A Comparative Study of Nigerian, American and British Nonverbal Communications
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- NGN 3000
1 Background of the Study
Human beings use verbal and nonverbal means to communicate. Nonlinguistic messages are important because what people do often conveys more meaning than what they say. At first glance, it seems as if meanings come from words alone but nonverbal communication accounts for much of the meaning in any interpersonal interaction. Advancing this point, Adler et al. posit that by tuning into their facial expressions, postures, vocal tones, gestures and other behaviours, one probably can make assumptions about the way communicators feel about one another at the moment of communication and gets some ideas about the nature of their relationship. (175) Oftentimes, what comes out of people‟s mouths and what they communicate through their body language are totally different. However, when confronted with a mixture of both, the nonverbal is chosen because it is a natural, unconscious means of expressing people‟s feelings and intentions. In addition, these nonverbal expressions can also vary across cultures and nations. Some ways of communication replace speech; some supplement speech. Those that replace speech are the speech-independent gestures. The most obvious of the gestures that supplement speech are gestures of various kinds which people make when speaking. These 2 gestures are a natural concomitant of speaking that people use them even when it is unnecessary to do so, such as when they speak on telephone. Allen and Corder point out that: Gestures are a limited set of social signals and are as specific to a particular society as is the language which accompanies them. A common gesture in one society may carry a quite different significance in another, and this fact has, on occasions, been the source of a good deal of embarrassment and misunderstanding. The term gesture generally refers to some significant movement of the arms, hands or head. Other physiological means of supplementing the communicative import of actual speech are the use of facial expressions or positions of the body…. (161 - 162) People learn most of their gestures from their cultural environment. Adler et al. posit that culture is the language, values, beliefs, traditions, and customs people share and learn. When a person identifies himself as a member of a culture, he must not only share certain characteristics, but must also recognise himself and others like him as possessing these features and see others who do not possess them as members of different categories. Coculture is the term used to describe the perception of membership in a group that is part of an encompassing culture. Members of co-cultures often develop unique patterns of communication (37 - 38). Many people assume that because nonverbal communication lacks words, it does not include sound. Sound, however, is a very important aspect of nonverbal communication. The 3 qualities of sound that surround words, such as how loud or fast people speak, or how they emphasize certain words or phrases with inflection and pitch, are parts of the messages they send. In support of this point, Trenholm and Jensen posit that: Vocal qualities include loudness, pitch, inflection, tempo, rhythm, intensity, articulation, and resonance. Vocal characterisers are more specific sounds that we may occasionally recognize as speech acts themselves. Laughing, crying, moaning, yelling, and whinning are examples. Vocal segregates are sounds that get in the way of fluent speech, including „uhs‟ and „ums‟, stuttering, and uncomfortable silences. The combinations of these cues produce the unique voice patterns of each person. (72) There is a whole spectrum of communication that is vocal but not really verbal. The most obvious examples are spontaneous gasps of surprise or cries of pain. One of the most significant signals that is vocal but nonverbal is the ungrammatical pause which is where the speaker is thinking and searching for words and planning how to continue his utterance. They reveal something about the thought process of the speaker. In careful speech, most of our pauses are grammatical. That is to say, our pause occurs at the boundaries of grammatical segments and serves as a kind of audible punctuation. By calling them grammatical pause, it is implied that they are a normal part of the verbal message. In support of this point, Adler et al. express the view that for a linguist, the grammatical pause is most germane, since it reveals something about the structure of the verbal message. For a psychologist, however, the ungrammatical pause is more relevant, because it reveals something about the thought process of the speaker (58). 4 Some ideas are communicated by silence. Even when one is silent, one is communicating nonverbally. The old expression „silence means consent‟ in many instances holds true. Adler et al. corroborate this by stating that: There are times when the best response is to say nothing. This is certainly true when you don‟t want to encourage a speaker to keep talking … Silent listening isn‟t just an avoidance strategy. It also can be the right approach when you are open to the other person‟s ideas but your interjections wouldn‟t be appropriate. There are even times when silent listening can help others solve their problems … silent listening is a response style that many of us could profit from using and receiving more often. (220 - 221) For example, one friend may tell another to wait for him in the car. In that case, a reply is unnecessary unless it is negative. Silence can mean consent, but it can also mean „I understand‟ without necessarily indicating agreement. Under other circumstances, silence may indicate that the intended listener did not hear the speaker. Silence can be an appropriate expression between people who are intimate. At still other times, it can signal rudeness, such as when a question is not responded to. There could be silence when there is unequal power relations and the communicators are aware of this. There is usually room for considerable misunderstanding over silence. Human touch such as handshakes, hand holding, kissing (cheeks, lips, hand), back slapping, high fives, pat on the shoulder and arm brushing can be described as nonverbal communications. They may send messages that reveal the intentions or feelings of a 5 communicator and a listener. They may have very different significances in various cultural contexts. Touch can vary from culture to culture. Advancing this point, Trenholm and Jensen posit: Touching may be the most ambiguous of the nonverbal codes because its meaning depends so much on the nature of the relationship, the age and sex of the other, and the situation, as well as where we are touched, how much pressure was applied, whether we think the touch was intentional or accidental, and how long the touch lasted. Touching may be used to signal aggression, status, friendliness, or sexual interest or simply to regulate interaction. But these meanings are mediated by context. (75) When people of different ethnicities interact, they sometimes use the space around them in ways that may reflect their attitudes. Some cultures need more space than others and unless one is aware of this, one may try to move closer to others while they compensate by moving away to re-establish their comfort zone. The use of space and the way people create and protect their spaces communicate volumes. A person‟s space can be violated when another stands or sits too close when there are other chairs available. Various factors can influence space beyond culture. The gender, topic, mood, position – whether sitting or standing – racial backgrounds of the communicators can influence their use of space. When one stands too close to another, it is an invasion of privacy. When prescribed distances are not observed, people feel crowded even though they are not actually 6 touching. The actual distance at which one is comfortable talking to others varies according to personality, age, sex, status or cultural differences in relation to those one interacts with. The use of time depends greatly on culture. Cultural values influence the ways people use time. Orbe and Bruess observe that: Cultural values influence the ways that people use and perceive time. Observing that many African Americans are typically late for social events is best understood through recognition of history and economic circumstances. Because of different cultural experiences, what is defined as being late varies among different racial and ethnic groups. (35) Orbe and Bruess explain that Monochronic time, M-time, is characteristic of the United States of America and Great Britain. Monochronic people tend to schedule their time more rigidly and do one thing at a time (157). Polychronic time, P-time, is characteristic of the culture of Africans. P-time people place great value on the activity that is happening currently, regardless of time. Polychronic people are not ruled by precise calendars and schedules. They often schedule multiple appointments simultaneously, so keeping on schedule is almost an impossibility. The culture of polychronic people is more focused on relationships rather than watching the clock. They have no problem being late for an event if they are with family or friends because relationship is what really matters. The use of time indicates status. In most companies, for instance, the boss can interrupt progress to hold an important meeting in the middle of the work day, yet the average worker 7 would have to make an appointment to see the boss. It is natural for a boss to drop into a subordinate‟s office unannounced, while the employee would never intrude into the boss‟s office without an appointment. People of higher status may be excused when they are late while others less so may not be excused. To keep someone of a lower status waiting is a sign of dominance (Orbe and Bruess 157). Oculesics is the study of how the eyes can communicate. Eye movements convey information. Most personal interaction is initiated by a short period during which two people look directly at each other. Eye contact is powerful and signals interest if it is unbroken. Nonverbal communication is natural. This is why some nonverbal communications have the same meaning across cultures. The involuntary nature of nonverbal communication makes it difficult to fake or control it. Even when one shuts out another and does not communicate with him, one still sends a message with one‟s blank stare which is still a facial expression. Nonverbal communication is ambiguous. It can be understood in more than one way. For example, silence. Against the above background, there is the need to investigate nonverbal communications in Nigeria, the United States of America and Great Britain to establish that each of the countries has its own nonverbal communications despite some similarities.
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