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Phrasing in the interpretation of body language
Body language, although neither vocal nor written, shares with these forms—and indeed makes them more complex—some of their characteristics, specifically those of temporality and sequentiality: just as a succession of words forms a sentence, a succession of gestures and expressions forms a movement, and in both cases, the meaning of such a sequence (words or gestures) depends on the individual elements that compose it, on how these are expressed (paraverbal for words and theatricality for gestures), on the context in which the sequence occurs, and on what was “said” before and will be “said” after.
In nonverbal communication, however, there is an additional level of complexity, since the nature of our body allows us to emit gestures and expressions through different channels, that is, all those parts of the body that can be muscularly controlled independently—arms, legs, eyes, mouth, and so on—which introduces a further dimension of analysis, since this multiplicity of sources translates both into the possibility of having a single phrasing composed of different elements (for example, I cross my arms, my ankles, avert my gaze, and my face shows an expression of contempt, which highlights a clear desire for closure), and of having several phrasings in parallel, not necessarily logically connected, as happens, for example, when one tries to mask an emotion through the voluntary control of gestures and facial expressions (for example, I involuntarily point my feet toward an escape route and grab my wrist with my hand, but at the same time I give a polite, insincere smile that does not hide my desire to break off contact).
Although the management of this complexity is well guided by the rule of the “3 Cs” and by baseline behavior (or, to unify everything, by the rule of the “5 Cs” - Context, Complex, Coherence, Custom, Change) (1) (3), it is clear that, in practice, taking all these aspects into account is anything but easy, certainly much more complex than simply listening in the case of verbal communication.
The difficulty, specifically, lies not only in being able to observe the interlocutor in their entirety—here women are advantaged by virtue of their peripheral vision angle of about 45°, wider than that of men—but also in understanding whether what is happening should be considered part of the same sentence or of several sentences, possibly even in contrast with each other, and all of this, of course, then connected to what is being said vocally.
If we then consider that, while speech can be repeated, this is not possible for nonverbal communication (see, in this regard, my previous article), it follows that not only is it necessary to observe carefully, but we must also not miss the moment, since only in this way will we have the elements to try to understand how the phrasing is developing and what it might mean.
Compared to speech, moreover, where the order of words in some (many) cases does not influence the overall meaning of the sentence, since it is common experience that different syntactic structures can correspond to the same semantic structure (think, for example, of the active or passive form of verbal constructs), this is much rarer (impossible) for nonverbal communication, where even a short sequence of gestures and expressions generally has a very different meaning from the sequence where these are reversed, which is particularly important if the sequence involves both negative and positive gestures and expressions: very different, as far as the course of the conversation is concerned, is moving from negative to positive gestures (recovery of the situation) compared to the reverse (compromising the situation).
Finally, to make matters even worse, if that were necessary, the emotional state of the sender also comes into play, which could be such as to disrupt the course of the conversation, through gestures and facial expressions resulting from the sudden unconscious surfacing of emotions (2), which have nothing to do with the subject of the conversation, but which could be evoked by something that is said or shown.
How to conclude, if not by once again emphasizing the difficulty of interpreting nonverbal language and the importance of always and in any case following, even if it is not easy, what methodology tells us (perhaps this is an excessive term, given the only partially scientific nature of this type of interpretation), and also remembering that every communicative act always takes place
“here and now”
, so every rule, every good practice, must always be
reified
according to the specificity of the act itself and the context in which it takes place.
Andrea Zinno - De Corporis Voce
Bibliographic References
All Rights Reserved - De Corporis Voce - Andrea Zinno