5.1: Introduction to Nonverbal Elements of Communication

The Importance of Nonverbal Communication

Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): A group of retired men and friends, playing a game of cards in Sorrento by Nick Fewings on Unsplash.

Nonverbal communication permeates every communication exchange that we have. That’s a bold statement, but it’s true! Let’s begin by looking at a couple of examples.

As a sophomore in college, one of our authors studied German at the Goethe Institute in Arolsen, Germany. They share this example:

One of my classmates was from Turkey. We spoke to each other in German, our common language. There were times when I would ask him a “yes–no” question in German, and he would respond with a nod of the head up and down. In the United States, where I grew up, a head nodding up and down meant “yes” in response to a “yes–no” question. I started to get irritated when I kept getting “mixed messages.” For example, one time I asked him “Are you free on Saturday afternoon to study?” He responded nonverbally “yes,” but then he didn’t show up to study. When I asked him about it, he said that he had told me “no.” I finally started to ask questions that he needed to respond to verbally, such as “When should we meet?” so that he would state a specific time. Why? In the culture that I grew up in, a head nodding up and down meant “yes,” but in his culture, my friend’s head nodding up and down meant “no.” We both thought that we had communicated clearly, but that head nodding gesture meant something totally different in the two cultures! That insight may very well have been one of the reasons that I decided to become a Communication Studies professor!

Here is another example:

When I was a flight attendant, I often went to Japan. Since I did not speak Japanese nor was I familiar with their nonverbal communication style, I encountered many situations that were confusing to me. For example, when I was offering drinks from the beverage cart, I expected either an up-and-down nod for “Yes, I want a beverage” or a side-to-side face movement meaning “No, I don’t want a beverage.” However, when I flew to Japan, I usually got two nonverbal signals at the same time. One was the up-and-down nod and the second was a hand gesture: the person would wave their hand back and forth in front of your face, with the thumb facing you and pinky away from you. When the two gestures came together I didn’t know if the up-and-down nod said “Yes, I want a beverage” or if the hand gestures meant “No, I don’t want a beverage.” I later realized that Japanese culture does not feel comfortable saying just “no.” So the nod that went up and down said “thank you” and the hand gesture meant “no.”

What experiences have you had when you did not understand what a person was “saying” with their gestures or facial expressions? Have you ever had someone get the wrong impression or message because they misread something you were doing nonverbally?

In this chapter we discuss what nonverbal communication is and its significance in interpersonal communication. After defining nonverbal communication, we will describe the role of nonverbal communication and identify a wide range of types of nonverbal cues. We will address how nonverbal communication may differ in various contexts.