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Chapter 7: Nonverbal Codes and Cultural Space
Chapter 7
Nonverbal Codes and Cultural Space
Learning Objectives
After studying the material in this chapter, students should be able to accomplish the following
objectives:
1. Understand how verbal and nonverbal communication differ.
2. Discuss the types of messages that are communicated nonverbally.
3. Identify cultural universals in nonverbal communication.
4. Explain the limitations of some cross-cultural research findings.
5. Define and give an example of cross-cultural differences in facial expressions, proxemics,
gestures, eye contact, paralanguage, chronemics, and silence.
6. Discuss the relationship between nonverbal communication and power.
7. Define cultural space.
8. Describe how cultural spaces are formed.
9. Explain why it is important to understand cultural spaces in intercultural communication.
10. Understand the differences between the modernist and postmodern views of cultural
spaces.
Key Terms
• Chronemics
• Contact cultures
• Cultural space
• Deception
• Discrimination
• Eye contact
• Expectancy violations theory
• Facial expressions
• Monochronic
• Noncontact cultures
• Paralinguistics
• Polychronic
• Postmodern cultural spaces
• Regionalism
• Relational messages
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Chapter 7: Nonverbal Codes and Cultural Space
• Semiosis
• Semiotics
• Signified
• Signifiers
• Signs
• Status
• Vocalizations
• Voice qualities
Detailed Chapter Outline
I. Thinking Dialectically about Nonverbal Communication: Defining Nonverbal
Communication
• There are two forms of communication beyond speech.
o The first includes facial expression, personal space, gestures, eye contact,
paralanguage, use of time, and conversational silence.
o The second includes the cultural spaces that people occupy and negotiate.
▪ Cultural spaces are the social and cultural contexts in which people’s identity
forms—where they grow up and where they live.
A. Comparing Verbal and Nonverbal Communication
• Both verbal and nonverbal communication are symbolic, communicate meaning, and
are patterned—that is, they are governed by contextually determined rules.
o Societies have different nonverbal languages, just as they have different spoken
languages.
o However, some differences between nonverbal and verbal communication codes
have important implications for intercultural interaction.
• Although language is an effective and efficient means of communicating explicit
information or content, every communication also conveys relational messages—
information on how the talker wants to be understood and viewed by the listener.
• Nonverbal behavior communicates status and power. It also communicates deception.
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Chapter 7: Nonverbal Codes and Cultural Space
o Most nonverbal communication about affect, status, and deception happens at an
unconscious level.
• A useful theory in understanding nonverbal communication across cultures is
expectancy violations theory.
II. The Universality of Nonverbal Behavior
• Most traditional research in intercultural communication focuses on identifying cross-
cultural differences in nonverbal behavior.
• It is neither beneficial nor accurate to try to reduce individuals to one element of their
identity.
o Attempts to place people in discrete categories tend to reduce their complexities and
lead to major misunderstandings. However, individuals often classify others
according to various categories to help themselves find universalities.
A. Recent Research Findings
• Research investigating the universality of nonverbal communication has focused on four
communication, particularly in facial expressions.
o Several facial gestures seem to be universal, including the eyebrow flash just
described, the nose wrinkle, and the “disgust face.”
• Although research may indicate universalities in nonverbal communication, some
variations exist. The evoking stimuli (i.e., what causes the nonverbal behavior) may
vary from one culture to another.
• It is important to look for larger cultural patterns in the nonverbal behavior, rather than
trying simply to identify all of the cultural differences.
B. Nonverbal Codes
• Physical appearance is an important nonverbal code.
o It includes physical characteristics like height, weight, and body shape, as well as
personal grooming (including body hair, clothing choices) and personal artifacts
such jewelry, glasses, and backpacks/briefcases/purses.
• During the past 60 years, psychologist Paul Ekman and colleagues, through extensive
and systematic research, have maintained that there are six basic emotions expressed
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Chapter 7: Nonverbal Codes and Cultural Space
through universal facial expressions: happiness, sadness, disgust, surprise, anger, and
fear.
• Unlike facial expressions, the norms for personal space seem to vary considerably from
culture to culture. Proxemics is the study of how people use various types of space in
that varies for individuals and circumstances.
• According to Edward Hall, contact cultures are those societies in which people stand
closer together while talking, engage in more direct eye contact, use face-to-face body
orientations more often while talking, touch more frequently, and speak in louder
voices.
o Direct eye contact shortens the distance between two people, whereas less eye
contact increases the distance.
o Eye contact communicates meanings about respect and status and often regulates
turn-taking.
o Patterns of eye contact vary from culture to culture. In many societies, avoiding
differently from the same words said in a quieter tone of voice at a slower rate.
• Voice qualities—or the nontechnical term, tone of voice—mean the same thing as
vocal qualities.
o Voice qualities include speed, pitch, rhythm, vocal range, and articulation; these
qualities make up the “music” of the human voice.
• People who have a monochronic concept of time regard it as a commodity: Time can
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Chapter 7: Nonverbal Codes and Cultural Space
be gained, lost, spent, wasted, or saved. In this orientation, time is linear, with one event
happening at a time.
• In contrast, in a polychronic orientation, time is more holistic, and perhaps more
circular: Several events can happen at once.
• In many communities, silence is associated with social situations in which a known and
unequal distribution of power exists among participants (Braithwaite, 1990).
C. Stereotype, Prejudice, and Discrimination
• One of the problems with identifying cultural variations in nonverbal codes is that it is
tempting to overgeneralize these variations and stereotype people.
consciously identify the biased behaviors they had seen in the programs.
• Prejudice is often based on nonverbal aspects of behavior. That is, the negative
prejudgment is triggered by physical appearance or behavior.
• Stereotyping or prejudice can lead to overt nonverbal actions to exclude, avoid, or
distance and are called discrimination.
different signs communicate meaning.
o Semiosis is the production of meaning and is constructed through the
interpretation of signs—the combination of signifiers and signified.
o Signifiers are the culturally constructed arbitrary words or symbols people use to
refer to something else, the signified. For example, the word man is a signifier
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Chapter 7: Nonverbal Codes and Cultural Space
III. Defining Cultural Space
• One’s history is important in understanding one’s identity. As writer John Preston (1991)
explains, “Where we come from is important to who we are” (p. xi).
• The discourses that construct the meanings of cultural spaces are dynamic and ever
changing.
A. Cultural Identity and Cultural Space
• Cultural spaces influence how people think about themselves and others.
• One of the earliest cultural spaces people experience is their home. Nonverbal
communication often involves issues of status. The home is no exception.
• Even if one’s home does not reflect the social class to which one aspires, it may be a
place of identification. People often model their own lives on the patterns from their
childhood homes.
o Although this is not always the case, the home can be a place of safety and
security.
early 20th centuries was the ethnic or racial neighborhood.
o Historical studies show, however, that the ethnic neighborhoods of the European
immigrants were rarely inhabited by only one ethnic group, despite memories to
the contrary.
• One significant type of cultural space that emerged in U.S. cities in the latter 19th and
by which other groups lived.
o These rules were enforced through legal means and by harassment.
• Within the context of different power relations and historical forces, settlement patterns
of cultural groups created various ethnic enclaves across the U.S. landscape.
• The relationships among identity, power, and cultural space are quite complex.
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Chapter 7: Nonverbal Codes and Cultural Space
identification to armed conflict.
o Within the United States, people may identify themselves or others as southerners,
New Englanders, and so on.
o Sometimes people fly regional flags, wear particular kinds of clothes, celebrate
borders, one must consider how history, power, identity, culture, and context
come into play.
o Only by understanding these issues can one approach the complex process of
human communication.
B. Changing Cultural Space
• Changing cultural spaces means changing oneself and how one would interact with
others.
• Globalization and cyberspace can change the way people experience changing cultural
spaces.
• People also change cultural spaces when they relocate.
often find it difficult to adjust to the change, especially if the language and
customs of the new cultural space are unfamiliar.
C. Postmodern Cultural Spaces
• Postmodern cultural spaces are places that are defined by cultural practices—
languages spoken, identities enacted, rituals performed—and they often change as new
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Chapter 7: Nonverbal Codes and Cultural Space
o There are MMORPG’s (massively multiplayer online role-playing games), virtual
19th-century notions of space, which promoted land ownership, surveys, borders,
colonies, and territories.
• Cultural space exists only as long as it is needed in its present form.
• Postmodern cultural spaces are both tenuous and dynamic.
o They are created within existing places, without following any particular guide.
• Cultural spaces can also be metaphorical, with historically defined places serving as
sources of contemporary identity negotiation in new spaces.
Discussion Questions
1. How is nonverbal communication different from verbal communication?
2. What are some of the messages we communicate through our nonverbal behaviors? How
might these affect communication with people from different cultures?
3. Which nonverbal behaviors, if any, are universal?
4. What is the difference between contact cultures and noncontact cultures?
5. How do postmodern cultural spaces differ from modernist notions of cultural space?
6. How do our cultural spaces affect our identities?
7. What is the importance of cultural spaces in intercultural communication?
8. How has the Internet affected cultural spaces?
Classroom Exercises and Chapter Assignments
1. Assignment on the Ambiguity of Nonverbal Messages: This assignment is designed to help
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Chapter 7: Nonverbal Codes and Cultural Space
students write a one- to two-page essay about an interpersonal situation in which they
2. Proxemics Exercise: This exercise illustrates the various distances people use in everyday
interactions and helps students find their “bubble” or comfort zone. The exercise also
points out how our bubbles vary depending on our culture and personal preferences. Ask
students to get into pairs and stand facing each other at varying distances while conversing.
3. Role of Nonverbal Communication Exercise: This exercise will help students understand
that nonverbal communication is present in all of our communication interactions and will
help them recognize some of the functions of nonverbal communication. Ask four student
volunteers to participate in a class contest. Have students tell the class about their funny,
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Chapter 7: Nonverbal Codes and Cultural Space
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the first one or two violations. Halt the story as soon as you see even the slightest changes
in facial expressions, eye movement, swaying, and so forth. Students seldom last more than
4 to 6 seconds. After a student stops, tell the student what movement he or she made, and
ask him or her to remain standing in front of the class. When all four students have
finished, ask the class whether it is possible to communicate without using nonverbal
4. Nonverbal Variations Assignment I: This assignment focuses on nonverbal differences in
5. Nonverbal Variations Assignment II: A variation to the previous assignment is to have the
6. Cultural Space Journal Assignment: Have students go to a cultural space that is not their
own. They can go physically or via the Internet. Then, in a journal, have them answer the
7. Time Activity: This exercise is designed to help students think about their cultural norms
with respect to time. Ask students to help you create a list on the chalkboard of the
different places to which they have to go during the week (church, a party, dinner with a
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Chapter 7: Nonverbal Codes and Cultural Space
• For which activities are we most likely to arrive late?
• For which activities do the arrival times vary the most?
Suggested Videos
1. Communication: The Nonverbal Agenda (Distributed by CRM Films, Carlsbad, CA, 1988,
21 minutes)
This video provides a general introduction to nonverbal communication. The relationship
2. Gender and Communication: Male-Female Differences in Language and Nonverbal
Behavior (Produced by Dane Archer, 42 minutes, Color, 2001)
3. Architecture: Why Man Builds (Distributed by McGraw-Hill Publishing Company, New
4. A World of Gestures: Culture and Nonverbal Communication (Distributed by University of
5. A World of Differences: Understanding Cross-Cultural Communication (University of
California Extension Center for Media and Independent Learning, 1997, 30 minutes)
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Chapter 7: Nonverbal Codes and Cultural Space
cultural differences in personal space, etiquette and ritual, patterns of touch, the expression