Professor Fullmer Comm 1050 18 November 2011 Nonverbal Communication Communicating effectively involves many different aspects.

One of the biggest aspects of communication is completely absent of words. This nonverbal communication can be defined as all nonverbal actions people perform that have symbolic meaning. Many things such as culture, relationships, and gender can influence nonverbal communication. If you have a goal to better communicate in all aspects of your life, then its important to pay close attention to body language and other nonverbal cues. This will help you to be more in tune with the thoughts and feelings of those around you. There can be five roles played out through nonverbal cues. They are repetition, contradiction, substitution, complementing, and accenting. Generally speaking there are two main or basic categories of nonverbal communicating messages produced by the body and messages created by the expansive setting (time, space, silence). Within these two main categories there are many subcategories such as facial expressions, body movements and posture, gestures, eye contact, touch, space, and voice. This form of communicating is so essential because it is one of the most used aspects of communicating and also the most noticed. For example if you were conversing with someone and you were sending them mixed messages like you said something verbally but your body language disagreed with what you are saying, the vast majority of the time that person will believe what your body is saying rather than what you are communicating verbally.

In real life situations people may become confused or misunderstand the point you are trying to get across if you your body language differs from your verbal usage. It is crucial that you use nonverbal communicating techniques properly in order to avoid confusion and to be more successful professionally and in your personal life. Professionally you will always want to have your verbal communication in sync with your nonverbal communication so as to create an environment of trust and respect with your business associates. Eye contact is huge when giving presentations or speeches. If you do not make eye contact while giving your presentations or speeches and you just stare at the wall the whole time, then nobody will take you seriously and you will never get a chance to pitch your ideas, even if your ideas are brilliant and will sell insanely well. You need to be confident and make eye contact when first meeting someone and shaking their hand, not so it makes them feel awkward but rather to create a sense of confidence and respect for this acquaintance. Nonverbal communicating, or body language, is monumental in relationships either friendly, family relationships, or intimate relationships. A big aspect of intimate relationships is affection, it is a way to show you care for the person and love the person immensely even though no words are emitted. Hand gestures and body movements are definitely appropriate to use when communicating anytime, especially with friends. For example many jokes or comedic acts involve a series of hand gestures and body movements. The joke may still be humorous if you werent to use nonverbal communicating but often times is not, cause the effect of the gestures contributes to the joke immeasurably. As you can see nonverbal communicating plays a huge role in our professional and personal lives, sometimes even more so then verbal communication plays.

Bibliography Wertheim, E. G. The importance of effective communication. Web. <http://www.andrews.edu/~tidwell/lead689/NonVerbal.html>. Seagal, . "Nonverbal Communication." Non-verbal transfers. N.p., 2005. Web. 18 Nov 2011. <http://helpguide.org/mental/eq6_nonverbal_communication.htm>.