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Verbal communication: an Introduction

Related Papers

Barry Smith

New Paradigm in Business and Education

Shadma I Rahmatullah

Language as a conceptual aspect acts as a medium between the individuals and the community. This chapter is directed at the linguistic aspect in the process of communication assisted by some qualitative research reviews and the researchers' conventional perspectives on the role of language in the context of communication. With the prevailing assumption that the linguistic framework is the one significant aspect of the verbal communication process apart from the cultural and ethnic background of people, that too reflects in the communicative practices. Human communication is full of complexities due to misinterpretation and misunderstanding between the communicators. The contemplation over the role of language in communication is acknowledging the amount of information, supported by the coherent articulation of speech. The adaptation of language relies upon the circumstances and finds its variation in contexts of distinct situations. The use of words, the intonation of speech, the facial expression, the body language of an individual, and the social-cultural environment, altogether help form productive communication.

Intercultural Pragmatics

Keith Allan

This essay begins by identifying what communication is and what linguistics is in order to establish the relationship between them. The characterization of linguistics leads to discussion of the nature of language and of the relationship between a theory of language, i. e., linguistic theory, and the object language it models. This, in turn, leads to a review of speculations on the origins of human language with a view to identifying the motivation for its creation and its primary function. After considering a host of data, it becomes clear that, contrary to some approaches, the primary function of human language is to function as a vehicle of communication. Thus, linguistics studies what for humans is their primary vehicle of communication.

Linguistic Intuitions

Steven Gross

Linguistic intuitions are a central source of evidence across a variety of linguistic domains. They have also long been a source of controversy. This chapter aims to illuminate the etiology and evidential status of at least some linguistic intuitions by relating them to error signals of the sort posited by accounts of online monitoring of speech production and comprehension. The suggestion is framed as a novel reply to Michael Devitt’s claim that linguistic intuitions are theory-laden “central systems” responses rather than endorsed outputs of a modularized language faculty (the “Voice of Competence”). Along the way, it is argued that linguistic intuitions may not constitute a natural kind with a common etiology and that, for a range of cases, the process by which the intuitions used in linguistics are generated amounts to little more than comprehension.

Patrick Hanks

Adisa Imamovic

Australian Journal of Linguistics (Vol.29, pp.1-10)

Michael Haugh

Deirdre Wilson

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14.2: Verbal Communication References

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• “Birth Of A Language.” CBSNews. CBS Interactive, 25 Apr. 2000. Web. 01 Dec. 2014. < http://www.cbsnews.com/news/birth-of-a-language/ >.
• Blumer, Herbert. Symbolic Interactionism: Perspective and Method. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1969. Print.
• Boroditsky, Lera. “How Language Shapes Thought.” Scientific American 304.2 (2011): 62-65. Academic Search Premier. Web.
• Du Bois, John W. “Towards a Dialogic Syntax.” Cognitive Linguistics 25.3 (2014): 359-410. Web.
• Duck, Steve. “Maintenance as a Shared Meaning System.” Ed. Daniel J. Canary and Laura Stafford. Communication and Relational Maintenance. San Diego: Academic, 1994. N. pag. Print.
• Hussein, Basel Al-Sheikh. “The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis Today.” Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 2 (2012): 642-646. Web.
• Lucy, John. “Through the Window of Language: Assessing the Influence of Language Diversity on Thought.” THEORIA : An International Journal for Theory, 20 (2010): 299-309. Web.
• Maxwell, Alexander. “Magyarization, Language Planning, and Whorf: The Word as a Case Study in Linguistic Relativism.”Multilingua – Journal of Cross-Cultural and Interlanguage Communication 23.4 (2004): 319-37. Web.
• Nelson, Katherine, and Lea Kessler Shaw. “Developing a Socially Shared Symbolic System.” Language, Literacy, and Cognitive Development: The Development and Consequences of Symbolic Communication. Ed. Eric Amsel and James P. Byrnes. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2002. 27-58. Print.
• Ogden, C. K., and I. A. Richards. “The Meaning of Meaning” a Study of the Influence of Language upon Thought and of the Science of Symbolism. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1923. Print.
• Pelley, S. “Birth Of A Language.” CBSNews. CBS Interactive, 2000. Web. 20 Apr. 2006.
• Perlovsky, Leonid. “Language and Emotions: Emotional Sapir–Whorf Hypothesis.” Neural Networks, 22.5 (2009): 518-526. Web.
• “Playing with Words: Poems, Rhymes, Tongue twisters, Anagrams.” Playing with Words: Poems, Rhymes, Tonguetwisters, Anagrams. UK Student Life, 2002-2009. Web. 15 Dec. 2014. < http://www.ukstudentlife.com/Ideas/Fun/Wordplay.htm >.
• Sapir, Edward. “Communication.” Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. New York: Macmillan, 1933. Print.
• Sapir, Edward. Selected Writings of Edward Sapir in Language, Culture and Personality. Ed. David Goodman Mandelbaum. Berkeley: U of California, 1958. Print.
• Simpson, Brenton. “Examination of the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis Through the Perspective of the Comparison and Contrast of the Chinese and Maya Languages.” n.p.: ProQuest, UMI Dissertations Publishing, 2011. Web.
• Sindoni, Maria Grazia. “Through the Looking Glass: A Social Semiotic and Linguistic Perspective on the Study of Video Chats.”Text & Talk, 34.3 (2014): 325-347.
• Vicente, Agustín, and Fernando Martínez-Manrique. “Thought, Language, And The Argument From Explicitness.”Metaphilosophy 39.3 (2008): 381-401.Academic Search Premier. Web.
• Whorf, Benjamin Lee, and John B. Carroll. Language, Thought, and Reality: Selected Writings. Cambridge, MA: Technology of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1956. Print.

Contributors and Attributions

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H umanising L anguage T eaching

August 2020 - year 22 - issue 4, issn 1755-9715.

• Various Articles - Teachers’ perspective

A Case Study on Nonverbal Communication in EFL Classes in the Indonesian Context

• Yazid Basthomi, Indonesia
• Rida Afrilyasanti, Indonesia

Rida Afrilyasanti teaches at Taruna Nala Senior High School. She has published two books entitled Digital Storytelling as an Alternative Learning Media for EFL Learners and Learn English with Merah Putih Emas.

Yazid Basthomi is a Professor of Applied Linguistics at the Department of English, Faculty of Letters, Universitas Negeri Malang. Having interests in genre analysis, intercultural education, and digital culture, he is currently coordinator of the publication division of TEFLIN.

In this study, the nonverbal communication used by five Indonesian EFL teachers with different ranges of teaching experiences was evaluated. The study later found out that nonverbal communication surely bring some positive impacts for the teachers as well as learners when both parties have the same interpretation of the nonverbal cues used.

Nonverbal communication is inseparable from verbal communication. How our body moves, how and where we stand or sit, how we speak, and what expression we make are all nonverbal messages that in some ways are far more convincing than spoken word (Feldman and Rime, 1991). In his study, Gallo (2007) has identified that people tend to communicate nonverbally: 7% of communication involves actual words and the other 93% is nonverbal. He further states that 38% is vocal nonverbal signals such as pitch, speed, and volume of one’s voice and 55% of the nonverbal is visual such as body language and eye contact (Gallo, 2007).

Nonverbal communication in teaching and learning, especially in a foreign language context is very demanding, because nonverbal communication contributes to the students’ comprehension and understanding of concepts. Nonverbal communication helps to reach the aim of teaching, and develop teaching quality and methods (Pan, 2014). By employing nonverbal communication, teachers can more easily win the students’ attention so that they can focus on the subject matter.

In employing nonverbal cues in teaching, however, not all the teachers’ nonverbal cues are completely understood by the students. This happens as much about body language is defined by culture. Some people greet with handshakes, some hugs, and others kisses. Some consider that it is fine to point others using their index finger but some do not. Reiman (2007) has explained that these cultural expressions are dictated by “display rules”, the specific expectations every group has about body language. Nonverbal communication also involves the possibility of misunderstanding when it is misused and/or misinterpreted (Elfatihi, 2005; Lustig & Koester, 2006).

This paper aims to provide a brief analysis of the nonverbal communication used by teachers within their interactions with the students. Specifically, it touches on the use of nonverbal communication in EFL classes in the Indonesian context.

As nonverbal communication is bondless and there is no dictionary of nonverbal communication like in verbal communication, there must be some limitations in order to easily analyze the phenomena. Therefore, in order to answer the research questions, Darn’s (2005) article on the aspects of nonverbal communication will be used as the platform in describing the varieties of nonverbal communication used in the Indonesian EFL classes. In Darn’s (2005) study, it is explained that less than ten percent interpersonal communication involves words there are also varieties of nonverbal types or devices such as kinesics (movement), proxemics (space/physical distance), haptics (touch), oculesics (eye-contact), chronemics (time) & silence, vocalics (vocal set and qualities), sound symbols, adornment, and posture, which either replace or accompany verbal communication.

The purpose of this study is to discuss the importance and use of nonverbal communication in EFL classes in the Indonesian context. It highlights and analyzes nonverbal communication in terms of its various types and functions. This qualitative study involved five Indonesian EFL teachers with different ranges of teaching experiences. The participants responded to qualitative interview questions.

In order to enrich the data, observations of nonverbal cues performed by the teachers were also done. The participants’ nonverbal cues were analyzed based on the following nonverbal aspects: kinesics, proxemics, haptics, oculesics, chronemics & silence, vocalics, sound symbols, adornment, and posture (refer to Darn, 2005). In order to provide detailed reflections of the participants’ responses, a constructivist grounded theory approach to research was implemented so that the findings display direct representations of the data produced by the participants.

A total of five EFL teachers from Indonesia participated in the study. Of the sample, three teachers were female and two were male. Those teachers ranged in age from 23 to over 50. Three of the sample had a bachelor’s degree and two had obtained a master’s degree. Of those with bachelor degrees, two had teaching certificates and one did not. Meanwhile, of those with master's degrees, one had teaching certificate and one did not.

The teachers had some teaching experiences. Their experiences ranged from novice teachers with only two years of experience, to experienced teachers with over 30 years of experience. All of those five teachers had been teaching in senior high schools in which the ages of the students ranged from 16 to 18 years.

Findings and discussion

This section presents the results of data analysis along with some discussions.

The Importance of nonverbal communication in EFL classes

The teachers involved in this study said that gestures would help them in presenting language items such as grammar and vocabulary. The teachers admitted that their gestures help their students understand language items better. Some of the responses regarding the use of gestures in emphasizing teachers’ explanation on the language items are presented as follows:

Teacher I: “I tend to act out to present new verbs for my students. It helps them understand the meaning of the words more quickly and easily.”

Teacher II: “When I teach descriptive text, I prefer to start with vocabulary games and I use a lot of gestures. I point out certain parts of my body, pictures or objects around the students… and I think that really works.”

Many previous studies such as Behjat et.al. (2014), Shi & Fan (2010), and Sukirlan (2014) have come up with the similar findings on the importance of nonverbal cues in classroom interaction. Those are to help the students with inadequate target linguistic resources to communicate their message, to avoid being artificial and boring, and to encourage students to take active participation, which consequently enhances the level of their retention and understanding.

The teachers observed demonstrated a wide variety of nonverbal communication either consciously or unconsciously. However, when the teachers were explaining about concept and meaning, most of them consciously used various nonverbal cues along with their verbal explanation. They admitted that their nonverbal cues really accommodate their intent to help the students get the concept and meaning.

As depicted in the results of the interviews as well as observations, it can be construed that nonverbal communication can help improve the teaching practice and the learning process. Furthermore, the use of gestures is a good solution to solve misunderstandings. One of the examples is the use of pictures, movements, and gestures to explain the concept of time signal in English sentences.

Brought to you by:

Nonverbal Communication in Negotiation

By: Michael A. Wheeler, Dana Nelson

This case distills the practical implications of current research on nonverbal communication. The first section sketches different kinds of nonverbal behavior: facial expressions, eye movements,…

• Length: 21 page(s)
• Publication Date: Feb 11, 2003
• Discipline: Negotiation
• Product #: 903081-PDF-ENG

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This case distills the practical implications of current research on nonverbal communication. The first section sketches different kinds of nonverbal behavior: facial expressions, eye movements, physical gestures, paraverbal cues, posture, and "personal space." The next section looks more deeply at the interactive nature of nonverbal communication--specifically, how one person's behavior both influences and reflects what others do. The final section suggests how negotiators can make better use of nonverbal communication. Five themes run throughout the case: 1) we communicate far more information to other people than is conveyed by our words alone, 2) our nonverbal signals sometimes contradict the words we use, 3) much of this communication is less than fully conscious, 4) reading nonverbal communication is an art, not a science, and 5) nonverbal communication must be understood in the context of the broader set of interactions among all parties.

This case is accompanied by a Video Short that can be shown in class or included in a digital coursepack (available only to registered educators). Instructors should consider the timing of making the video available to students, as it may reveal key case details.

Learning Objectives

To learn about current research on nonverbal communication, particularly its practical application to negotiation, communication, and leadership. Provides a conceptual framework for students to assess their own performance in exercises and simulations and to help them develop keener insight into the behavior of others.

Feb 11, 2003 (Revised: Sep 14, 2009)

Discipline:

Negotiation

Harvard Business School

903081-PDF-ENG

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1. WHAT IS TECHNICAL COMMUNICATION?

1.4 Case Study: The Cost of Poor Communication

No one knows exactly how much poor communication costs business, industry and government each year, but estimates suggest billions.  In fact, a recent estimate claims that the cost in the U.S. alone are close to $4 billion annually! [1] Poorly-worded or inefficient emails, careless reading or listening to instructions, documents that go unread due to poor design, hastily presenting inaccurate information, sloppy proofreading — all of these examples result in inevitable costs. The problem is that these costs aren’t usually included on the corporate balance sheet at the end of each year; if they are not properly or clearly defined, the problems remain unsolved.

You may have seen the Project Management Tree Cartoon before ( Figure 1.4.1 ); it has been used and adapted widely to illustrate the perils of poor communication during a project.

The waste caused by imprecisely worded regulations or instructions, confusing emails, long-winded memos, ambiguously written contracts, and other examples of poor communication is not as easily identified as the losses caused by a bridge collapse or a flood. But the losses are just as real—in reduced productivity, inefficiency, and lost business. In more personal terms, the losses are measured in wasted time, work, money, and ultimately, professional recognition. In extreme cases, losses can be measured in property damage, injuries, and even deaths.

The following “case studies” show how poor communications can have real world costs and consequences. For example, consider the “ Comma Quirk ” in the Rogers Contract that cost $2 million. [3]   A small error in spelling a company name cost £8.8 million. [4]   Examine Edward Tufte’s discussion of the failed PowerPoint presentation that attempted to prevent the Columbia Space Shuttle disaster. [5] The failure of project managers and engineers to communicate effectively resulted in the deadly Hyatt Regency walkway collapse. [6]   The case studies below offer a few more examples that might be less extreme, but much more common.

In small groups, examine each “case” and determine the following:

• Define the rhetorical situation : Who is communicating to whom about what, how, and why? What was the goal of the communication in each case?
• Identify the communication error (poor task or audience analysis? Use of inappropriate language or style? Poor organization or formatting of information? Other?)
• Explain what costs/losses were incurred by this problem.
• Identify possible solution s or strategies that would have prevented the problem, and what benefits would be derived from implementing solutions or preventing the problem.

Present your findings in a brief, informal presentation to the class.

Exercises adapted from T.M Georges’ Analytical Writing for Science and Technology. [7]

CASE 1: The promising chemist who buried his results

Bruce, a research chemist for a major petro-chemical company, wrote a dense report about some new compounds he had synthesized in the laboratory from oil-refining by-products. The bulk of the report consisted of tables listing their chemical and physical properties, diagrams of their molecular structure, chemical formulas and data from toxicity tests. Buried at the end of the report was a casual speculation that one of the compounds might be a particularly safe and effective insecticide.

Seven years later, the same oil company launched a major research program to find more effective but environmentally safe insecticides. After six months of research, someone uncovered Bruce’s report and his toxicity tests. A few hours of further testing confirmed that one of Bruce’s compounds was the safe, economical insecticide they had been looking for.

Bruce had since left the company, because he felt that the importance of his research was not being appreciated.

CASE 2: The rejected current regulator proposal

The Acme Electric Company worked day and night to develop a new current regulator designed to cut the electric power consumption in aluminum plants by 35%. They knew that, although the competition was fierce, their regulator could be produced more affordably, was more reliable, and worked more efficiently than the competitors’ products.

The owner, eager to capture the market, personally but somewhat hastily put together a 120-page proposal to the three major aluminum manufacturers, recommending that the new Acme regulators be installed at all company plants.

She devoted the first 87 pages of the proposal to the mathematical theory and engineering design behind his new regulator, and the next 32 to descriptions of the new assembly line she planned to set up to produce regulators quickly. Buried in an appendix were the test results that compared her regulator’s performance with present models, and a poorly drawn graph showed the potential cost savings over 3 years.

The proposals did not receive any response. Acme Electric didn’t get the contracts, despite having the best product. Six months later, the company filed for bankruptcy.

CASE 3: The instruction manual the scared customers away

As one of the first to enter the field of office automation, Sagatec Software, Inc. had built a reputation for designing high-quality and user-friendly database and accounting programs for business and industry. When they decided to enter the word-processing market, their engineers designed an effective, versatile, and powerful program that Sagatec felt sure would outperform any competitor.

To be sure that their new word-processing program was accurately documented, Sagatec asked the senior program designer to supervise writing the instruction manual. The result was a thorough, accurate and precise description of every detail of the program’s operation.

When Sagatec began marketing its new word processor, cries for help flooded in from office workers who were so confused by the massive manual that they couldn’t even find out how to get started. Then several business journals reviewed the program and judged it “too complicated” and “difficult to learn.” After an impressive start, sales of the new word processing program plummeted.

Sagatec eventually put out a new, clearly written training guide that led new users step by step through introductory exercises and told them how to find commands quickly. But the rewrite cost Sagatec $350,000, a year’s lead in the market, and its reputation for producing easy-to-use business software.

CASE 4: One garbled memo – 26 baffled phone calls

Joanne supervised 36 professionals in 6 city libraries. To cut the costs of unnecessary overtime, she issued this one-sentence memo to her staff:

After the 36 copies were sent out, Joanne’s office received 26 phone calls asking what the memo meant. What the 10 people who didn’t call about the memo thought is uncertain. It took a week to clarify the new policy.

CASE 5: Big science — Little rhetoric

The following excerpt is from Carl Sagan’s book, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, [8] itself both a plea for and an excellent example of clear scientific communication:

The Superconducting Supercollider (SSC) would have been the preeminent instrument on the planet for probing the fine structure of matter and the nature of the early Universe. Its price tag was $10 to $15 billion. It was cancelled by Congress in 1993 after about $2 billion had been spent — a worst of both worlds outcome. But this debate was not, I think, mainly about declining interest in the support of science. Few in Congress understood what modern high-energy accelerators are for. They are not for weapons. They have no practical applications. They are for something that is, worrisomely from the point of view of many, called “the theory of everything.” Explanations that involve entities called quarks, charm, flavor, color, etc., sound as if physicists are being cute. The whole thing has an aura, in the view of at least some Congresspeople I’ve talked to, of “nerds gone wild” — which I suppose is an uncharitable way of describing curiosity-based science. No one asked to pay for this had the foggiest idea of what a Higgs boson is. I’ve read some of the material intended to justify the SSC. At the very end, some of it wasn’t too bad, but there was nothing that really addressed what the project was about on a level accessible to bright but skeptical non-physicists. If physicists are asking for 10 or 15 billion dollars to build a machine that has no practical value, at the very least they should make an extremely serious effort, with dazzling graphics, metaphors, and capable use of the English language, to justify their proposal. More than financial mismanagement, budgetary constraints, and political incompetence, I think this is the key to the failure of the SSC.

CASE 6: The co-op student who mixed up genres

Chris was simultaneously enrolled in a university writing course and working as a co-op student at the Widget Manufacturing plant. As part of his co-op work experience, Chris shadowed his supervisor/mentor on a safety inspection of the plant, and was asked to write up the results of the inspection in a compliance memo . In the same week, Chris’s writing instructor assigned the class to write a narrative essay based on some personal experience. Chris, trying to be efficient, thought that the plant visit experience could provide the basis for his essay assignment as well.

He wrote the essay first, because he was used to writing essays and was pretty good at it. He had never even seen a compliance memo, much less written one, so was not as confident about that task. He began the essay like this:

On June 1, 2018, I conducted a safety audit of the Widget Manufacturing plant in New City. The purpose of the audit was to ensure that all processes and activities in the plant adhere to safety and handling rules and policies outlined in the Workplace Safety Handbook and relevant government regulations. I was escorted on a 3-hour tour of the facility by…

Chris finished the essay and submitted it to his writing instructor. He then revised the essay slightly, keeping the introduction the same, and submitted it to his co-op supervisor. He “aced” the essay, getting an A grade, but his supervisor told him that the report was unacceptable and would have to be rewritten – especially the beginning, which should have clearly indicated whether or not the plant was in compliance with safety regulations. Chris was aghast! He had never heard of putting the “conclusion” at the beginning . He missed the company softball game that Saturday so he could rewrite the report to the satisfaction of his supervisor.

• J. Bernoff, "Bad writing costs business billions," Daily Beast , Oct. 16, 2016 [Online]. Available:  https://www.thedailybeast.com/bad-writing-costs-businesses-billions?ref=scroll ↵
• J. Reiter, "The 'Project Cartoon' root cause," Medium, 2 July 2019. Available: https://medium.com/@thx2001r/the-project-cartoon-root-cause-5e82e404ec8a ↵
• G. Robertson, “Comma quirk irks Rogers,” Globe and Mail , Aug. 6, 2006 [Online]. Available: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/comma-quirk-irks-rogers/article1101686/ ↵
• “The £8.8m typo: How one mistake killed a family business,” (28 Jan. 2015). The Guardian [online]. Available: https://www.theguardian.com/law/shortcuts/2015/jan/28/typo-how-one-mistake-killed-a-family-business-taylor-and-sons ↵
• E. Tufte, The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint , 2001 [Online]. Available: https://www.inf.ed.ac.uk/teaching/courses/pi/2016_2017/phil/tufte-powerpoint.pdf ↵
• C. McFadden, "Understanding the tragic Hyatt Regency walkway collapse," Interesting Engineering , July 4, 2017 [Online]: https://interestingengineering.com/understanding-hyatt-regency-walkway-collapse ↵
• T.M. Goerges (1996), Analytical Writing for Science and Technology [Online], Available: https://www.scribd.com/document/96822930/Analytical-Writing ↵
• C. Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, New York, NY: Random House, 1995. ↵

Technical Writing Essentials Copyright © 2019 by Suzan Last is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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