Visiting different cultures

When in Rome, do as Romans do

Body Language **

Spoken English is the first language that mankind as a whole learned and each human being learns early in his life. Human beings don’t only communicate with words. Like all animals we also have a complex body language of gestures, postures and facial expressions. Few of us realize how much we depend on these. Sometimes, this silent language becomes more important than verbal communication. Very often talking to a person we have a feeling that our interlocutor is not sincere, we do not believe what he is saying and can’t rely on him. Usually it means that his body language reveals what he is trying to hide from you with so many words. So, our bodies are constantly talking. Sometimes we use them in a very conscious way. We smile, shrug, frown or make shapes in the air with our hands.

For example:

A bored person yawns or scratches one ear.

Someone who’s nervous blinks a lot or moves open foot up and down very fast.

A fascinated child sits absolutely still, eyes and mouth wide open.

Many gestures are done unconsciously. For example, recent research suggests that our gestures change significantly when we are lying. In a research in the USA it was found that when someone was lying, she/he increased their shoulders more often; increased the number of body movements while speaking.

People from different countries have different “silent languag­es”. What is proper and polite (even nice and friendly) in one culture may seem awkward and rude to a person with a different cultural background: many of the gestures used are specific to certain cultures.

Jose Corriola and Sir Edward Style meet at a party. It’s important for them to establish good relations — they are busi­ness partners. Trying to be friendly, Jose, moves closer to Sir Edward. Sir Edward thinks Jose is too pushy, even aggressive and keeps backing away. Jose regards this as coldness and unfriendliness. “Personal distance” is dif­ferent in different cultures. The English, German, Scandinavi­ans and Americans, for example tend to avoid contact and maintain greater personal “distance”. Italians, Russians, Latin, Americans and the French on the contrary — like close per­sonal contact.

Other gestures are common in several countries, for exam­ple, shaking the head and sticking out the tongue are symbols of rejection in many cultures. Psychologists think this origi­nates from babies turning their head away from their mother’s breast.

We all produce thousands of signs like these every day. Silent languages are sometimes more difficult to learn than spoken ones. But first of all we should become aware of their importance. Words com­municate a great deal on their own, of course, but be honest... wouldn’t you rather talk to someone face-to-face than over the phone?

Дата добавления: 2015-10-21