Essay #7

Constance J. McGlasker
10 December 2007
EH 468-101
Dr. Alford

The Power of Nonverbal Communication: What Effect is Nonverbal Communication Having on Humanity and the Quality of Life in the Twenty-First Century?

Warfield identifies the advantages and disadvantages of nonverbal communication and the receivers’ responses to it, which has led me to question the effectiveness of nonverbal communication in today’s society. What makes nonverbal communication so powerful is everything that it entails such as dance, writing, music, media, and language.
Dance, the first form of nonverbal communication listed, is a way of expressing yourself without words using movement. Some people dance to the beat of their emotions as a form of therapy and release for both the dancers and the audience. As a creative artform crossing cultural barriers, dance is demonstrated through contemporary, hip-hop, modern dance, ballet, Latin, ballroom and swing dancing, dance aerobics, mime, praise dancing, and other genres of dance. As a praise dancer in dance ministry, I wear different color garments that carry different meanings. For example, I wear purple, which means royalty, red for the blood of Jesus, and orange for praise.
Writing, another form of nonverbal communication, is another way of expressing yourself. Some people write their emotions on paper, which can also be another form of therapy and release for both the writers and the readers. As another creative artform, writing entails songwriting, book writing in the forms of autobiographies, novels, fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and other genres of writing. In many cases, it is based on the authors’ and/or someone else’s experiences.
Music, which is also a form of nonverbal communication, is another way of expressing yourself. Some people play their emotions in songs, whether the tempo is upbeat or slow, as a form of therapy for both the instrumentalists and the listeners. Music is also another creative artform that is played in diverse styles such as jazz, gospel, rhythm and blues (R & B), contemporary, rock, soul, classical, rap, and others. Instrumental versions of songs are great examples of nonverbal communication because they create and send messages to listeners without words. Every listener will interpret the messages sent from the instrumental versions differently though the interpretations are derived from the same song.
Media, the next form of nonverbal communication, is another way of expressing yourself. Some people paint their emotions as a form of therapy for both the artists and the viewers. The media entails commercials, billboards, paintings, pictures, photographs, banners, flyers, and others. Media is one of the most powerful, influential artforms used by way of television, radio, film, advertising, and other forms of visual rhetoric—the way we interpret things visually—because of the message it puts out there to society whether interpreted correctly or misinterpreted.
This brings me to talk about language, another form of nonverbal communication used to express yourself. Language can symbolize anything. For example, semiotics—the study of signs and symbols—hieroglyphics, the Egyptian alphabet, body language, and others have a meaning behind them. Some people symbolize their emotions, which we notice in emails using emoticons such as happy and sad faces , . In a Marriage and Family (SY 220) lecture, Dr. McAdory stated, “Facial expressions are more powerful than your mouth.”
In The Art of Communicating, Warfield discusses nonverbal communication in this sense.
“Non-verbal communication is everything else BUT the words. It
includes many components including vocal qualities such as tone of
voice, as well as gestures, body language, accents and attitudes.
Significant communication can take place without a word being spoken.
The key to understanding non-verbal communication is to study its
roots. Babies in the crib cannot understand words but they quickly learn
to respond to voices and facial expressions. When we’re grown we
continue to read non-verbal communication at an unconscious level, not
even aware that we are analyzing and critiquing the other person for their
non-verbal message. How we choose to dress, how we talk, where we
live – all are examples of nonverbal communication. We can't help but
automatically process non-verbal cues as we communicate. How many
times have we "tuned someone out" because of some non-verbal
behavior that affects us. It might be someone's accent, their perceived
level of education or learning, their vocal qualities or some other
behavior - we always pay attention to it. By paying attention to how we
speak, how we look, how our voices sound, we can improve our chances
of attaining shared understanding. At the same time, consciously paying
attention to our reactions to other's nonverbal messages will give us more
information than we are getting by only attending to the
words...Remember that non-verbal communication is processed by each
of us almost unconsciously. By becoming consciously aware of
another’s tone of voice, posture, gestures, and facial expressions, we will
raise our level of understanding several notches.” (Warfield 1996-2007)
In Warfield’s text, he said, “Non-verbal communication is everything else BUT the words. It includes many components including vocal qualities such as tone of voice, as well as gestures, body language, accents and attitudes. Significant communication can take place without a word being spoken.” (Warfield 1996-2007) Nonverbal communication can be illustrated in marching bands when they play Broadway musical theme songs for Westside Story, Lion King, The Sound of Music, and others. Flag corps, winter guards, and dance teams often use movements instead of words to visually illustrate these theme songs with dance equipment such as flags, streamers, banners, and others.
“When we’re grown we continue to read non-verbal communication at an
unconscious level, not even aware that we are analyzing and critiquing the other person for their non-verbal message.” (Warfield 1996-2007) This is so true because we often judge a book by its cover all the time. “How we choose to dress, how we talk, where we live – all are examples of nonverbal communication.” (Warfield 1996-2007) These examples of nonverbal communication do not always define who we really are. For example, if I see a man walking across the street with a crimson t-shirt that says “Alabama Roll-Tide,” it does not necessarily mean that he is a fan of the Alabama Crimson Tide football team. Maybe crimson is his favorite color, or maybe he wishes to support Alabama because he himself could be an Alabamian.
It is funny how nonverbal communication can cause us to judge and make assumptions about people who we barely know. I had someone to tell me that they thought I was quiet and shy until they saw me dancing. Then they said, “She is not shy.” Warfield stated, “We can't help but automatically process non-verbal cues as we communicate. How many times have we "tuned someone out" because of some non-verbal behavior that affects us. It might be someone's accent, their perceived level of education or learning, their vocal qualities or some other behavior - we always pay attention to it.” (Warfield 1996-2007)
I have tuned people out several times because of nonverbal cues they communicated to me such as tone of voice, attitudes, and others. I also find myself tuning out negative thoughts whenever I want to achieve goals. Whenever a negative thought pops up in my mind, I replace it with a positive thought. I tend to use selective hearing when I choose to hear what I want to hear. By paying attention to our own nonverbal cues—body language, appearance, tone of voice, facial expressions—we will see progression in our chances of helping people to understand who we are. At the same time, we will gain understanding of other people if we are consciously attentive to the nonverbal cues that they communicate back to us.
In the Logic Review, Thumper discusses the accident that happened to Logic when she received a head injury caused by her falling from a tree (Thumper 2007). Because of this accident, she stopped verbal communication. She mentally became unconscious. Logic would use nonverbal communication such as laughing and humming. Her parents did not understand Logic’s nonverbal way of communicating. (Thumper 2007) Logic was unconsciously aware of what she was nonverbally communicating to her parents.
As Warfield stated, we can improve our chances of being understood by the receivers if we senders become attentive to how we project our body language—speech, appearance, tone of voice, and other types of nonverbal communication. The real challenge is being consciously aware of another’s tone of voice, posture, gestures, and facial expressions and having the ability to consciously and mentally process it all at the same time, using cognitive restructuring, renewing our minds and changing our thought patterns in how we perceive the other person’s mannerisms. This can be hard work.
There is a quote by Anne Frank in Logic that says, ““Go outside, laugh, and take a breath of fresh air,” a voice cries within me.” (Vernon 2004) This really stuck out to me because I can strongly relate to it. When Frank said, “Go outside”, I interpreted it as she was saying to go outside the box, go outside the norm, go outside your troubles, go outside the state that you are in, go outside your normal way of thinking, go outside the traditions, go outside the daily routine of life; step outside of this ordinary world, and do something different and extraordinary. Explore another world; get in the zone, in a trance; let yourself go, hang loose, and feel free.
When Frank said, “laugh”, I thought about the book of Proverbs when it says that laughter makes the heart merry. It is like medicine for the soul. When you are sick you take medication to get well. It is a form of healing for the mind, body, soul, and spirit.
When she said, “take a breath of fresh air”, I thought about relaxation, release, letting go, breathing, restoration, rejuvenation, refreshment, renewal, and revival. She ended the quote saying, “a voice cries within me.” Crying is a form of release. Sounds like there is a struggle to break free from bondage, poverty, pain, past hurts, fear, heaviness, people, or whatever it is that is possibly hindering her. If you take the quote and break it apart, you will notice that each part—“go outside”, “laugh”, “take a breath of fresh air”, “a voice cries within me”—is a form of nonverbal communication.
From my experiences, nonverbal communication can be beneficial in the worlds of music, free writing, and dance because it gives me freedom to express myself. I like music, free writing, and dancing. They are forms of healing for my mind, body, soul, and spirit. Even when I listen to music, dance, and free write, I get in my own world. This is my world of freedom where I can be free to be me and express my emotions.
Writing my emotions on paper calms me. It is soothing, and this is one of my escapes from pressures of the world. I get a sense of peace, joy, and fulfillment when I write. I get in a zone, trance, or in another world. My writing is unlimited, and there are no chains binding me when I write.
Nothing is hindering me or holding me back when I write. The pen dances to the beat of the writer.—I call this the dancing pen. The pen goes in the direction that the writer leads it. My mind is free when I put my thoughts on paper as I listen to soothing music that calms me. I feel burdens lift as I write my thoughts on paper.
Writing is an avenue of healing and therapy for me. I feel a sense of calmness, peace, release, relief, and quietness when I write. The same thing happens when I dance. Even when I dance, I am free to be me.
Another way nonverbal communication can be beneficial is through delivering positive messages in visual media, books, and song lyrics. One day as I was riding with my sister in her car on the interstate, I noticed a sign that had the word disability with the prefix dis crossed out with emphasis on the word ability. The message, as I interpreted it, was to look at the ability while looking beyond the disability. Instead of focusing on the problem, disability, what you cannot do, inadequacies, limitations, and weaknesses, look at what can be, the possibilities, and abilities. This is a powerful and awesome message that stood out to me.
I thought about what the spokesman for Jive Records said about the title of Britney Spears’s fifth studio album Blackout. He stated, “Blackout is about “blacking out negativity and embracing life”.” (Blackout 2007) Artists such as Stevie Wonder have blacked out negativity and embraced life by focusing their energies on the positive—abilities and strengths—rather than the negative—disabilities, weaknesses, and other setbacks. In spite of his blindness, Stevie Wonder has become a phenomenal singer and musician.
Moses and Jeremiah are examples in the bible that God used to fulfill His purposes, in spite of their limitations, disabilities, and inadequacies. God instructed Moses to return to Egypt and talk to Pharaoh about letting the Israelites go. Moses focused on his limitations, by stating that he is not a good speaker and stumbles when he speaks. God appointed Jeremiah as a prophet to the nations, and Jeremiah gave the excuse that he was too young to get the job done.
Tracy Daniels, author of In the Midst of It All, faced rejection ten times by different publishing companies, but today her books are sold on Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble.com. Daniels did not give up and quit, but she persevered to get her book published. Failure is not failure when you get up and try again. Daniels got up and tried again.
R & B singer Aaliyah made a song years ago that says, “At first you don’t succeed. Dust yourself off and try again.” If you do not succeed the first time, you have a second chance or however many chances it takes for you to be successful. In these aspects, nonverbal communication can be beneficial in delivering positive messages.
While some forms of nonverbal communication can be beneficial, there are times when other forms of nonverbal communication can be unbeneficial. “Do you see what I’m saying?” is something that we often say and hear in conversations. Oftentimes what we senders say can be misread and unseen by receivers because people tend to make assumptions. This happens many times in email. When you send a message, which you intended to be seen and read as a nice and humorous message, the receiver may perceive it as a sarcastic, rude, and angry message depending on how it was written. I can remember when I took Writing in the Professions course from Dr. Beason. He told us to never write sentences in all caps when writing a letter of complaint or any type of business letter because the reader might think that you are screaming at them.
Even when text messaging, you have to make sure that the entire message and not a part of the message was sent to the receiver. If they only receive part of the message, it causes confusion. This happened to me when I text messaged a friend. When she received the message, she did not understand it because the entire message was not sent to her. So I had to resend the entire text message. When she received the entire text message, it made more sense to her.
Visual media such as billboards, photographs, flyers, paintings, sculptures, and others spark controversy and can be misread and misinterpreted by the receiver in the way the message is presented by the sender. For example, a sculpture of someone’s body without clothes is seen as art in the eyes of some receivers but as derogatory in the eyes of others. Another example is a photograph taken in 1937 by Margaret Bourke-White titled “Louisville Flood Victims”. In the photograph, there are black people waiting in line for food, standing in the cold next to what appears to be a billboard or wall painting of a white family in a car that says across the top “WORLD’S HIGHEST STANDARD OF LIVING, There’s no way like the American Way”. This photograph has sparked much controversy, and many have viewed it as a connection and foreshadowing of Hurricane Katrina victims. According to Artforms textbook, the photograph “confronts us with the brutal difference between the glamorous life promised in advertising and the reality that many face every day.” (Preble 161)
Warfield stated, “Examining the communication process is like putting your VCR on pause; you look at a frozen snapshot of a dynamic, unending process. You cannot not communicate unless you’re dead or unconscious; communication takes place-for bad or for good-when we’re trying and when we’re not.” (Warfield 1996-2007) Nonverbal communication is highly effective in today’s society, but we must be awakened and consciously aware of the message we are sending to the world.

Works Cited
Blackout (Britney Spears album). Retrieved Oct. 26, 2007 from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackout.
Preble, Duane and Sarah, Frank, Patrick. Artforms: An Introduction to the Visual Arts.
Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2004. p. 161.
Thumper. Logic Review. Retrieved Oct. 5, 2007 from
http://aalbc.com/reviews/logic.htm.
Vernon, Olympia R. Logic. New York, NY: Grove Press, 2004. pp. 3-249.
Warfield, Hal (1996-2007). The Art of Communicating. Retrieved September 4, 2007
from http://www.selfgrowth.com/articles/Warfield1.html.