Ex. 1. Identifying aspects of communication. Read the following article and get ready to dwell on the main characteristics of the communicative phenomenon under consideration.

Body Language

Body language is much more influential than most people recognise. The main reason it is so important is because it is more truthful than the official elements of our social encounters. We lie much more easily with our spoken words than with our expressions, our gesticulations and our body postures. We can control our utterances down to the last syllable, but what are our fingers doing as we speak? How are our feet shifting as we talk? We may be able to control and manipulate some of our gestures but not all of them. There are too many and we are too preoccupied with what we are saying to be able to concentrate on all the finer points of our bodily actions.

Some individuals – such as great actors and devious politicians – do become extremely adept at lying with their bodies. They often fool us, and we believe them. They manage to avoid what has been called ‘non-verbal leakage’ – something that most of us do every day. Despite our attempts to suppress tell-tale signs, we give the game away by leaking little bits of information as we speak. We do this in several ways.

When we are telling lies we gesticulate less. This is because, unconsciously, we sense that if we use our hands their actions may not fit with our words. Our hands may be clenching tight, for example, when we are cooing soft words of love. Or they may flutter limply while our words insist that we are taking a firm stand. So we intuitively reduce our hand movements. But this in itself then becomes a clue that deception is taking place. It may not be easy to spot but to a trained eye it is clear enough.

Although the liar is less likely to wave his hands about in the air, he is more likely to use them in other ways. When deception is taking place he feels a strange compulsion to touch his face. Every so often one or both hands move up towards his mouth, as if trying to mask the lie that is issuing from his lips. Once there, another fleeting sensation takes over – the feeling that covering the mouth is too obvious. So the hand moves on and rubs the cheek, strokes the nose, scratches the eyebrow or touches the forehead. This attempt to cover up the cover-up usually works well. The companion imagines that the speaker’s nose must be itching and ignores the trivial action, while continuing to listen to the honeyed words. I am sometimes challenged on this point by people who say, “But supposing the nose really is itching?” The answer is to study the scratching. Someone who has been stung by an insect will scratch in a more intense, specific way than the liar whose hand-to-face actions are almost casual by comparison.

Another hand posture that increases when deception is taking place is the hand shrug. The hands are held in front of the body, palm up and with the fingers slightly curled. The degree of curling increases little by little from the first finger to the fourth. Some observers have been puzzled as to why this particular action should increase when someone is lying. The answer is to be found in the message that is transmitted during ordinary shrugging. The full shrug, with shoulders raised, mouth corners pulled down, head tilted, eyes turned up and hands held out, is used as a disclaimer: “I don’t know”, “I can’t help”, “I don’t understand”. It is always a negative message, in which the gesturer essentially is saying, “This has nothing to do with me.” When people start to lie, they unconsciously want to distance themselves from what they are doing and their small hand shrug is the tell-tale clue.

Another form of non-verbal leakage is the body shift. When we are telling the truth we may wave our hands about, we may even lean forward, or leap up, but we do not squirm. The bad liar does squirm a little, his body showing a strong urge to escape, while held firmly in place by the need to brazen out the lie. The good liar manages to suppress most of this body shifting but not all. There are nearly always a few tiny body movements left that he finds it impossible to eliminate. They may be no more than a slight shift of weight or pressure but they can be spotted if the listener is alert to them.

All these tell-tale signs can be observed not only in people who are in the process of telling lies but also when they are momentarily silent. Then, the gestures must be interpreted in a slightly different way. If, for example, somebody is asked a difficult question – one that he does not wish to answer – he may touch his nose or shift the weight of his body before he replies. What is happening is that, while he is thinking about the question and how to answer it, he appears calm but his brain is seething. That is the deception: outward calm, inward panic. When he finally does reply he may be lying or he may in fact be telling the truth.

So caution must be used when interpreting these small ‘leaks’ in our body language. They certainly indicate that something is going on inside the brain of the companion that is not being shown to the outside world but whether this amounts to a downright lie or a moment of soul-searching followed by a difficult truth will vary from case to case. Despite this weakness, however, non-verbal leakage does provide valuable clues about how simple and straightforward a companion is being in any particular encounter, or how complex and devious he is.

The Human Animal: A Natural History of the Human Species

1. How can we understand what people really feel – judging by their words or by their body language?

2. Say what things usually indicate that a person is lying.

3. Classify all the gestures and body movements described in the text as affect displays, adaptors or other types/groups of nonverbal means.

Ex. 2. Discussion. Express your opinion about the following. Can people control their body language?

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