Nonverbal Communication Through the Ages

Christopher Brown

04/29/13

Communications

Eakins-

3G

Non-Verbal Communication

Through The Ages

"How did he ever get that idea? I never said that he upset me. I never said anything!" The feeling of puzzlement and bewilderment that results when communication does not go how one plans it is a very common feeling. It is nearly as old as time. Because people, after all, don’t always communicate their different feelings in an understandable and standard way. Most of us learned to pay attention to more than a person’ s words, but not everyone has the natural tact to notice such things. We have never truly understood each other as one understands one’s self. From the beginning, an imperfect unbalanced world required us to take or lose chances of claiming what we needed. So we invented gestures, tones, and aesthetics to make a complicated thing—seemingly—simpler. Ever since it started, it has only become more complicated. One example, when we travel somewhere new, this discrepancy in nonverbal communication began to blend, twist, and contort due to cultural phenomenon and can result in a condition called "culture shock." The process of communication through sending and receiving wordless (mostly visual) cues between people soon developed into a complex mode for important messages. These messages soon came to be communicated through a number of ways: Gestures and touch were body movements that either literally translated to a message (like a tap on the shoulder to signify a party is finished, present, or a hug to express a brotherly love), helped to reinforce it (by pointing the direction that some people need to go to find a parking garage), or expressed a separate indication of the emotions and feelings of the one making them. Lack of "proper" posture can be interpreted as tiredness, meekness, or physical exhaustion. Some of the most important forms of nonverbal communication are physical distance, facial expression, and tone. (to be close to someone expresses trust, gritted teeth for contempt, and a loud, commanding voice for aggressive, direct confrontation. )Even something so simple a looking someone in the eye or not could mean curtains or new respect. It’ s no wonder that such a complex conduit of meaning could easily self-circuit.

Great Britain is known the world over for its concise mannerism. Rooted in both French and British history, it is largely composed of very strict manners. Manners are probably one of the largest attempts at simplifying nonverbal communication. Although, manners make communication between cultures more complicated and difficult, it makes in- culture much more easy to be a part of. This was the goal, after all, the government was the only one to have to worry about foreign relations in the 17th Century World. When a foreigner came to Britain, they would be expected to adapt these cues, habits, and knowledge or face hazing and social shunning. This made clear roles. Women were not to address unknown men directly, and in rare cases a direct gaze was considered disrespectful. Interacting with English culture, the first thing you’d learn is that they are a patriarchal society. Men are the dominant gender. Men are glorified, planned for, and given control. Their needs are the focus of the society. One of example of this in early British society is that women are expected to not idly chatter. One example of a mannerism to make up for a lack of verbal communication was something called “fan language.” For instance, woman would twirl her fan horizontally to indicate that someone was watching. To indicate that she was engaged, a woman would fan quickly. To indicate that she is married, she would fan slowly. Women also used this to express things considered inappropriate for them to directly. If a woman was romantically interested in her suitor, she would open the fan across her face and hold the fan stationary in front of her face. Within British culture, there was also a general code of behavior encompassing both genders. Bowing is a gesture of respect. Most frequently, when two people met for the first time, they would bow to one another. Further, people would bow to one another for a number of reasons: greeting, departing, thanking, or apologizing. There is an extremely complex etiquette surrounding bowing, including the length and depth of bow and the appropriate response. For example, if the other person

maintains his or her bow for longer than expected (generally about two or three seconds), it is polite to bow again, upon which one may

receive another bow in return, often leading to an exchange of progressively lighter bows. But bows may also reflect the personality. A man, when not bowing to a lady, most notably took a heroic pose holding his sword in its sheath and with a hand on his walking stick, but another variation includes him placing one on his hip and another holding his hat. This posture demonstrated not only strength, but confidence, and assertiveness, all highly valued male traits. If a man did not express these traits fully, he would be labeled as less than masculine, so this norm was established to make it more recognizable. Although physical attractiveness was important between the men’s status, physical attractiveness played an important role in women’s reputation much more primarily. And if she was considerably so, she may have more influence in general society than the more homely woman. Attractiveness is, of course, subjective so there were many idea about what was. Nethertheless, a woman’s clothing alone gave hints about her social status, economic level, background, education, social background, trustworthiness, level of sophistication, and especially moral character. It’s hard to imagine in a day of increasing equality, but a woman that showed even her ankles were considered immoral. This was a strict culture. Furthermore, this type of gender separation continued. Women and men occupied different spheres of their society in even interaction with those of the same gender. Men discussed finance, business, leisure, interests, goals, and society. Women spoke of family, feelings, emotions, housework, and children. Women disclosed much out of a shared trust, men, unless they knew each other very rarely disclosed feelings or personal matters to others. Men rarely touched a person he didn't’ t know, women freely hugged, handled, and comforted one another. Lastly, but not least, in British culture, dancing was yet another form of