Body Language

Do you think we talk with our mouth? We actually talk with our whole body and sometimes the body says more than our words do. We send messages to others in our surroundings with our eyes, facial expressions, gestures, body posture, and by raising the tone of our voice, etc. "It has been said that it is harder to lie to a blind person, because a blind person depends more on the sound of the voice than the words we use".

When we speak the whole body "talks". The face and hands are the parts of the body that we have best control over in communication. We make all sorts of gestures. Some gestures have a specific meaning for a group or a culture. These gestures are called "emblematic". We use them when we shake our head and our friends understand that we mean "no". Emblematic gestures can be used instead of words. We learn emblematic gestures at home, in school, and in other social environments. They do not come naturally, although the relationship between the gesture and its meaning might seem so obvious that we think that they are natural.

However, when we travel abroad, we soon discover that these gestures which we consider natural, are often not understood, or even misunderstood in other cultures. If we shake our head "no" in Greece or Turkey, they wonÕt understand, because in those countries they tilt their head back when they mean "no".

You can also use gestures "to paint a picture". These gestures are called "illustrators". For example when we put our fingers together to describe something that is round.

Nonverbal signals are also used to regulate a conversation. When we are about to finish talking and want somebody else to take over we can give signals, such as, lowering the tone of our voice, looking directly at the person we are talking to, and decreasing hand and arm movements. When we want to come into the discussion, we also send body signals. We shift our body position, we lean forward, pull our legs back, look intensely at the speaker, and maybe we raise our hand.

There are also gestures, which expose our feelings. Often they are unconscious. The basic expressions for emotions such as anger, sorrow, joy, fear, disgust are surprisingly alike in all cultures. Although, the emotion might be interpreted in different ways in different cultures. For example, the ability not to show emotions in public places in Japan is highly valued. From this, you can get the idea that body language is universal and that through nonverbal communication we can rise above all the barriers of spoken language between people.

Nonverbal signals can complement, change, repeat, start, stress, and conflict what is being said verbally. In some cases, they can even substitute speech. When the nonverbal signals conflict with the verbal message, we usually trust the nonverbal signals more than the words. We can usually control our eye movements, facial expressions, or hands better than the other parts of our body. Therefore, we must look to other parts of the body to interpret conflicting signals. Several experiments show that when we lie, there are nonverbal signals such as higher voice tone, larger pupils, more shifts in body position, and less eye contact.

We have always had an interest in the effect of nonverbal communication on others. The behavior of politicians is always interesting to analyze. In a TV debate between Carter and Ford during the presidential campaign in USA 1976, Carter won the second debate without changing his political platform. However, he did change his nonverbal behavior with thanks to his media advisors. Carter increased his eye movements, had a more open body position (arms and legs), showed more decisive gestures, and had better control of his voice.

We usually try to decipher the facial expressions, body movements, posture, and voice quality of others to see how they are feeling and what they are thinking. We try to figure out what kind of personality they have, their intentions, and origins. Then we can adjust our way of acting to them according to the information we think we have. There are people who are better at guessing, such as, psychologists. Several experiments have shown that women are more sensitive than men at interpreting body signals, but this is far from proven.

It is easy to think that if we carefully learn all there is to know about body language, we will be able to read a person like an open book. This is not true. The relationship between body language and the content is very complicated, even if it is seldom coincidental. The attempt to understand body language is a passionate project for researchers and others.