Lesson 16

 

   

 

BODY POSITIONING

The way our body faces when we are speaking to someone can easily be interpreted. Speaking face to face to someone or having our body facing towards someone is a sign of intimacy, or a sign that the person does not want to be disturbed.

When you are positioned facing someone, but slightly to one side, you can allow your eyes to wonder. If the positioning of the body is quite to one side, this can be a sign of coldness, and showing lack of interest in maintaining a conversation. However, in a party context, or in a meeting, the fact that two people are positioned forming an angle or more than 90 degrees, is a sign of inviting other people to join the conversation.

 

GESTURES / BODY MOVEMENTS

A gesture is defined as a brief non verbal action carried out by a person (for example, placing your index finger on your lips) so that it can be perceived by one or more of the speakers, and doing this you are trying to provide some type of information (in this case, we want there to be silence).

The most common daily communication gestures are carried out by the hands and with the face. These are linked to your culture, although some are shared in many countries.

Some types of movement we do when speaking do not have any concrete meaning, as sometimes they are involuntary movements; one example is moving our ring whilst we are speaking.

Words and gestures can be linked, like in the previous example, or they can provide contrary information. Like when we say that we are calm, but at the same time we are bitting our nails.

Generally experts usually recommend using non excessive gestures that match our verbal content, as they provide better expresivity, a characteristic that people usually value positively.

Some gestures are easier to control than others. In general, when we speak, we pay more attention to our facial expression and we are less conscious of other movements. This means that the movements and posture of these distant areas, like the feet, are what we can consider as the true emotions of someone when they are speaking.

  Involuntary and self-governing signals: these are things that are very difficult to control, like for example, body tremors or the trembling of your legs.

•  Legs and feet signals: the movement of the legs and feet in many ocassion show exactly what our speaker is feeling. Do you think that someone is calm and having a good time if they don't stop moving there legs up and down?

•  Body Posture, which we have spoken about previously.

•  Gestures with your hands which are not known: moving your ring, rubbing your hands against your clothes, playing with a small object between your fingers.

•  Hand gestures, like moving your thumb upwards, or making a circle with your thumb and index funger. These gestures are easily controled in a voluntary way.

•  Facial Expressions , of which we have spoken about previously. It is easy to fake a facial expression according to the verbal message, although good observers can notice small signs in the face that deny the first impression, like a small movement of the eye brows or lips, for example.

•  Verbalizations: the last place in the scale of sincereity is occupied by words.