, the listener has to choose whether to believe your
verbal or nonverbal message. Since body language is a natural,
unconscious language that broadcasts your true feelings and intentions,
they’ll likely choose the nonverbal message.
 Your nonverbal communication cues—the way you listen,
look, move, and react—tell the person you're communicating with
whether or not you care, if you're being truthful, and how well you're
listening. When your nonverbal signals match up with the words you're
saying, they increase trust, clarity, and rapport. When they don't, they
can generate tension, mistrust, and confusion.

If you want to become a better communicator, it's important to become

more sensitive not only to the body language and nonverbal cues of
others, but also to your own.

Nonverbal communication can play five roles:

 Repetition: It repeats and often strengthens the message you're

making verbally.
 Contradiction: It can contradict the message you're trying to
convey, thus indicating to your listener that you may not be telling
the truth.
 Substitution: It can substitute for a verbal message. For example,
your facial expression often conveys a far more vivid message
than words ever can.
 Complementing: It may add to or complement your verbal
message. As a boss, if you pat an employee on the back in
 addition to giving praise, it can increase the impact of your
message.
 Accenting: It may accent or underline a verbal message.
Pounding the table, for example, can underline the importance of
your message.

Types of nonverbal communication

The many different types of nonverbal communication or body

language include:

Facial expressions. The human face is extremely expressive, able to

convey countless emotions without saying a word. And unlike some
forms of nonverbal communication, facial expressions are universal.
The facial expressions for happiness, sadness, anger, surprise, fear, and
disgust are the same across cultures.

Body movement and posture. Consider how your perceptions of

people are affected by the way they sit, walk, stand, or hold their head.
The way you move and carry yourself communicates a wealth of
information to the world. This type of nonverbal communication
includes your posture, bearing, stance, and the subtle movements you
make.

Gestures. Gestures are woven into the fabric of our daily lives. You
may wave, point, beckon, or use your hands when arguing or speaking
animatedly, often expressing yourself with gestures without thinking.
However, the meaning of some gestures can be very different across
cultures. While the “OK” sign made with the hand, for example, usually
conveys a positive message in English-speaking countries, it's
considered offensive in countries such as Germany, Russia, and Brazil.
So, it's important to be careful of how you use gestures to avoid
misinterpretation.

Eye contact. Since the visual sense is dominant for most people, eye
contact is an especially important type of nonverbal communication.
The way you look at someone can communicate many things, including
interest, affection, hostility, or attraction. Eye contact is also important
in maintaining the flow of conversation and for gauging the other
person's interest and response.

Touch. We communicate a great deal through touch. Think about the

very different messages given by a weak handshake, a warm bear hug,
a patronizing pat on the head, or a controlling grip on the arm, for
example.

Space. Have you ever felt uncomfortable during a conversation

because the other person was standing too close and invading your
space? We all have a need for physical space, although that need differs
depending on the culture, the situation, and the closeness of the
relationship. You can use physical space to communicate many
different nonverbal messages, including signals of intimacy and
affection, aggression or dominance.
Voice. It's not just what you say, it's how you say it. When you speak,
other people “read” your voice in addition to listening to your words.
Things they pay attention to include your timing and pace, how loud
you speak, your tone and inflection, and sounds that convey
understanding, such as “ahh” and “uh-huh.” Think about how your tone
of voice can indicate sarcasm, anger, affection, or confidence.

How nonverbal communication can go wrong

What you communicate through your body language and nonverbal

signals affects how others see you, how well they like and respect you,
and whether or not they trust you. Unfortunately, many people send
confusing or negative nonverbal signals without even knowing it.
When this happens, both connection and trust in relationships are
damaged, as the following examples highlight:

 Jack believes he gets along great with his colleagues at work, but
if you were to ask any of them, they would say that Jack is
“intimidating1” and “very intense.” Rather than just look at you,
he seems to devour you with his eyes. And if he takes your hand,
he lunges to get it and then squeezes so hard it hurts. Jack is a
caring guy who secretly wishes he had more friends, but his
nonverbal awkwardness keeps people at a distance and limits his
ability to advance at work.

1
Intimidating : causing a loss of courage or self-confidence
  Arlene is attractive and has no problem meeting eligible men, but
she has a difficult time maintaining a relationship for longer than
a few months. Arlene is funny and interesting, but even though
she constantly laughs and smiles, she radiates tension. Her
shoulders and eyebrows are noticeably raised, her voice is shrill,
and her body is stiff. Being around Arlene makes many people
feel anxious and uncomfortable. Arlene has a lot going for her
that is undercut by the discomfort she evokes in others.
 Ted thought he had found the perfect match when he met Sharon,
but Sharon wasn't so sure. Ted is good looking, hardworking, and
a smooth talker, but seemed to care more about his thoughts than
Sharon's. When Sharon had something to say, Ted was always
ready with wild eyes and a rebuttal before she could finish her
thought. This made Sharon feel ignored, and soon she started
dating other men. Ted loses out at work for the same reason. His
inability to listen to others makes him unpopular with many of the
people he most admires.

These smart, well-intentioned people struggle in their attempt to

connect with others. The sad thing is that they are unaware of the
nonverbal messages they communicate.

The Role of Nonverbal in Everyday Life

We communicate nonverbally constantly. It’s the primary way that we

communicate with other people. In this section, we’re going to explore
the role that nonverbal communication plays in our day-to-day lives.
Nonverbal has Communicative Value

The meaning associated with nonverbal communication in any given

interaction cannot be underestimated. For example, if you are having a
conversation with your friend who just broke up with her girlfriend,
you will use more than the words, “I just broke up with my girlfriend”
to understand how to communicate with your friend. Your friend’s
facial expression, way of standing, rate of speech, tone of voice, and
general appearance, just to name a few, will indicate to you how you
should respond. If she is sobbing, gasping for air, hunched over, and
appears emotionally pained, you might attempt to comfort her. If she
says, “I just broke up with my girlfriend” and sighs while placing her
hand over her heart, she might appear relieved. Your response might
be, “it seems like you may be a little relieved. Were things not going
well?”

Thus, nonverbal communication plays a tremendous role in

successfully engaging in interactions. The successful use of nonverbal
communication requires an awareness of the value of nonverbal
communication and the belief that it is valuable. When individuals are
unaware of the importance of nonverbal communication, they may be
overlooking crucial interactional information. For example, one of the
authors of this textbook was once meeting with a colleague who was
repeatedly sighing during a meeting. Later, when she and her colleague
were discussing the meeting, he said, “Didn’t you notice that I was
sighing?” She told him she did notice that he was sighing, but she was
unsure why. We will discuss this further in the ambiguity of nonverbal
communication. In this example, the author’s colleague was aware of
the importance of nonverbal communication and attempted to use it
deliberately.

In addition to awareness, individuals must believe that nonverbal

communication is valuable. If your parent/guardian ever said to you,
“it wasn’t what you said, it was how you said it,” then your
parent/guardian was demonstrating a belief that nonverbal
communication is essential. An individual may acknowledge that
nonverbal communication exists but may discount its value. For
example, one of the authors had a recurring argument with the author’s
spouse, who would sigh or roll her eyes as a response in interaction.
The author would ask the spouse what it meant, and the spouse would
inevitably say, “I can sigh or roll my eyes without it meaning anything.”
This is not an uncommon response, but the authors of this text hope to
dispel this perception.
When we were infants, all of our communication was non-verbal. Our
ability to communicate non-verbally would have developed if our
parents were responsive to our sounds and expressions. This is
important as we develop because communication is approximately
55% body language, 38% vocal tone, and 7% what is said. That's
93% of communication! Most people aren't formally trained to
recognize what all of this means.
The delivery of a message can completely change the meaning. How
many ways can you say "What are you up to?" Playfully? Stern? What
happens when you change your body language? Place your hands on
your hips with your thumbs back and spread your feet to around
shoulder width. Now, with a commanding tone demand an answer.
Vastly different than the smile accompanied by light kiss when your
spouse approaches from behind you while working late in your home
office.

Another important point to understand is that much of our non-verbal

communication is directed by our limbic system. This is the basis for
all interrogation. A simple way to understand this is to consider what
happens if we feel threatened. We might try to puff out our chests while
our jaws tighten and our fists turn white as we clench them. We also
might run away. This is our fight, flight, or freeze response. Why is this
important? A person's body language is much more honest than what
is said or even what the face might convey. This is for two reasons: 1)
our limbic responses to communication stimuli are subconscious. 2)
many of us learn to conceal our true emotions at an early age, which
conditions us to say the opposite of what we feel and modify our
expression. We can communicate much more effectively if we break
this conditioned habit and learn to understand what and how we are
communicating.

I thought this would also be important to mention: Some customer

service companies train employees to smile over the phone while
talking. Why? Try it. The person on the other end of the line will
"sense" it.

Body language can even change our physiology. A recent NPR

broadcast interviewed a yoga studio that incorporated power poses into
a curriculum that helped treat PTSD symptoms. Check it out. Changing
2
our posture can change how we feel. It's the same mechanism t3hat
occurs naturally; but, in reverse. Somewhere, I read that there was a
study performed with bungee jumpers that supports this assertion. Here
is a short explanation: The participants that raised their hands above
their heads jumped at least 3 seconds sooner, on average, than those
that did not.

What Is Paralanguage?

Paralanguage is a form of nonverbal communication that allows people

to add layers of meaning to their spoken utterances through the
manipulation of the manner of speech, or the way they say things.
Paralanguage refers to the conveyance of meaning through non-lexical
tokens (or non-words, such as "huh," "hmm," or "well") such as

2
PTSD Symptoms: Is A Mental Health Condition That Happens When
Someone Experiences a Traumatic Event. Symptoms may include nightmares or
flashbacks, avoidance of situations that bring back the trauma, heightened
reactivity to stimuli, anxiety or depressed mood.
3
Limbic system: is to process and regulate emotion and memory while also
dealing with sexual stimulation and learning
qualities of prosody (or the rhythm, stress, and sound of speech).
Various aspects of linguistic communication are conveyed through
different components of language, like words (lexemes), grammatical
structure (morphosyntactics), and sound (phonology). These
components, however, do not fully encapsulate the depth or nuance of
human communication because the way we say things greatly
influences how others interpret us. Paralanguage, therefore, is the term
used to discuss these other vocal elements of communication that factor
into our speech and interpretation. In other words, paralanguage refers
to how something is said rather than focusing on what is said. Because
paralanguage refers to a broad category of meta-communicators, or
secondary communicating functions, it includes many components. For
example, volume is a component of paralanguage because it indicates
important aspects about an utterance: Speaking louder commands
attention, whereas speaking quieter can indicate discretion. It is also an
important indicator for others to interpret the speaker because someone
who talks quietly can be viewed as shy, or conversely, someone who
always speaks loudly can be viewed as overly excited. Paralanguage
can also engage in intonation, pitch, rhythm, pauses, or vocalic
interjections. Many of these components are intentionally manipulated
by a speaker to indicate their meaning, but paralanguage can also
surface unintentionally.

Paralanguage is sometimes also called vocalics because it often

involves vocal elements that fall outside the governance of phonology.
In linguistics, phonology refers to the study of the structure of sound to
convey meaning. Every spoken language contains sounds that carry
meaning (phonemes) when assembled correctly. Paralinguistic
communication, however, does not employ the normal phonemic
systems of a language, and can even involve the violation of these
sound rules. In this way, paralanguage is a form of nonphonemic
communication: Paralanguage does not use the same phonemic
structures to convey meaning. For example, the phrase "You like
coffee" appears ambiguous when read, but if spoken with an upward
intonation, it becomes a question: "You like coffee?" In English, using
the upward intonation in a phrase like this conveys a question through
the paralinguistic quality of changing the pitch at the end of the end of
a semantically ambiguous phrase.

Examples of Paralanguage
There are many examples of paralanguage, and the ones discussed here
are those that apply to English. Some paralinguistic communicators are
language dependent, meaning that they are directly linked to a language
(e.g. different languages convey elements of irony or sarcasm using
different methods), while others are more universal (e.g. in many
languages a gasp indicates a surprise because it is a physiological
response to pain). Some paralinguistic communicators are also
dependent on a person's own anatomy and therefore differ between
individuals (e.g. vocal pitch depends on the development of the voice
box, giving children and adults with smaller voice boxes a higher pitch
voice than those with larger ones). With this in mind, paralanguage in
English can look like:

• An audible gasp indicates surprise

• An audible sigh indicates frustration or listlessness

• The tokens "mm-hm" (to indicate agreement) or "mm-mm" (to

indicate disagreement)

• Emphasis of a single word to alter the meaning of an entire phrase

(emphasized token italicized): "I didn't say she took it" (meaning it was
not specified that "she" was the actor) vs. "I didn't say she took it"
(meaning her motives or actions are unclear)

• Pace of speech: Faster pace indicates excitement or nervousness;

slower pace indicates boredom or uncertainty

• Pauses and hesitations that indicate uncertainty: Tokens sometimes

called hedges (such as "um," "uh," or "mm" that allow a speaker to
stall) and halting speech signal that a speaker does not know what they
are talking about

• Physical communicators that indicate the underlying meaning of an

utterance, such as a smile to indicate an association with positive
emotions Even though paralanguage is most often vocalic and relates
to spoken language, paralanguage can also be indicated through other
modes of communication. For example, a popular way to indicate
actions in text is by using asterisks, which can indicate the same
meanings carried out in spoken conversation.
For example, the text "When I see headlines like this, I just *sigh*"
indicates that the writer feels exhausted by seeing a certain type of
news. Were this phrase spoken aloud, the meaning of the sigh would be
consistent with this written form.

CONCLUSION

Non-verbal communication is more powerful than verbal

communication because we express ourselves through body gestures
every single day, even if we are conscious of our own actions. If
someone is nervous, they will express themselves by holding their own
hands, tapping their foot, squeezing their hands together, etc. even
though that someone may know that nervous body language can equal
uncertainty, negative feedback, skepticism from the audience if you are
speaking and informing them about something important, etc.

Through verbal communication however, we are able to control and

manipulate what we want to say (easily) to avoid saying hurtful things
that may be true about someone, hiding the truth from someone,
masking our own nervousness, masking our true fears, masking our true
feelings and emotions, etc. With words, with can easily warp and
change the sentence structure of the sentences we form to represent
something different, in which, through body language and non-verbal
communication, is nearly impossible to hide (unless you are really
focused and determined to keep your body language and self-more
open to look more approachable, friendly, etc.).
Because we are able to easily manipulate and control what we say than
body language and non-verbal communication itself, that is the reason
why so many people tell us that, “actions mean more than words.”
Actions are harder to manipulate and control, while words are easier to
shape and control the usage or meaning of into either a neutral message,
an inspiring message, a harmful message, etc. Even if we were to mask
our feelings and true emotions while talking, our body language and
our attitude would tell the person the exact opposite of what we say
they feel. In which, that is why many people say that if you were to spot
a liar, look at their body language instead of listening to their words.
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 Andersen, P. A., Nonverbal Communication: Forms and
Functions (Mountain View, CA: Mayfield, 1999), 17.
 Andersen, P. A. and Janis F. Andersen, “Measures of Perceived
Nonverbal Immediacy,” in The Sourcebook of Nonverbal
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Student Motivation, Affective and Cognitive
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