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COMM5 Instructor Manual Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Nonverbal Messages

Goal: To understand nonverbal communication, the types of nonverbal signals used, and

how they are used to communicate along with verbal messages.

Overview: This chapter identifies the characteristics of nonverbal communication, describes

the sources of nonverbal information and explains how gender, sex, and cultural context will

affect how different nonverbal messages will be received. The chapter concludes by offering

suggestions to improve both the construction and the interpretation of nonverbal messages.

Learning Outcomes

5-1 Identify characteristics of nonverbal communication.

5-2 Identify the different types of nonverbal communication.

5-3 Employ strategies to improve your nonverbal communication.

Key Terms

Acoustic space

Adaptors

Body movement

Body orientation

Emblems

Eye contact (oculesics)

Facial expression

Gestures

Haptics

Illustrators

Intonation

Kinesics

Media richness

Nonverbal

Communication

Nonverbal messages

Paralanguage (vocalics)

Personal Space

Physical appearance

Pitch

Posture

Proxemics

Rate

Territorial space

Vocalized pauses

Voice quality (timbre)

Volume

Figures and Tables

Figure 5.1 Personal Space

Chapter Outline

I. Characteristics of nonverbal communication

A. Nonverbal communication consists of all the messages we send in ways that

transcend spoken or written words. More specifically, nonverbal messages are cues

we send with our body, voice, space, time, and appearance to emphasize, substitute

for, or contradict a verbal message.

B. Nonverbal communication is inevitable.

C. Nonverbal communication is the primary conveyor of our emotions.

D. Nonverbal communication is multi-channeled

E. Nonverbal communication meaning can be ambiguous

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II. Types of nonverbal communication

A. Kinesics: the interpretation of body motions used in communication

1. Gestures: movements of our hands, arms, and fingers to convey or replace a

verbal message.

a. Illustrators: gestures that augment a verbal message

b. Emblems: gestures that substitute for words

c. Adaptors: gestures that respond to a physical need

2. Eye contact, or gaze: how and how much we look at people with whom we are

communicating

3. Facial expression: Using facial muscles to communicate emotional states or

reactions to messages

4. Posture: the position and movement of the body; body orientation: posture in

relation to another person

5. Haptics: the interpretation of touch

a. Reaction to touch is affected by individual preference, family background, and

culture.

b. Reaction to touch differs within context (public versus private)

B. Paralanguage: the voiced but not verbal part of a spoken message

1. Pitch: the highness or lowness of vocal tone

2. Volume: the loudness of softness of tone

3. Rate: the speed at which a person speaks

4. Quality: the sound of a person’s voice

5. Intonation: the variety, melody, and inflection in one’s voice

6. Vocalized pauses: extraneous sounds or words that interrupt fluent speech

C. Proxemics: the interpretation of a person’s use of space

1. Personal space: the distance you try to maintain when you interact with other

people

2. Territorial space: the physical space over which we claim ownership and status.

3. Acoustic space: the area over which our voice can be comfortably heard

D. Chronemics: the way others interpret your use of time

1. Monochronic time orientation: a time orientation that emphasizes doing one thing

at a time, adheres to schedules and rigid appointment times, and schedules

interpersonal relationships

2. Polychronic time orientation: a time orientation that emphasizes doing multiple

things at once, views schedules as flexible, and subordinates scheduled activities

to interpersonal relationships

E. Physical appearance: how we look to others

1. Today, more than ever, people use clothing choices, body art, and other personal

grooming to communicate who they are and what they stand for

2. When we meet someone, we are likely to form our first impression of them based

on how they are dressed and groomed

F. Mediated Communication and Media Richness: how much and what kinds of

information can be transmitted via a particular channel.

1. Face-to-face is generally the richest channel and the standard against which

other channels are measured because we hear verbal message content and

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observe nonverbal cues and physical context to interpret a speaker’s

meaning.

2. The less information offered via a given channel, the leaner it is. The leaner

the channel, the greater the chances for misunderstanding.

III. Guidelines for improving nonverbal communication

A. Sending nonverbal messages

1. Consciously monitor your nonverbal messages

2. Align your nonverbal messages with your purpose

3. Adapt your nonverbal messages to the situation

4. Reduce or eliminate distracting nonverbal messages

B. Interpreting nonverbal messages

1. Remember that the same nonverbal message may mean different things to

different people, culture to culture, and even situation to situation.

2. Consider each nonverbal message in context

3. Pay attention to the multiple nonverbal messages being sent and their

relationship to the verbal message

4. Use perception checking

Technology Resources

Maria Brazil

http://www.maria-brazil.org/brazilian_body_language.htm Maria Brazil is a U.S.-based Web

site dedicated to Brazilian culture. This link will take you to a page on the site that depicts

how Brazilians use body language to communicate. How does Brazilian body language

compare to body language used in the United States?

Movies

Little Miss Sunshine (2006)

Rated: R (Language; some sex and drug content)

Synopsis: The Hoovers are an American family that includes many depressed, quirky, and

interesting family members. They take a weekend trip to L.A. for the youngest family

member, Olive, to be in a beauty pageant. Son, Dwayne has taken a vow of silence, the

reason for which becomes more complicated as the story progresses.

Questions for discussion

1. Note some unique and important aspects of each character’s non–verbal communication

style. What does it reveal about that character’s personality?

2. Why has Dwayne taken a vow of silence? How does this silence affect others’

communication in the movie?

3. Explain how the last scene violated the nonverbal rules for beauty pageants. What does

Olive’s dance illuminate about beauty pageants?

4. What does the family’s possession of a dead body imply about proxemics and their

nonverbal communication with each other?

COMM5 Instructor Manual Chapter 5

WALL-E (2008)

Rated: G

Synopsis: Set in the near future, WALL-E depicts a universe in which the earth has become

a giant trash dump and people live in a spaceship, relying primarily on machines to do any

activity they must complete. The humans are overweight and lack critical thinking. WALL-

E, a trash compactor, is the only remaining working machine on planet Earth, and he

continues to compact trash and find treasures within it. Eve, a robot from the spaceship,

comes to earth to determine if there is still life on the planet. WALL-E returns to the

spaceship with Eve. The humans resist returning to earth, but eventually they realize that

they cannot be lazy, self-centered, and disrespectful to their surroundings. The entire first

¾ of the movie has no talking in it.

Questions for discussion

1. The first part of this movie has no talking in it. Were you aware of this immediately?

What was your response to it? Did you like the movie more or less once there was

talking?

2. Did you believe WALL-E was male, female, or neither? Why?

3. How did you know what WALL-E and his cockroach were communicating to each other?

4. What is the result of the ironically poor communication or interaction between the

humans and the robots?

5. How is this film a commentary on the relationship between technology and

contemporary society?

The Graduate (1967)

Rated: PG

Synopsis: Benjamin Braddock graduates from college and worries about his future. With

seemingly little direction, Benjamin allows himself to be seduced into an affair with an older

woman, Mrs. Robinson. Soon, however, Benjamin finds himself in a quandary when he falls

for her daughter, Elaine, also Ben’s age and a recent college graduate. A movie of sparse

dialogue, this film relies on kinesics, paralanguage, proxemics, and chronemics for

communication.

Questions for Discussion

1. Discuss the facial gestures and body movements as the camera pans between

Benjamin and Mrs. Robinson in the beginning of the film when she first tries seducing

him. Watch the scene on mute. What can you discern about nonverbal

communication function and dysfunction?

2. When Ben and Mrs. Robinson are in a hotel room for the first time, Ben

communicates chiefly in paralanguage and facial gestures. Mrs. Robinson’s words

and body language are terse. Again, compare each character’s communication style.

What does each style say about the character and his or relationship with the other?

3. Compare Elaine Robinson’s communication with that of her mother. How are the two

different and why is that difference important when it comes to a relationship with

Ben?

Additional suggested movies: Philadelphia (1993) (perception, nonverbal); Before

Sunrise (1994) (nonverbal); In and Out (1997) (nonverbal, co-culture, gender); Freaky

Friday (2003) (personality expression via nonverbal communication); Tootsie (1982)

(masculine and feminine nonverbal behaviors); Love, Actually (2003) (paralanguage and

COMM5 Instructor Manual Chapter 5

proxemics in romantic relationships); Children of a Lesser God (1986) (sending, receiving,

and interpreting nonverbal communication)

Other Media Resources

1. Nonverbal Behavior: Nonverbal Communication Links

http://www3.usal.es/~nonverbal/varios.htm

2. Free Hugs Campaign

http://www.freehugscampaign.org/

Diverse Voices

Chronemics

by Charles Okigbo

Head, Policy Engagement & Communication

African Population and Health Research Center

Nairobi, Kenya

It is ironic that time is universal in the sense that every society understands the passage of

time, which is also connected to growth, aging, and transitions from one life stage to

another. And yet, the concept of time is so varied from one society to another. I have

experienced the sameness and variation in understanding or appreciating time in my life

history, starting from growing up in Nigeria, coming to the United States for higher

education, and traveling between the United States and different African countries. In much

of Africa, there are two time modes—cultural time, which is imprecise, and Western or, as

we call it in Nigeria, “English” time. In Nigeria, we call this precise clock-based accounting

for time “English time” because the British colonized us. Other African countries that had

different colonists might call it by a different name.

Time in much of traditional Africa is seen as an inexhaustible resource that flows

endlessly and is hardly in short supply. Growing up in my Igbo village in southeastern

Nigeria, the setting for Chinua Achebe’s novel, Things Fall Apart, I saw my people mark time

with the rising and setting of the sun. Longer periods were marked by the rainy and dry

seasons, which could come late or early, and people’s ages were gauged by historic events

such as the world wars, the invasion of locusts, or the British colonialists’ confiscation of all

guns. Such loose characterization meant that precision was not possible. I vividly remember

my people saying with utmost imprecision that a morning meeting would start “after

sunrise” or “at the first cockcrow” or “after the morning market.” Whereas this would

appear confusing and imprecise to Western time observers, to us, it presented no problems

at all.

My first experience with Western time was when I went to kindergarten and later

elementary school. We were taught to be punctual, and tardiness exacted strict sanctions,

usually severe flogging. The severity of the punishment depended on how late one came to

school.

When I first came to the United States in 1978 for graduate studies at Ohio

University, I was already comfortable with Western time and never had any problem with

punctuality. In fact, many Africans in the United States who come from backgrounds of

cultural time are often hypersensitive about punctuality issues and tend to be too punctual.

This may be a case of overcompensating to avoid relapsing to cultural time. The adjustment

to Western time can present some challenges, especially in situations when we have

exclusive African events in the United States. For example, I remember from my personal

experiences as an African student and teacher in the United States that many meetings

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organized by Nigerian or other African students hardly ever started “on time” by Western

standards because we often relapsed to our cultural time for exclusively African events.

We also tend to operate by cultural time when hosting exclusively African events in

U.S. communities. For example, the Igbo Cultural Association in Minneapolis (Umunne)

holds an annual masquerade festival in the fall. Even when the published program states

that the celebration will start at 4:00 p.m., the organizers and their African guests know

that the event will probably begin about 8:00 p.m. or so, because it is largely an exclusive

African event.

So, we seem capable of successfully weaving in and out of cultural time depending

on our expectation of whether the occasion is for Africans only or for Africans and “others.”

When the “others” are people with Western time orientation, we make every effort to be

punctual. But when they are people who seem to share our sense of time, we respond

accordingly. This represents a chronemics co-orientation, by which I mean that

unconsciously we size up the other to know where to position them on the continuum of

“cultural” and “Western” time. If they are closer to the former, we expect them to have a

more relaxed approach to time, but if they are closer to the latter, we try to be punctual

and seriously time conscious in dealing with them.

The tendency is for people to adjust their sense of time depending on the situation or

the expectation of the audience. Professional meetings, conferences, even appointments

with doctors or lawyers are loosely treated depending on one’s expectations of how the

other side sees time.

I must say that we Africans are not the only ones who could benefit from engaging in

chronemics co-orientation. People who are usually Western in their approach to keeping

appointments may decide not to be so punctual if they expect that the other party will keep

them waiting. For example, in the 1960s my village, Ojoto, was so small that we had no

resident priest for the local church. Every Sunday, an Irish priest came from the cathedral in

Onitsha to conduct mass. Whereas many priests observed Western time and were usually

punctual and expected us to be as well, Revered Father Nicholson, went so native in his

sense of time that the joke then became that if Fr. Nicholson was the celebrant for the

Sunday mass, you could go to the market and do five other chores before coming to his

Sunday morning mass, and you would not be late! So, we could say that whereas

sometimes Africans may need to adjust to the precision of Western time, at other times and

in other situations, other people, including Europeans and Americans who are dealing with

exclusive African groups, should consider adjusting to cultural time.

I have noticed that many African Americans in the United States are similar to

Africans from the continent with respect to time consciousness, and many Native Americans

in North Dakota and Minnesota share a similar cultural time orientation. So when African

Americans host a party where most of the guests are also African American, the invitation

may state that the party starts at 7:00 p.m., but the host may not expect most guests to

arrive until after 9:30 p.m.

While both cultural time and Western time continue to guide human behavior,

increasing globalization and the information technological revolution are dictating a global

approach to time that runs by the precision of the clock rather than by the natural rhythms

of the rising or setting of the sun or the beginning or ending of seasons. Whether this move

is ultimately in the best interest of humankind remains to be seen.

There appears to be no rule of thumb about how Africans take time. In fact, we have

obviously overgeneralized in talking about “African time,” knowing that it is impossible to

have all 53 African countries or 750 million African peoples adopt a uniform outlook on how

to use time. The expectation is that educated Africans adopt Western time more than their

uneducated compatriots, but this is also an overgeneralization since there are many

educated Africans who have a very poor sense of punctuality, whereas there are uneducated

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ones to whom punctuality is second nature. There are many exceptions to any

generalization. My personal experience, which has many limitations, is that being tardy is

more readily tolerated in Africa, although there are many Africans who value punctuality

and cannot stand tardiness. Every culture has people who are punctual and others who are

tardy. We have them both in Africa as well.

Reflection Questions

1. What is Okigbo’s opinion about the efficacy of one style of chronemics versus the other?

(HINT: what do you detect in his tone)?

2. What are some implied or stated long term effects in either culture regarding the

meshing of cultural and “English” time.

3. Do we see evidence of both influences in the United States? Where and why?

4. How does human behavior influence cultural perceptions of time?

Discussion and Assignment Ideas

I. Visit the website http://www.freehugscampaign.org/ and read about the campaign to

promote more conscious touch. Why do you think this campaign has received such a

strong reaction? Do you think our society is more or less open to touch than a

generation ago? Would this campaign have been possible 50 years ago? 100 years ago?

How does a campaign like this one promote or alienate either individualistic or

collectivist cultures?

II. Quotes: These can be used to introduce topics, questions perspectives, or gain

individual opinion. Providing students with a quote and prompting them to write or

reflect on their personal feelings about the quote can help to spark discussion and

interest. Suggested prompts may include “Define this concept in your own words”; “Do

you agree with this statement? Explain”; “What text material can be used to support or

refute this idea?” “How can any or all of these quotations be applied to concepts from

chapter 5”; “What might these people say to Charles Okigbo (the author above) or vice

versa?”

Voices: I think they must go deeper into us than other things.

—George Elliot

The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn’t being said.

—John Stuart Mill

Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening

ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the

potential to turn a life around.

—Leo Buscaglia

”What you do speaks so loud that I cannot hear what you say.”

—Ralph Waldo Emerson

III. At what age were you able to detect sarcasm? When is sarcasm inappropriate even if the

intent of the paralanguage is known? When might sarcasm be appropriate or

acceptable? How does sarcasm affect electronically mediated communication?

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Chapter Activities

5.1: Gender and Nonverbal Communication

Purpose: To illustrate differing cultural rules regarding appropriate nonverbal behavior

for males and females

Time: 50 minutes

Process: Have men and women reverse role-play (women playing men, men playing

women) in the following situations:

a. Two male friends who haven’t seen each other for some time meeting on

the street.

b. Two female friends who haven’t seen each other for some time meeting

on the street.

c. Three women sitting around a table in a bar and talking.

d. Three men sitting around a table in a bar and talking.

e. A male student telling his roommate about his significant other breaking

up with him.

f. A female student telling her roommate about her significant other

breaking up with her.

When all simulations have been presented, discuss them in terms of

proxemics, haptics, kinesics, and paralanguage using the following questions:

1. What were women’s perceptions of men’s typical nonverbal behavior?

2. What were men’s perceptions of women’s typical nonverbal behavior?

3. What are the sources of these perceptions? Are they accurate or

stereotypical?

4. Were there moments when you laughed during the role playing? Why and

how much?

5. Do such behaviors and perceptions of behaviors affect same-sex

communication? How?

6. If you could change anything about these perceptions, what would you

change? Why? How?

5.2: Understanding Kinesics

Purpose: To help students understand both the usefulness and the limitations of relying

too heavily on body language for meaning

Time: 15 to 20 minutes

Process: Working in teams of two, three, and four, have students enact a two-minute

conversation entirely through body motions (such as gestures, facial

expression, eye contact) and touch. You can have them pick from the

following scripts or make one up for themselves:

• (3 students) Cheating student. Two group members don’t want to let you

cheat.

• (2 students) Someone is blind. Another person is in a rush, trying to sneak

by the blind person, not knowing that person is blind.

• (4 students) Three people are in the waiting room of a hospital. One is a

nurse, trying to get ahead of the others in line.

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• (2 students) Two people are in church. One is falling asleep, and the other

is embarrassed and trying to keep that person awake.

• (2 students) One is showing the other how to change a baby’s diaper.

• (2 students) Two people are on an airplane. One tries to sleep while the

other needs to use the bathroom.

Give the students a few minutes to work out how they will convey the

message of their skit without words. Make sure the groups do not share the

scripts with one other, as you will be asking the class to guess what each

group’s message is. Ask for student volunteers to share a few of the skits

with the class. At the end of each skit, every student should write their own

script of what messages were conveyed and understood. Have the class

compare scripts. How accurately did the students communicate their

messages? Which of the body motion categories were most helpful in

conveying meaning? When there were inaccuracies, can you identify why?

What kinds of information did you feel the greatest frustration in

communicating?

5.3: The Versatility of Paralanguage

Purpose: To help students recognize that often paralanguage conveys the message

Time: 15 minutes

Process: Provide students with a very generic dialogue involving two participants that

relies on historical context, emits descriptive words, and can be applied to

many situations. Have two students volunteer to perform the scene. Give

these students a setting and situation or let them select their own (e.g., you

meet an old friend in the grocery store). Have them use the dialogue and

paralanguage to convey this setting. Have other students guess what is going

on. Continue to provide different situations for different volunteers, allowing

all students to see that a verbal message might apply to any situation but

that paralanguage is often the determining, descriptive factor.

5.4: Paralanguage Practice

Purpose: To have students practice using paralanguage to communicate emotion

Time: 15 minutes

Process: Bring the following items to class: a DVD player manual, a bottle of bubbles,

a cake mix box, a shampoo bottle, and a drug prescription information sheet.

Write the following emotions on small pieces of paper: anger, disgust,

embarrassment, elation, despair, contentment, and loneliness. Have

volunteer students select a product and an emotion. Instruct them to read the

printed material while communicating the assigned emotion through their

paralanguage. Ask the class to guess the emotion being communicated.

5.5: Mirroring

Purpose: This simple exercise sensitizes the students to the details of body movement

and expression. It also may say something about interpersonal styles.

Time: 20 minutes

Process: Have students pair off. Either sitting or standing, one person in each pair

takes the lead and begins to move in any way he/she wishes (tell them to

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avoid talking, since it’s distracting). The task for the other student is to follow

or mimic everything that the leader does. Encourage people to use both

obvious and subtle behaviors. Do this for a minute or two, then switch roles

of who is leading and who is following. Finally, tell the dyads to do the

exercise one last time except that NO ONE is the leader or the follower. Both

people in the pair should try to move in unison, as if they are mirroring each

other simultaneously in a body language “dance.” This is somewhat hard to

do and takes a bit of practice before a pair gets the hang of it, if they can do

it at all. If the pair IS successful, what usually happens is that there are rapid,

minute shifts between leading and following.

Also have everyone switch partners several times and repeat the above steps.

This mirroring can be done with body language alone, facial expressions

alone, or body language WITH facial expressions. This last one is considerably

more difficult to do than the first two. Some students prefer to “lead” while

others prefer to “follow.” In particular, some people are very empathetically in

tune with the others’ movements, while some people cannot focus on this.

Also, moving in unison is easy with some people, but not others, which says

something about how “in sync” a dyad is.

Adapted from Module 8 from Dalton State College

Journal Assignments

A. Distracting Mannerisms

Describe any distracting mannerisms that you may have. Ask someone who knows you well

to provide input. Compare your perception with that of the person you asked. How aware of

your nonverbal communication behaviors are you? What, if any, changes would you like to

make?

B. Touch Preferences and Personal Space

Are you a person who likes or dislikes being touched? Why? How do you communicate your

preference to others? How does this correlate to personal space? Through observation, see

if you can distinguish your preferred distance for intimate space. How does your preference

for personal space and touch change when interacting with acquaintances, friends, and

strangers?

C. Environment

How does your home, apartment, or dorm room communicate information about you? What

is it saying right now? Why?

D. The Multi-Channeled nature of Nonverbal Communication

For this assignment, select a popular syndicated talk show host who has both a radio and a

TV or Internet broadcast. First listen to the host you chose speak on the radio. Then watch

him or her on TV or the Internet. Pay attention to how you receive the message over the

radio, when only paralanguage is available, versus when you watch the broadcast over a

medium in which you can see facial expressions, eye contact, and other nonverbal channels.

How is the message affected by the presence or absence of certain nonverbal channels? Do

you interpret the message differently when you see it with paralanguage alone, or was the

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message the same when it was accompanied by other nonverbals?

E. Videotaping Your Surroundings

Using your phone or tablet, videotape several interactions and the communication therein

between two or three people. When you watch the videotape later, analyze the moving

pictures as if they were written text and you’re looking for patterns among them. What do

people’s physical characteristics illustrate about them? How do they interact? What about

their words? How do words, gestures, appearance, and environment all coalesce to form

functional or dysfunctional communication? Write a reflection entry in which you address

one or more of the above verbal and nonverbal communication factors.

*Students have access to these journal assignments on tear-out cards at the back of their

textbooks.

What Would You Do?

A Question of Ethics

After the intramural mixed-doubles tennis matches on Tuesday evening, most of the players

adjourned to the campus grill for a drink and a chat. Marquez and Lisa sat down with Barry

and Elana, the couple they had lost a match to that night (because of Elana’s

improvement). Although Marquez and Lisa were only tennis friends, Barry and Elana had

been going out together for much of the season.

After some general conversation about the tournament, Marquez said, “Elana, your

serve today was the best I’ve seen it this year.”

“Yeah, I was really impressed. And as you saw, I had trouble handling it,” Lisa added.

“And you’re getting to the net a lot better too,” Marquez added.

“Thanks, guys,” Elana said in a tone of gratitude, “I’ve really been working on it.”

“Well, aren’t we getting the compliments today,” sneered Barry in a sarcastic tone. Then

after a pause, he said, “Oh, Elana, would you get my sweater—I left it on that chair by the

other table.”

“Come on, Barry; you’re closer than I am,” Elana replied.

Barry got a cold look on his face, moved slightly closer to Elana, and said emphatically,

“Get my sweater for me, Elana. Now.”

Elana quickly backed away from Barry as she said, “OK, Barry—it’s cool,” and she then

quickly got the sweater for him.

“Gee, isn’t she sweet,” Barry said to Marquez and Lisa as he grabbed the sweater from

Elana.

Lisa and Marquez both looked down at the floor. Then Lisa glanced at Marquez and said,

“Well, I’m out of here. I’ve got a lot to do this evening.”

“Let me walk you to your car,” Marquez said as he stood up.

“See you next week,” they both said in unison as they hurried out the door, leaving

Barry and Elana alone at the table.

1. Analyze Barry’s nonverbal behavior. What was he attempting to achieve?

2. How do you interpret Lisa’s and Marquez’s nonverbal reactions to Barry?

3. Was Barry’s behavior ethically acceptable? Explain.

4. What were secondary or implied meanings behind the words of Barry, Elana, Marquez,

and Lisa?

5. Compare and contrast the sarcastic from laudatory tones among the conversationalists

above. What is importance about voice tone here and how does it influence nonverbal

communication and physical movement.

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PopComm

Body Art Then and Now: Its Messages and Meanings

Since ancient times, people have been painting, piercing, scarring, tattooing, and shaping

their bodies. In fact, there is no culture that didn’t or doesn’t use body art to signal people’s

place in society, mark a special occasion, or just make a fashion statement. The body art

you see today is simply an extension of ancient human practice that has been adapted to

our 21st-century definitions of status, ritual, and beauty.

Body painting is a temporary means of creating a different identity or celebrating a

particular occasion. For centuries Eastern cultures have used henna to dye hands and other

body parts to celebrate rites of passage such as marriages. Traditionally in India, married

women wore a bindi, a red spot, between their eyebrows. Native Americans used a variety

of natural dyes to paint their bodies in preparation for war. Today, women use cosmetics,

sports fans decorate their faces and bodies before big games, and children have their faces

painted at community festivals.

Roman soldiers and Masai warriors voluntarily underwent body piercings as a sign of

strength. Some tribal cultures had a rite of passage in which the person hangs from large

piercings in the limbs or body trunk. Some societies used piercings as a sign of slavery, and

others viewed them as signs of beauty or royalty. Today piercing is voluntary, and common

parts of the body to be pierced are the ears and nose. Some people choose to pierce other

body parts including eyebrows, tongues, navels, and genitals. Often, piercings are a rite of

passage signaling some personal milestone. At a certain age girls may have their ears

pierced. Less traditional piercings or multiple piercings may be undertaken as a sign of

rebellion or to express membership in a particular subculture.

Scarification is the deliberate cutting or burning of the skin in such a way as to control

the scarring and create a pattern or picture. Sometimes the freshly made cuts are purposely

irritated so that they form raised or keloid scars. Scarification was widely practiced in Africa,

where facial scars could identify a person’s ethnic group or family, or just be an individual

statement of beauty. The Jewish rite of circumcision practiced since the time of Abraham is

a form of scarification. Today, scarification may be part of a fraternity or gang initiation rite.

Some individuals use cutting to escape from feeling trapped in an intolerable psychological

and emotional situation. The scars that result from this type of cutting are seen as badges

of survival.

Tattooing is the oldest form of body art; tattooed mummies have been found in

various parts of the world. Tattoos are permanent alterations to the body using inks or

dyes, and they are symbolic in nature. Like other body art, tattoos can be either a

statement of group solidarity or an expression of individuality. They can be sources of

shame or pride. They can be public statements of outsider status or privately enjoyed

personal symbols.

Like piercings, tattoos have also been used to mark people who were considered

property or inferior in some other way. African American slaves were often tattooed. During

World War II the Nazis tattooed a five-digit number on the inner forearm of Jews and other

“undesirables” in concentration camps to strip them of their individual identities. Unlike self–

initiated tattoos, which are a source of pride for the wearer, these tattoos were a source of

shame. For years after their ordeal, many Holocaust survivors covered their forearms and

refused to talk about their experiences. The number on their arm was a grim reminder that

they had survived while others had perished.

Today tattoos are losing their outsider status. Celebrities, soccer moms, corporate

executives, sports stars, and high school students sport tattoos as statements of

individuality and personal aesthetic. Teenagers may “rebel” by having a small butterfly

tattooed on their shoulder blade or a Native American–patterned band tattooed on their

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bicep. Some people have tattoos strategically placed so that they can choose to display

them or hide them from view depending on the self they want to portray.

Shaping, another type of body art, is altering the silhouette or shape of the body

based on a culturally validated aesthetic. Cranial shaping, neck stretching, corsetry, and

foot binding have been practiced in various cultures at various times. Native American and

African tribes practiced head shaping. In Africa, Burma, and Thailand rings or beaded

necklaces are used to give the appearance of an elongated neck. Corsetry began in ancient

times as a means of protecting the wearer from hernias and other body damage that occurs

during strenuous activity. By the time of the Romans, wearing a corset became a sign of

lower status. Slaves, who did manual labor, wore corsets while their owners wore flowing

garments. In the16th century, fashionable French women cinched their corsets to achieve a

13–inch waist. For over two thousand years, Chinese girls’ feet were bound so that they

would have the ideal tiny feet and would be able to marry well.

When Madonna donned a merry widow corset, she was just following a practice that is

several centuries old. And the Spanx undergarments that many women wear today have

their origins in body shaping. But today, we body shape in a variety of additional ways

including weigh lifting and other workouts that go beyond keeping us healthy. We also body

shape through cosmetic surgeries, allowing us to rid ourselves of our familial nose, take

years off of our face, or suck off unwanted weight. Some people become addicted to

cosmetic surgery, and others develop eating disorders in order to conform their natural

bodies to the current definitions of beauty.

When it comes to body art, everything old is new again.

Sources:

African neck stretching. (2008–2009). Retrieved from African

Tribes.Org Web site: http://www.african-tribes.org/africanneck-stretching.html; American

Museum of Natural History. (1999). Exhibition highlights. Body Art: Marks of Identity.

Retrieved from http://

www.amnh.org/exhibitions/bodyart/exhibition_highlights.html; Australian Museum. (2009).

Shaping. Body Art. Retrieved from http://amonline.net.au/bodyart/shaping/; Jacobs, B.

(2005, June). Adolescents and self-cutting (self-harm):Information for parents (Bringing

Science to Your Life, Guide I-104). Retrieved from Cooperative Extension Service, College of

Agriculture and Home Economics, New Mexico State University Web site:

http://aces.nmsu.edu/pubs/_i/I-104.pdf; Lim, L. (Reporter). (2007, March 19). Painful

memories for China’s footbinding survivors [Radio broadcast story]. In Morning Edition.

Retrieved from National Public Radio Web

site:http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=8966942; Schurman, A. (n.d.).

A brief and rich body piercing history. Life 123. Retrieved from

http://www.life123.com/beauty/style/

piercings/body-piercing-history.shtml; Wilson, C. (2002). The history of corsets.

eSSORTMENT: Information and advice you want to know. Retrieved form

http://www.essortment.com/all/historyofcors_rmue.htm

Reflection Questions

1. Is there a question of ethics in the above narrative? Would you consider some practices

as either ethical or unethical and how do you know? What are your criteria for this decision?

2. What secondary motives might a culture have for binding and shaping? Are there

metaphoric meanings, such as the binding of the feet represents a similar control of

freedom? Use the examples above to draw your own interpretations

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3. Why might tattoos have gained universal appeal while body piercings still seem a bit

marginal?

Experiential Assignments

Body Motions (see handout below)

Go to a public place (for example, a restaurant) where you can observe two people having a

conversation. You should be close enough so that you can observe their eye contact, facial

expression, and gestures, but not close enough to hear what they are saying.

Carefully observe the interaction, with the goal of answering the following questions:

What is their relationship? What seems to be the nature of the conversation (social chitchat,

plan making, problem solving, argument, intimate discussion)? How does each person feel

about the conversation? Do feelings change over the course of the conversation? Is one

person more dominant? Take note of the specific nonverbal behaviors that led you to each

conclusion, and write a paragraph describing this experience and what you have learned.

Vocal Characteristics (see handout below)

Spend a few hours listening to talk radio. If possible, listen to a station that broadcasts in a

language with which you are unfamiliar. Attempt to block out your awareness of the

speakers’ words, and instead focus on the meaning communicated by the pitch, volume,

rate, and quality of their speech. Be sure to listen to a number of different speakers and

record your results in a log. Can you detect any variations in the vocal characteristics of the

different speakers? If so, what do you make of these variations and what they say about

each speaker’s message?

Violating Intimate Space Norms

Enter a crowded elevator. Get on it and face the back. Make direct eye contact with the

person you are standing in front of. When you disembark, record the person’s reactions. On

the return trip, introduce yourself to the person who is standing next to you and engage in

an animated conversation. Record the reaction of the person and others around you. Then

get on an empty elevator and stand in the exact center. Do not move when others board.

Record their reactions. Be prepared to share what you have observed with your classmates.

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Experiential Assignment Handouts

Body Motions