Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
Verbal Communication Language & Culture:
The Essential Partnership
“If we spoke a different language, we would perceive a different world” (Wittgenstein).
“Language is the roadmap of a culture. It tells you where its people came from and where they are
going” (Brown).
Verbal Communication Language & Culture:
The Essential Partnership
•Serves as a communication exchange
•Organizes people into groups according to age, gender and even socio-income level
•Allows individuals to engage in cooperative activity
Verbal Communication Language & Culture:
The Essential Partnership
What is language?
Language is a set of shared symbols or signs that a cooperative groups of people has mutually agreed to use to create meaning.
Verbal Communication Language & Culture:
The Essential Partnership
Language Variations:•Accent•Dialect•Argot (a private vocabulary peculiar to a
co-culture)•Slang
Verbal Communication Language & Culture:
The Essential Partnership
Language as it Reflects Cultural Values:
•High and Low Power Distance (formal/informal)
•Individualism and Collectivism
• High and Low Context
Verbal Communication Language & Culture:
The Essential Partnership
Multicultural Interactions: Speech Rate – slow down!
•Vocabulary – avoid jargon
•Monitor nonverbal feedback
•Checking (so do you mean?)
Nonverbal Communication (The Silent Language):
Messages of Action, Space, Time and Silence
Nonverbal Communication
• Usually responsible for first impressions
• Doesn’t lie (a clenched jaw shows you’re angry or stammering speech shows that you’re nervous)
• Is culture bound
Nonverbal Communication
Two General Classifications1. Those primarily produced by the body (appearance, movement, facial expression, eye contact, touch, smell, and paralanguage)•2. Those combined with setting (space, time and silence)
Nonverbal Communication
There is a story about the presidential debate of Nixon and Kennedy in 1960 where people listening via radio awarded the victory to Nixon while those watching the debate on television awarded the victory to Kennedy.This was explained by the fact that though President Nixon had very persuasive words during the debate, he was tense, sweating and seemed quite uncomfortable. On the other hand, President Kennedy was relaxed and able to convey a positive and convincing body language during the debate. Since that incident, researchers have demonstrated that a message is perceived in 3 different ways:
Nonverbal Communication
Body Language (kinesics)Kinesics are the physical cues that are visible and send a message about 1) your attitude toward the other person, 2) your emotional state, 3) your relationship with the environment
Kinesics includes body posture, body motion, gestures, facial expressions, eye contact.
Nonverbal Communication
Eye ContactIn American culture, we reveal whom we like and dislike just by the amount that we look at them. We generally look most at those whom we like . In general, people avoid looking at someone they don’t like.
As people increase their liking for one another, they increase the amount of mutual gazing that they do. (Mutual gaze is when two people are looking into each other's eyes). The most obvious example of this occurs along the continuum of relationships. Romantic relationships have the highest amount of mutual gaze.
What about other cultures?.
Nonverbal Communication
Sense of Touch (haptics)
Who can touch whom, where, when and how
Nonverbal Communication
Physical Appearance:
Body artifacts (clothing, piercings, tattoos) and attractiveness
Nonverbal Communication
Environmental Factors
Elements of setting that affect how we feel and act (color, temperature, lighting, room design)
Nonverbal Communication
Space and Distance (proxemics)•Personal space (intimate, personal, social and public•Seating•Furniture arranging
Nonverbal Communication
Time (chronemics)•Informal time (how late is “late”?)•Perceptions of past, present and future•Monochronic (fixed) and polychronic (holistic time) (Edward T. Hall)
Nonverbal Communication
Paralanguage:
Paralanguage are the sounds that don’t have written form that modify meaning or convey emotion.
Includes: rate, sounds, murmurs, gasps, volume, pitch, inflection, laughing, high speed
Nonverbal Communication
Silence : East vs. West
“What is real is, and when it is spoken it becomes unreal.” (Buddhism)
“The squeaky wheel gets the grease.” (American saying)
Nonverbal Communication
Artifacts
Elements of the environment that communicate by virtue of people’s use of them.
