Download Chapter 6 - Nonverbal Communication Objectives

Chapter 6 - Nonverbal Communication
Objectives
1) An appreciation for the role of non-verbal
behavior in human communication
2) Knowledge about how verbal and nonverbal
behavior combine to provide a double-coded
communication system
3) An examination of how speech style influences
impression formation and marks group
boundaries
4) Knowledge about the nature of second
language acquisition and its social
psychological consequences
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Chapter 6 Overall Outline
Non-verbal Communication
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Function of nonverbal communication
Facial expressions and eye contact
Body Language
Haptics
Proxemics: Personal Space
Paralanguage
Verbal Communication
• Language and Gender
– Do men and women speak differently?
• Language and Social Interaction
• Speech Registers and Accommodation
• Second Language Learning
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Outline Part 1
Non-verbal Communication
• Function of nonverbal communication
• Facial expressions and eye contact
• Body Language
• Haptics
• Proxemics: Personal Space
• Paralanguage
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• Both verbal and non-verbal signals are
involved in almost all communication
• how a message is said is often more important
than what is said
• non-verbal cues also regulate the form of
conversation, in terms of signaling turnyielding and back channel communication (e.g.
listener nods from time to time)
• Specific facial patterns are biologically related
specific primary emotions (fear, happiness,
surprise, anger, sadness, disgust)
• Cultural variations in facial displays exist
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Functions of nonverbal communication
• Non-verbal communication, such as through
gestures or a smile can provide information
about:
1) Feelings and intentions
2) can regulate interactions with others
3) can express intimacy
4) can promote social control
5) can facilitate goal attainment
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Sources of non-verbal signals
• facial displays
• gestures and postural cues (“body language”)
• touching
• paralanguage = timing, pitch and loudness of
speech, as well as pauses, sighs, and grunts
• personal space
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• Are facial displays of emotion
universal?
• Darwin (1872)
– Human emotional behavior evolved
from lower animals
• Physical expression of emotion is
to some degree innate
• much research has apparently
supported this view by
demonstrating the intercultural
similarity of facial expressions of
emotion
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Cultural variations in facial displays
• cultural factors play an important role in
determining facial displays of emotion
Eye Contact
• gaze and eye contact are important channels of
nonverbal communication
• within a few days of birth, infants will make
contact with the caregiver
• gaze generally increases as a function of the
attractiveness of the stimulus
• eye contact and its underlying meaning differs
across cultures
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Body Language
• Certain postures are often
perceived by others as reflecting
specific feelings
• Gestures, another form of body
language, vary from culture to
culture
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Haptics
• Communication through touch
Touches can be organized into categories:
• Positive affect: touch that communicates
appreciation, affect, interest
• Playful: touches intended to communicate
playfulness and humour
• Control: touches used to draw attention or
induce compliance
• Ritualistic: touches that occur in ritualized
situations, such as greetings and departures
• Task-related: touches associated with the
accomplishment of some task (e.g. when a
nurse takes your pulse)
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Proxemics
• the study of how we use space to
regulate social interactions
• comfort distance in social
interaction
• personal space varies across
cultures
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Paralanguage
• Paralanguage refers to the “how” of
speaking, the nonlinguistic aspects of
speech
– (e.g. volume, stress, pitch, speed,
tone of voice, pauses)
• Prosodic elements of language: timing,
pitch and loudness are critically
important in oral communication
• Studies have shown that prosodic
elements in the expression of emotion
are not primarily learned; there is very
little variation in this behaviour either
among individuals in a given culture or
across cultures
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Paralanguage, continued
Why do we still use paralanguage?
• Easier to use in some situations (e.g. pointing)
• More powerful and subtle than speech for
communicating emotions and moods
• Less easily controlled, therefore more likely
genuine than speech
• Second communication channel is valuable,
especially when it helps to regulate the main
channel (speech)
• Nonverbal communication predates language,
and language may be built upon non-verbal
behaviour evolutionarily and neurally
– evidence from prosody, music, gestures for marking
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clause boundaries,
Paralanguage- Conversation Control
• Words make up content of a communication,
but non-verbal signals regulate its form
• Starts with baby and mother in feeding
interactions and turn-taking (feed, rest, feed)
• Avoids verbal ‘traffic jams’
Argyle (1975): Turn-taking signals
1) Coming to the end of a sentence
2) Prolonged intonation, for example raising or
lowering the voice
3) Paralinguistic Drawl: final syllable is drawn
out
4) Body motions relax - hand gesturing ceases,
tensions relax. Eyes open wider at last word of
a question
5) Verbal cues, “I was going to, but, uh,
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Interruptions
• If speaker does not wish to be interrupted, can
put out attempt-suppressing signals:
• voice, eyes, head posture don’t change
• speaks louder or faster, may keep hands in
mid-gesture at ends of sentences
Back-channel communication
• Not interrupting, but communicating to
speaker that the listener is paying attention
• e.g. nods, “okay”, “mm-hmm”
Cross cultural differences
• Gaps between statements or questions and
response short in North America, longer
elsewhere… may lead to misunderstandings
• Japanese have higher rate of, and desire for,
back-channel communication
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Outline Part 2
Verbal Communication
• Language and Gender
– Do men and women speak
differently?
• Language and Social Interaction
– Speech Registers and Speech
Accommodation
• Second Language Learning
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Verbal Communication
• Language evolved in humans
because of the survival value to
communicate precisely
Language and Gender
• some words that have been
traditionally ‘male’ words (e.g.
chairman) may influence social
perceptions and status
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Do men and women speak differently?
• Research suggests some differences between
men and women
• men tend to use more non-standard forms of
speech, such as new terminology (often
technical) slang, profanity, and puns
• Men are likely to talk about sports, business
and politics
• women are said to be more polite, more
emotional, more positive and supportive in
how they evaluate people, more likely to talk
about home and family.
• Physiological differences between sexes in the
paralinguistic aspects of speech
– e.g. speech qualities in women such as higher pitch,
softer volume, more variability, a more relaxed and
pleasant tone
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Language and Social Interaction
• Language is a crucial feature of social
interaction.
• Speech style reflects the social group in
which a person lives
• Judgements about personality, social
class and education of individuals are
often based on style of speech
• Some speech styles, even though
arbitrarily chosen, are deemed by a
given society to be the most
aesthetically pleasing form of the
language
• Language sets groups apart and fosters
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group identity
Speech Registers and Speech
Accommodation
• Speech register - a particular
combination of intonation and pitch
• e.g. Baby-talk, lecturing or presenting
• Only appropriate in certain settings;
when used elsewhere, perceived
negatively
• e.g. nursing home, personal
conversation
Speech Accommodation
• We will often shift (converge or
diverge) our speech registers to conform
with other’s, either upward or
downward in status. We do this to fit in,
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or to emphasis differences.
Second Language Learning
Why is this important?
• Lack of language skills can
generate anxiety, and a non-fluent
speaker may attribute this anxiety
to the other person, and react
negatively to the individual, the
language, or speakers in general.
• Most people in the world are
bilingual...
• ...particularly in European and
Asian countries
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Second Language Learning
• Misconceptions about learning a
second language
Myth 1
• adults have problems learning a
second language
• research reveals that adults almost
always perform better at learning a
second language than children,
except with regard to
pronunciation
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Second Language Learning
Myth 2
• learning a second language is quite
a different matter from firstlanguage acquisition
• In reality,studies have shown that
children learning a second
language follow the same process
of acquisition as a native speaker
of that language
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