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8 Extralinguistic Issues in Cross-Cultural Communication Body Language

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Abdujalil Kurbonov
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46 views6 pages

8 Extralinguistic Issues in Cross-Cultural Communication Body Language

Uploaded by

Abdujalil Kurbonov
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Extralinguistic issues in cross-

cultural communication: body


language
Handout 1.Activity 1. Body Language. Read the text below and check the meanings of
any words you do not understand in a dictionary.
Body Language
When we communicate with other people it is not only our words that contain the meaning.
An important part of that meaning comes from what is called 'non-verbal communication'.
By this we mean facial expression; gestures with hands, arms, legs; the way we sit or stand;
the way we touch other people; the distance we keep between ourselves and the people we
are talking to; our dress and our appearance. All these say something to other people.
Facial expressions and gestures are used by everyone often spontaneously even
unconsciously. Smiling, for example, is found in most cultures as a sign of happiness or
pleasure. Gestures such as pointing, waving, shaking or nodding the head are also widely
used, although the gestures themselves do not always mean the same in every culture.
I once asked a Portuguese student why bank officials in Lisbon seemed so
dour – sorry Lisbon bank clerks, but it's true – and he told me that if they
smiled too much they would not seem serious about their work. Because many
non-verbal messages are 'culture specific', they can cause a lot of
misunderstanding between people from different backgrounds. Northern
Europeans and Americans, for example, like to keep a certain 'personal space'
between themselves and others and feel uncomfortable if people come too
close to them. In these same cultures it is considered impolite to stare, but
Greeks, it is said, feel ignored if people do not stare at them in public.
Europeans usually change their facial expression to show happiness, anger,
boredom, sadness. For this reason they call oriental people 'inscrutable' because
they change facial expression much less.
In styles of dress we also make important statements about ourselves. Dress
codes vary greatly from one culture to another and it is easy to make mistakes
about people's status if you don't know the cultural norm. In Mediterranean
cultures bank officials and similar employees wear short-sleeved, open-neck
shirts and no jackets. This casual dress would not be acceptable in northern
Europe, where suits and ties are a sign of seriousness. Ambitious women in
western cultures wear classic clothes in sober colours to indicate their
dedication to career.
One of the main differences between verbal and non-verbal communication
is that we are often not conscious of the expressions and gestures we use and so
we are in danger of giving more information than we really want to, or even of
giving a conflicting message with our body language to the one expressed in our
words.
Glossary
Attitude
Ritual
Tradition
Body language
Gesture
Cross-cultural communication
Facial expression
Non-verbal communication

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