Communication is the essential part of people’s life. The understanding of communication is much broader concept then just the words, tone and the style of the speech, it is also the movement of the body, the body reaction to what have been already said. The nonverbal communication is more important than the words, as body reaction is impossible to hide and the nonverbal response may be much informative than the following words.
Better understand of the acceptance of the message is provided by the nonverbal communication. “Certain nonverbal clues set the stage by the indicating whether a context is to be understood as an interactional one or not and, consequently, what may count as a message” (Knapp & Daly, 2002, p. 247). Verbal communication comes from mind, it is thoughtful and argumentative, at the same time while nonverbal communication is emotional and based mostly on reflexes. Having told something to the person, the other watches on his/her body movements, gestures or the emotional response, which truly tells while the verbal response may contain the hidden message. A person’s unwilling to injure or to hurt the other by the response makes them avoid the direct disagreement with the message, as the response is based on the mind analysis of the question, while nonverbal response (face emotions, gesture reaction) makes it possible to understand the real attitude to the question (Knapp & Daly, 2002).
So, it is possible to state that nonverbal cues help to understand better how someone is accepting the message, his/her real attitude to the message and to see the hidden sense of the verbal reaction. Gestures, vocal fluency and gaze are the main message delivers in the communication.
Coming out of the mentioned above, the opinion may be created that verbal message is not so important as the nonverbal one. It is not really true. Verbal and nonverbal messages are both rather important, as they help to provide the personal opinion about the people, who are involved in the communication. Only in the combination, verbal and nonverbal responses may create the whole opinion. The usage of appropriate gestures is the most responsible affair, as the wrong perception of gestures and wrong providing of gestures may lead to unrespectable consequences. To generate the appropriate gestures to the current situation is very important, as the appropriate gestures give the additional emphasis to the message. At the same time the abounding of the gestures may lead to the versa effect. The example of the cultural aspect may be taken. Different cultures have different interpretation of the messages, and this may turn to unpredictable effect. A good example is the touch. People of different cultures may misunderstand each other, as the touch in one culture is considered as the friendly and positive attitude, while in the other as the interference of the ally to the personal territory, what is unacceptable (Marquis & Huston, 2008).
So, the importance of communication is impossible to deny, especially the interconnection of verbal and nonverbal communication. People understand each other on two levels, auditioned and visual. People’s words are not usually what they want to say, and the gestures come for help. At the same time, people should be careful with the gestures as the cultural significance is that to use this or that gesture in this country is forbidden in the other.
Reference List
Knapp, M. L. & Daly, J. A. (2002). Handbook of interpersonal communication. SAGE, Washington.
Marquis, B. L. & Huston, C. J. (2008). Leadership Roles and Management Functions in Nursing: Theory and Application. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, New York.