Facial movements alone seem to communicate the degree of pleasantness, agreement and sympathy a person feels; the rest of the body doesn’t provide any additional information.
Sometime people hide certain emotions while some might emphasize their emotions. It is consider good to express yourself in the US community. As for Japanese, they limit their facial movement and make them look expressionless and more diligent. Our eyes contacts and the way our mouths move also have different meaning.
Different culture views each facial expression in different ways. Some might means good to a community and it might view as bad in the other. We cannot judge whether some facial expression is the same around the world.
Since the later generations have fewer face to face communication, how to express oneself thru instant messaging chat or forum and chat group? They uses normal symbols such as :) to express a smile and a :( to express a frown.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
The Significance of Silence
Two aspects of nonverbal communication that are often considered together, because they involve manipulating sound, are paralanguage and silence.
Paralanguage is a vocal but nonverbal dimension of speech. It has to do with the manner which you can say something rather than with what you say. An exercise used to increase a students ability to express different emotions, feelings and attitudes was to have the student say the following sentence while accenting or stressing different words:
1. Is this the face that launched a thousand ships?
2. Is this the face that launched a thousand ships?
3. Is this the face that launched a thousand ships?
4. Is this the face that launched a thousand ships?
5. Is this the face that launched a thousand ships?
The above statements are equal but the stresses on different words give the statement different meanings. This is called Paralanguage.
They way we say it when we are laughing, yelling, moaning, whining and belching will make the statements different. The pitch of highness and lowness also contribute to what we want to make clear of what we want to say.
Silence
Some says it is the ultimate in thinking as in communication is silence. Silence allows the speaker to think beforehand what the want to express.
Silence is nothing negative; it is not the mere absent of speech. It’s a positive, a complete world in itself.
During class as US culture, we are silent, the lecturer might think that the students are not paying attention to the class; therefore they want the class to be alive by having debate over the topic.
But in the East, silence in class does not mean the listeners are not paying attention. They are giving respect to the speaker. So, silence in the west is negative while silence in the east is seen as positive.
Paralanguage is a vocal but nonverbal dimension of speech. It has to do with the manner which you can say something rather than with what you say. An exercise used to increase a students ability to express different emotions, feelings and attitudes was to have the student say the following sentence while accenting or stressing different words:
1. Is this the face that launched a thousand ships?
2. Is this the face that launched a thousand ships?
3. Is this the face that launched a thousand ships?
4. Is this the face that launched a thousand ships?
5. Is this the face that launched a thousand ships?
The above statements are equal but the stresses on different words give the statement different meanings. This is called Paralanguage.
They way we say it when we are laughing, yelling, moaning, whining and belching will make the statements different. The pitch of highness and lowness also contribute to what we want to make clear of what we want to say.
Silence
Some says it is the ultimate in thinking as in communication is silence. Silence allows the speaker to think beforehand what the want to express.
Silence is nothing negative; it is not the mere absent of speech. It’s a positive, a complete world in itself.
During class as US culture, we are silent, the lecturer might think that the students are not paying attention to the class; therefore they want the class to be alive by having debate over the topic.
But in the East, silence in class does not mean the listeners are not paying attention. They are giving respect to the speaker. So, silence in the west is negative while silence in the east is seen as positive.
Social Clock
Social clock is :
- Things that you are suppose to do at certain age
For eg: A 40 year old guy is attending our interpersonal communication class for a
degree ( What do u feel about that..Isn't that a little weird???)
- We feel its out of time.
- We should finish doing certain things at a certain age.
Culture
- Culture :- In certain culture youths should get married after they finish their SPM. ( But for us we feel its to young for a marriage life)
- People in the culture finds it weird if you don't get married between the age of 18-20
- Doing things at certain age such as marriage, education, getting a baby and etc...
Family
- Some family have their own way of bringing up their children
- It might effect the social clock of the children
- For eg:
My grandfather don't allow any of his children and his grandchildren to ride motor. When we see all our friends riding motor we'd like to ride as well but we cant do it because we are restrict. When we are with our friends, we might feel out of step because we feel left out when we cannot do what people our age are doing.
General
Children in US :-
- Get pregnant before they get married.
- Leave their home at a very young age.
- Stay in the same house with their partner before getting married
- Compared to the situation in our country people caught doing these things will be looked down and not respected in the society.
- Hence, in each country we have our own social clock.
- As time goes on, the social clock will be changing.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
