Body Language: It Speaks Louder Than WordsKeep your nose to the grindstone, shoulder the responsibility, be all ears when the customer speaks and you will have the boss wrapped around your little finger. Don't look down your nose at this handful of idioms, because they serve as an eye opener regarding body language's role in the depiction of ideas.Body language is clearly central to good communication and is particularly important when attempting to communicate across cultural and language barriers. In fact, body language is more important to people from other cultures than it is to most Americans. To native-born Americans, the spoken word is by far the most important communication tool. In other cultures, however, the way words are spoken -- along with the gestures, posture and facial expressions that accompany those words -- is of greater significance.Body language becomes still more important when there is a verbal language barrier. With the verbal message missing, the listener naturally relies on what is available. Fatigue and stress cause us to depend still more on physical cues. This is because fatigue and confusion interfere with the ability to understand a new language. As a result, the listener relies more and more on how something is said, and on the movements that accompany the message.Those of you who have worked extensively with people from other cultures can, no doubt, tell many tales about how body language can contradict the spoken word. This is because the body is more articulate than words in communicating emotion. For example, the Asian American that says, "Yes," while lowering the eyes may mean, "No," but feel reluctant to disrupt the harmony of the relationship by directly saying so. In mainstream American culture, the folded arms of resolve, the grimace of pain or anger, the hand wringing of anxiety, are powerful communicators of emotions. Think about how much more convinced you are, for example, that a group of children are excited when they jump up and down than if they simply state, "We are very excited."The tricky thing about body language is that we are often unaware of how we are reacting to it. We may, for example, form a negative judgment about someone because she slouches, won't look us in the eye or "talks with her hands." Because we are unaware of why we made the judgment, we are unable to filter out our biases about what body language means and what it tells us about an individual. By studying cultural variations in body language, we can learn to recognize the subtle differences that may inappropriately influence our judgment and interfere with good communication.Finally -- and this is the fun part -- body language gives us clues to cultural style. Picture a southern European who is gesturing enthusiastically next to a more restrained Asian American, and you will see a clear contrast between an outgoing expressive culture and one which values physical understatement.
