Nonverbal Communication in Everyday Multicultural Life

Abstract

Nonverbal communication has been described as ‘the silent but eloquent language’ (Baron and Byrne, 1994, p. 42). This is an apt description, because nonverbal communication constitutes ‘bodily communication’ (Argyle, 1975) that expresses our inner feelings, reactions, and personality and facilitates our understanding of the inner feelings, reactions, and personalities of others in a variety of potent ways that do not only support spoken language but also often transcend spoken language. Nonverbal communication is crucial to everyday communication in many human societies. It constitutes a ‘body language’ that is expressed through a number of basic embodied (biological) channels that encompass facial expression, use of the eyes, of the voice, of the whole body and of (bodily) space (see Table 3.1). Nonverbal communication serves a number of important functions including emotional expression, self-presentation, conveying attitudes and behavioural intentions, regulating interpersonal interactions (including intimate relations), and — as the first opening quotation suggests — facilitating or undermining verbal communication (Argyle, 1975; Patterson, 2001; Richmond et al., 2008). Aronson, Wilson and Akert (1999) argue that Judge Ito was forced to outlaw nonverbal communication in his American courtroom because of its powerful and potentially disruptive nature, especially for a case as controversial, and ‘racially’ charged, as the African American O.J Simpson’s alleged double murder of his White American ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman.

In February 1995 Judge Lance Ito publicly reprimanded all persons attending the trial of O.J Simpson for displaying their emotions and reactions to courtroom events. Judge Ito said, ‘Let me remind you that any reactions, gestures … facial expressions … made during these court sessions, especially when the jury is here, those activities are inappropriate and will result in your expulsion’.

(Aronson, Wilson and Akert, 1999, p. 106)

One of our leading artists had just made an enormous wooden figure of a god for a public square in Bori. I had not seen it yet but had read a lot about it. In fact it had attracted so much attention that it soon became fashionable to say it was bad or un-African. The Englishman was now saying that it lacked something or other.

‘I was pleased the other day,’ he said, ‘as I drove past it to see one very old woman in uncontrollable rage shaking her fists at the sculpture …’

‘Now that’s very interesting,’ said someone.

‘Well, it’s more than that,’ said the other. ‘You see this old woman, quite an illiterate pagan, who most probably worshipped this very god herself; unlike our friend trained in European art schools; this old lady is in a position to know …’

‘Quite.’

It was then that I had my flash of insight.

‘Did you say she was shaking her fist?’ I asked. ‘In that case you got her meaning wrong. Shaking the fist in our society is a sign of great honour and respect; it means you attribute power to the person or object.’

(Achebe, 1966, pp. 49–50)

If I am playing a real character, I’ll watch endless footage and try to reach an understanding of what that person looked like — and behaved like — in a neutral state of being. And that involves delving into his physicality. Capote’s voice, for example, was the strangest voice I’ll ever have to do, so we looked at the anatomical basis of the voice, we looked at how his jaw was formed, we explored whether he’d been tongue-tied, and then we noticed that actually he had a very long tongue. We could also see that he’s been ashamed of his teeth. And then you move from observing the specifics of his behaviour to exploring how they might have come about. So in relation to the fact that he always spoke very loudly, we knew, for example, that he had been brought up by four old women, so he probably had to raise his voice to be heard. But it’s also possible that they formed a willing audience for him from a very young age, and so he was used to people listening to him. And when I’ve begun to get a feel for that, then I can work upwards.

(Jones, 2009)