Communication 3: Practical Speech Fundamentals Nonverbal Communication, page 1

What is Nonverbal Communication?

ˆ It is all aspects of communication other than words.

ˆ It includes gestures and body language, how we utter words (inflection, pauses, tone, volume, and accent), features
of environments that affect interaction, personal objects (ex: jewelry, clothes), and physical appearance.

ˆ Reusch and Kees (1956): If words are neither written nor spoken, they are nonverbal in nature.

ˆ Vaughan and Hogg (1998): “Nonverbal communication is the transfer of meaningful information from one person
to another by means other than written or spoken language.”

Categories of Nonverbal Communication

1. Sign Language: All the codes in which numbers, words, and punctuation signs have been supplanted or replaced
by gestures.

2. Action Language: All the movements that are not used exclusively as signals.

3. Object Language: All the intentional and non-intentional display of material things.

Principles of Nonverbal Communication

1. Nonverbal communication, like verbal communication, is contextual.

(a) A given nonverbal act is undecipherable without the proper context.
(b) It is arbitrary, ambiguous, and abstract—people may attach different meanings to a symbol, depending on
the context and people involved.
(c) At times, though, given the full details of the context, we may still be unable to decode nonverbals.

2. Nonverbal behaviors are wholes not parts or segments.

(a) Movements involving use of the hands, eyes, or muscular tone occur in packages or clusters where all parts of
the human body work together to express a particular meaning.
(b) Congruence Results: when various verbal and nonverbal behaviors reinforce or build on each other.
(c) Since nonverbal behaviors are accompanied by verbal messages, contradictory messages are easily notice when
sent.

3. Nonverbal behaviors always communicate.

(a) Regardless of what one does or does not do, his/her nonverbal behavior always says about someone.
(b) It is impossible to not communicate.

4. Nonverbal communication follows certain rules.

(a) Within particular societies, we share general understandings of which nonverbal behaviors are appropriate in
various situations and what they mean.
(b) You learned the rules of nonverbal behavior by observation and not by reading a manual.
(c) We follow rules (often unconsciously) to create different interaction climates.

5. Nonverbal communication is motivated.

(a) Nonverbal messages are motivated in some way.
(b) However, it is presumptuous to think that one can learn a person’s motives by merely observing and analyzing
his/her nonverbal behaviors.

6. Nonverbal behavior is more credible than verbal behavior.

(a) When nonverbal behavior contradicts or opposes verbal behavior, we tend to rely more on nonverbal behavior.
(b) The fact that people tend to believe nonverbal behaviors doesn’t mean that nonverbal behaviors actually are
honest or that we can interpret them reliably.
(c) It’s possible for people to manipulate nonverbal communication.
Communication 3: Practical Speech Fundamentals Nonverbal Communication, page 2
7. Nonverbal communication often refers to other communications.
(a) Often metacommunicational: It goes beyond the verbal messages and comments on them, on how the com-
municator is sending out these verbal messages
(b) Frequently, nonverbal behavior serves as a metacommunication function—either to reinforce or contradict
other verbal or nonverbal messages.

8. Nonverbal communication may be intentional or unintentional.

(a) Nonverbal gesture is sometimes controlled and sometimes inadvertent (unconscious and unplanned).

9. Nonverbal communication reflects culture.

(a) Nonverbal behavior is shaped by cultural ideas, values, customs, and history.
(b) Different countries have different nonverbal codes.
(c) Although nonverbal communication reflects cultural values and understandings, there may be some universal
nonverbal behaviors.

10. Nonverbal communication is multichanneled.

(a) Often occurs simultaneously in two or more channels vs. verbal communication with single channel Uses our
senses (see, feel, hear, smell, taste) to receive different channels all at the same time.
(b) However, we must be careful with selective perception as it is likely to operate.

11. Nonverbal communication is continuous.

(a) Verbal symbols starts and stop.
(b) Nonverbal features of environment are ongoing influences on interaction and meaning.

Functions of Nonverbal Communication

1. Nonverbal communication may supplement or replace verbal communication.

(a) Repeating: Where your action repeats what you say.

(b) Highlighting/Accenting: Gives emphasis to the verbal communication. Most of the head or hand gestures (or
the loudness of voice) are used to make the point stronger.
(c) Complementing: “Complement” meaning they counterpart the verbal communication or like elaborating it.
Complementing behavior signals one’s attitude and intentions toward another person.
(d) Contradicting: The opposite of what was actually said.
(e) Substituting: Nonverbal behavior can alternate for verbal behavior.

2. Nonverbal communication may regulate interaction.: Maintains and controls or regulates the communication flow
between two or more persons.

3. Nonverbal communication often establishes relationship-level meanings.

(a) Content Level of Meaning: Literal message.

(b) Relationship Level of Meaning: Acts as “relationship language” that expresses the overall feeling of relation-
ships.
(c) Three Dimensions of Relationship-Level Meaning:
i. Responsiveness: Key to responsiveness is immediacy, which is behavior that increases perceptions of
closeness between communicators.
ii. Linking: Nonverbal behaviors often are keen indicators of how positively or negatively we feel toward
others.
iii. Will: We use nonverbal behavior to assert dominance and to negotiate for status and influence (Remland,
2000).

4. Nonverbal communication reflects and expresses cultural values.: This implies that most nonverbal behavior is not
instinctive but learned in the process of being socialized within a particular culture.
Communication 3: Practical Speech Fundamentals Nonverbal Communication, page 3
Types of Nonverbal Communication

1. Kinesics: Body position and body motions, including those of the face; moving or dynamic
Ekman and Friesen (1969) systematized the vast array of nonverbal behavioral acts into:
(a) Emblems
i. Nonverbal acts which correspond to a direct translation or dictionary definition.
ii. Commonly used to communicate when verbal channels are blocked or when they fail.
(b) Illustrators
i. Serving to illustrate what is said verbally, these are nonverbal acts that accompany speech.
ii. Uses:
A. Movements that accent, stress, or emphasize a phrase or word.
B. Movements which sketch a path or direction that a though takes.
C. Movements that depict a spatial relationship or movements that depict bodily action.
(c) Affect Displays
i. Verbal affective statements or messages can be repeated, argumented, contradicted by or unrelated to
these facial configurations.
ii. Often are not intended to communicate, but can be done intentionally.
(d) Regulators
i. Consisting mainly of head nods and eye movements, these nonverbal acts serve to maintain and regulate
the back-and-forth nature of speaking and listening between to or more communicators (interactants).
ii. They tell the one speaking to hurry up, continue, repeat, elaborate, give the other a chance, oe be more
interesting.
iii. Occurs involuntarily.
(e) Adaptors
i. They are believed to have been first learned during a given situation with conditions that triggered them.
ii. Generally unaware.

2. Haptics: Sense of touch that conveys a whole array of emotions or affective states such as stroking, patting, hitting,
greetings and farewell, kissing, hugging, holding, guiding another’s movements, and a host of others.

3. Physical Appearance: Cues emanate from physique or body shape, general attractiveness, body or breath odors,
height, weight, hair, and skin tone or color; non-moving or static.

4. Artifacts: Personal objects we use to announce our identities and heritage and to personalize our environment;
includes perfume or scent, clothes, bags, shoes, wigs or hairpieces, lipstick, eyeglasses, false eyelashes, and other
beauty aids.

5. Environmental Factors
(a) Elements in the surroundings that impinge on the human relationship but are not directly a part of it; includes
furniture, architectural style, internal décor, lighting, smells, colors, temperature, and noise or music among
others.
(b) Traces of actions such as cigarette butts, bits of torn paper, or fruit peels lying or strewn somewhere are also
included.

6. Proxemics and Personal Space

(a) Proxemics: Refers to space and how we use it (Hall, 1968).
(b) The study of how man uses his personal ans social space in relation to others.
(c) Classification of interhuman distances according to Gronbeck, Monroe, et al (1994)
i. Intimate Distance: ranges up to 1 12 ft.
ii. Personal Distance: ranges from 1 12 to 4 ft.
iii. Social Distance: ranges from 4 to 12 ft.
iv. Public Distance: ranges from 12 feet up.
Communication 3: Practical Speech Fundamentals Nonverbal Communication, page 4
7. Chronemics: Refers to how we perceive and use time.
8. Paralanguage: communication that is vocal but does not use words.
Two Components (Traeger, 1958):
(a) Vocal Qualities: pitch range, pitch control, rhythm, control, tempo, articulation control, resonance, glottis
control, vocal lip control, volume, and inflection.
(b) Vocalizations
i. Vocal Characterizers: laughing, crying, sighing, yawning, belching, swallowing, heavy inhaling or exhal-
ing, gasping, murmuring, coughing, clearing of throat, hiccuping, moaning, groaning, whining, yelling,
whispering, sneezing, snoring, stretching, and grunting among others.
ii. Vocal Qualifiers: intensity (too loud or too soft), pitch height (too high or too low), and extent (extreme
drawl to extreme clipping)
iii. Vocal Segregates: uh-huh, um, amm, ah, and other forms thereof.
Also includes silent pauses (beyond junctures), intruding or interrupting sounds, speech errors, accents, pronoun-
ciation, complexity of sentences and others.
9. Silence: Used to communicate powerful message and to communicate different meanings.
Social Media and Nonverbal Communication
ˆ “Nonverbal communication is more restricted in digital and online communication than in face-to-face communi-
cation.”
ˆ Words in an email or message do not tell us whether the person is serious, sarcastic or playful.
ˆ There is a need for interpretation of our words to exhibit our true feelings by using emoticons, emojis, and stickers
ˆ Size of a person’s electronic footprint
ž Updates and comments on profiles (how frequent)
ž “Think before you click”
ˆ “Digital communication can compete with, and sometimes interfere with face-to-face communication.”
Guidelines for Improving Nonverbal Communication
1. Monitor Your Nonverbal Communication: Paying attention to nonverbal dimensions of your world can empower
you to use them more effectively to achieve your interpersonal goals.
2. Interpret Others’ Nonverbal Communication Tentatively: It is naive to think we can precisely decode something
as complex, ambiguous, and personal as nonverbal communication.
(a) Personal Qualifications
i. Generalizations about nonverbal behavior—not applicable to all.
ii. “I” language
(b) Contextual Qualifications
i. Nonverbal communication – reflects the settings we inhabit
ii. Try to adopt a dual perspective when interpreting others

References:
Bulan, Celia T., and Ianthe C. De Leon. “Nonverbal Communication: The Potent Hidden Language.” COMM. 3: Practical Speech
Fundamentals, Experimental ed., Dept. of Speech Communication and Theatre Arts, College of Arts and Letters, University of the
Philippines, Diliman, 0AD, pp. 101–112.
Wood, Julia T. “The World Beyond Words.” Interpersonal Communication: Everyday Encounters, 8th ed., Cengage Learning,
2016, pp. 133–160.
Communication 3: Practical Speech Fundamentals Nonverbal Communication, page 5
Exercises
I. Define nonverbal communication in your own words.

II. Enumeration.
A. Categories of Nonverbal Communication.
1. 2.
3.
B. Principles of Nonverbal Communication.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
C. Functions of Nonverbal Communication.
1.
2.
3.
4.
D. Types of Nonverbal Communication.
1. 2.
3. 4.
5. 6.
7. 8.
9.
E. Guidelines for Improving Nonverbal Communication.
1
2.
2A.
2B.