Introduction
Communication is a complex phenomenon that includes many biological, social, and psychological elements. One of the major components of interpersonal interactions is nonverbal communication (NVC) (Floyd, 2020). It is generally defined by scholars as “everything but the words,” including visual, auditory, olfactory, and tactile communication channels (Hall et al., 2019, p. 272). This definition includes intended and unintended gestures, mimics, movements, and voice manipulations to relay information directly or indirectly, share emotions, or cause an emotional response. Researchers often emphasize how verbal and non-verbal components are deeply interconnected and are often presented together to convey the intended message (Hall et al., 2019). The NVC is an essential part of the interpersonal communication process thanks to its multi-layered nature of conveying information and emotions. NVC covers the unspoken cultural and behavioral norms and provides a deeper context for verbal communication through voice, gestures, movements, and positioning. The cultural norms associated with different dimensions of NVC, like kinesics, paralinguistics, and proxemics, play an essential role in establishing and maintaining communication, though this role may be ambiguous depending on the context.
Discussion and Experiments
Kinesics
Kinesics is interconnected with socio-psychology and anthropology since different gestures and movements can be interpreted in many ways in different cultures. It is usually defined as body language, which includes how a person walks, stands, and moves (Othman et al., 2021). Kinesics functions as a tool for reducing nervousness and anxiety and helps grab the audience’s attention to better convey the intended message. Scholars divide the functions and behaviors of kinesics into five roles. Those include emblems (“V” sign, “thumb up”), affective displays (facial expression conveying emotions), regulators (ensuring ease of interactions), adaptors (reducing stress), and illustrators (enhancing verbal descriptions, i.e., shape and form) (Othman et al., 2021, p. 202). Illustrators are a particularly interesting aspect of kinesics due to their prevalence in everyday communication.
An experiment is proposed that includes a group discussion of a recent experience with the condition of excluding hand gesturing which is a universal norm for informal conversations. The purpose of the experiment is to explore the emotional response of the participants forced to restrain their movement during an informal conversation. The group’s focus is expected to constantly shift to the difficulties associated with the lack of habitual communication tools, raising stress.
The experiment was conducted during dinner in a family of five. Each family member described their past week’s experiences in as much detail as possible. During the process, other participants could interrupt and comment at any moment, as is common for similar occasions in the family. The restrain of hand movements was immediately noticed when the first participant found it increasingly difficult to refrain from gesturing during their talk. However, other elements of NVC were compensating, particularly through active voice manipulations and enhanced mimicry. Similar effects were observed in other participants who emphasized how difficult it was to exclude hand gestures. The participants expressed increased stress (lessened by the experiment’s informal context), emotional fatigue, and physical discomfort. The experiment results demonstrate the significant role of kinesics, particularly illustrators, in everyday verbal and non-verbal communication for conveying meanings and relaying information fully.
Paralinguistics
An NVC dimension on the edge of verbal communication is paralinguistics. The paralinguistic system includes voice manipulation elements such as pitch (Temirova, 2020). The tone of the speaker’s voice can increase effectiveness and enhance or alter the meaning of the thoughts conveyed. It can also disambiguate, clarify, or contradict the spoken words for different effects, such as sarcasm or distinguishing questions from statements (Hall et al, 2019). A particularly interesting aspect of paralinguistics is the change of pitch used to convey the speaker’s intentions, including romantic ones. Typically, women assume a more high-pitched tone of voice, while men tend to adopt a sing-song pitch to express their romantic intentions (Hall et al., 2019). These voice modulations help create a feeling of intimacy and closeness through women demonstrating their vulnerability and men striking a balance between affection and masculinity.
Maintaining a proper tone of voice in different situations is necessary to distinguish between different forms of communication. An experiment is presented to test how a member of a romantic couple would react to an unexpected change in the partner’s paralanguage. During a romantic meeting at a restaurant, the female partner is supposed to maintain a formalistic tone of voice inappropriate for the context. The purpose of the experiment is to evaluate how noticeable the changes will be for the partner and what effect it would have on the flow of conversation. It is expected that the change in the tone of voice will be noticed and influence the partner’s behavior, evident in their verbal and non-verbal communication strategy.
The experiment was conducted in a restaurant on Friday evening, including a heterosexual unmarried couple with three years of stable relationships. The paralinguistic elements mentioned above reportedly appeared in their regular communication up to the experiment. During the conversation, the woman lowered her pitch, but the talk mode was not altered. The background music and the voices of other visitors initially obscured the change. However, at some point, the man noticed the change in voice and tried to establish the reason, interestingly, immediately concluding that, as he expressed, “something had gone wrong” during the conversation. The man showed increasing signs of frustration and anxiety despite the otherwise unchanged tone of the conversation. Notably, he would show increased facial expressions while other non-verbal communication aspects like gesturing and voice modulations were hindered. After returning to the usual tone of voice, the conversation gradually assumed the regular flow. The experiment results demonstrate how slight changes in expected behavior can be easily noticed and influence people’s perception of the conversation, even with other aspects of NVC unaltered.
Proxemics
Besides voice, gestures, mimics, and other visually and audibly perceptible NVC tools, spatial and temporal aspects also play an essential part in forming relationships between people and shaping the conversation. Proxemics is a dimension of NVC that encompasses the spatial location of the communication participants (Temirova, 2020). It also covers temporal factors that arise in indirect communication, such as the voice of video messages. Social norms regarding proxemics are an important nonverbal aspect of city life due to the way urban infrastructure facilitates the forming and existence of smaller spaces with many people, like offices, school classes, and public transport. These norms help establish and maintain an appropriate and comfortable tone of conversation with different people in different settings and contexts without the need to discuss it explicitly.
Different cultures have varying norms of personal space and acceptable conversation distance, but the general rule is that more trust equals closer spatial location during conversations. If the level of trust is inconsistent with the spatial locations of the speakers, it can be interpreted as either a breach of personal space or an intended separation. An example of a regular violation of nonverbal norms is a crowded elevator. As Bailenson (2021) notes, people in these situations tend to avoid visual contact with each other trying to compensate for the excess of one NVC cue with the minimization of another. Following this example, an experiment is proposed for a non-obvious intervention in a person’s private space. The experiment’s setting is a subway car in the early morning at the hours of the highest passenger load. The purpose of the experiment is to observe and evaluate people’s reactions to a stranger violating their physical privacy in a public space without evident intent. The expected outcome is that people will not accept any unexpected violation of their private space.
The experiment was carried out on a Monday morning between 7 and 9 a.m. The participant would sit and wait until the car was full, after which they pretended to fall asleep and put their head on the shoulder of a person by their side. The reactions of the “victims” provided a broad range of unexpected observations. Though most people expressed their discomfort and dissatisfaction, trying to “wake” the experimenter up or shifting away from them, some accepted this norm violation. Several passengers would completely ignore the experimenter or express emotions like surprise and amusement without trying to regain spatial privacy. The results indicate that some social norms regarding NVC can be bent to a certain degree without causing negative consequences.
Conclusions
Nonverbal communication is integral to interpersonal communication and synergizes with verbal communication through voice manipulation, mimics, and body language. Socially defined NVC norms define the borders and contexts in which these tools are acceptable and expected. Violating these norms can cause various emotional responses, from confusion and anxiety to frustration and anger. However, empirical data shows that a certain degree of norm violation is acceptable in specific contexts. Additional research may be carried out to determine possible factors (i.e., character traits, context and setting, cultural or social background) that influence the perception of such instances.
References
Bailenson, J. N. (2021). Nonverbal overload: A theoretical argument for the causes of Zoom fatigue.
Floyd, K. (2020). Interpersonal communication (4th ed.). McGraw-Hill Education.
Hall, J. A., Horgan, T. G. &, Murphy, N. A. (2019). Nonverbal communication. Annual Review of Psychology, 70(1), 271–294. Web.
Othman, M. A-U., Ismail, Z., Zaid, C. H., Ab Majid, M. R., Halias, N., Jusoh, Z., & Nasir, M. S. (2021). Kinesics as a form of non verbal communication: A textual analysis of the Holy Quran. Journal of Contemporary Issues in Business and Government, 27(2). 201–207. Web.
Temirova, F. T. (2020). Importance of paralinguistic features in communication and their theoretical study. The American Journal of Social Science and Education Innovations, 2(9), 111–116. Web.