Elements of Nonverbal and Verbal Communication

Importance of verbal and nonverbal communication

You will find that one of the major differences between great communicators and average ones has to do with how one processes nonverbal and verbal communication. Average communicators pay almost no attention to nonverbal communication cues. In fact, they engage in a particularly weird type of one-way communication called verbal- self-talk.

When someone self-talks, they basically talk to themselves. It's a particularly insidious disease, striking the primarily intelligentsia, individuals like professors or technologists such as engineers. You can even see this phenomenon operating and doctors.

Another reason this is important, is that meaning is not always conveyed solely in the words. In fact, a great deal of meaning is communicated either in the situational context or in the nonverbal elements associated with the body.

For example, let's say you are having a meeting with someone for the very first time. As you walk into the conference room, you notice that the person has chosen the head of the table. Contrast this with another person who chooses a chair at the side of the table and indicates that you should talk to them from that position. You should pick up, that one person is indicating a conversation of equals, while the other person, is setting up a situation where they clearly want to be the dominant party.

And finally, one has to understand that words are very ambiguous. The same word means different things to different people. In fact, the most commonly used words in English always always multiple meanings. Even a simple word such as value, has well over eight meetings in a standard dictionary.

Definition of Nonverbal and Verbal Communication

There's no standard dictionary definition for the simultaneous processing of verbal and nonverbal information. However, here's a good definition that we can apply in terms of our interpersonal listening or speaking skills.

Full-Duplex Mode

When I'm a speaker, my goal is to pay attention to both the words that I'm using signals and the nonverbal signals being conveyed by the listener. I call this, the full-duplex mode of communication. This term was borrowed from communication technology and basically means that we are sending and receiving at the same time. Just like the telephone, does better on for very long period of time.

The reason we want to do this, is that one can get a lot of information from the nonverbal signals. For example, you can tell whether the person understands you or does not understand you. And if your senses are really fine tuned, you can even tell what word cause them to be confused.

If I tell you to meet me at the Hollis, would you note I mean? Most of us would say no. However, if I'm paying attention to nonverbal's I would be able to know that you are confused over the word Hollis and then be able to explain.

Half-Duplex Mode

This mode of processing verbal and nonverbal information is a bit easier since it's one we engage in when we are listening. However, that doesn't mean most people you do it. Oftentimes, people process the audio channel and completely miss all the information coming in from the from the visuals. So this mode means that we are processing both the senders visual information as well as the auditory information.

The Nonverbal and Verbal Communication Model

The communication model for nonverbal and verbal communication is relatively simple. It starts out with an assumption that we have both the sender and a receiver. The sender decides to choose a medium to communicate a message. Typically this medium is either verbal, written, or some type of electronic medium.

Encoding occurs on the sender side. It's invisible process in which message is turned from thought to language. On the receiver side, there's a similar invisible process known as decoding. Decoding is the conversion of language into thought or meaning.

And finally, there's a flow of information between the sender and the receiver. This flow represents both of core problem and the core opportunity. First, most senders fail to monitor their own words. And secondly, the sender fails to receive nonverbal feedback coming from the receiver. This leads to all sorts of problems and misunderstandings.

Advantages of Processing NonVerbal and verbal Communication

The advantages of using both verbal and nonverbal communication processes at the same time are numerous. To give you one example, this is what some people referred to as space reading face reading. Some people are very good at reading face the others, most our totally clueless.

If you can read your bosses face, you gave an advantage over those that can't. I used to routinely do this every morning with my blogs my boss. Primarily, I wanted to know what mood they were in. I happen to have a very good boss, but every once in a while, he got in a lousy mood. When such a rare event occurred, it was best to say hello, beat a hasty retreat, and hide out elsewhere .

Examples of Nonverbal and Verbal Communication

Let's consider some different types of examples and nonexamples.

Nonexample One. First of all, for the model to work, we must have verbal and nonverbal flows of information occurring at both the same time. The nonverbal flow of information is basically provided for feedback purposes. All types of written communication do not have nonverbal elements associated with them. And because of this, there is really no feedback possible.

Nonexample Two. The same can be said for most electronic forms of communication. While you might send e-mail out to 10 of your friends, unless you happen asked him about it later, you really don't know if they read it, opened it, or remembered it. Voicemail might be a little better in terms of understanding; however, there is no more nonverbal feedback available until after the person has heard your message and decides to call you back.

Example One: A telephone conversation is a much better example of both nonverbal and verbal communication. However, an audio conversation between two people has a disadvantage in that the visual nonverbal feedback is lost. However, with cameras on both computers and mobile's, will soon be able to see as well as here the person or talking to.

Example Two: Face-to-face Conversation. From the standpoint of both nonverbal and verbal communication, face-to-face communication is clearly the best. But it seems to be one type of communication mode that is in decline. Today, people tend to interact with electronic tools such as e-mail or the social networks that give limited or no feedback. Oh sure, you can post a comment to your Facebook account which goes out to 300 of your best friends. But what does it mean when five of them indicate they like it and only one of them actually comments? Perhaps it means that 295 people did not like it and 299 of them thought was stupid, but were too polite to comment period

Verbal and Nonverbal Communication At Work

There are a number of situations in the workplace where it makes sense to fully practice nonverbal and verbal communication skills. The most obvious, is during an interview. If one is able to pull information from the interviewer's face and gestures, it is much more likely that you will answer the question in a way that the interviewer feels make sense.

Another really critical situation, is that daily conversation with the boss. Of course you might be engaging in small talk and do not really need to monitor the nonverbals that closely. However maybe you're in the office to pitch an idea that you have. It's obviously important to go beyond the level of the word's to know what the person is really thinking about your idea.

These techniques are obviously useful when you're coaching or counseling. In fact, in a situation where you have to build a new skills, is very important that one monitor the nonverbal's.

And, one would hope, that most individuals in the medical and mental health professions, are fully able to process nonverbal and verbal information. However, paradoxically, the more intelligent a person is, the more likely they are to engage in verbal self-talk. I don't know why that is. Perhaps it's due the fact that very few universities have a basic course in human communication.

Conclusion

One cannot be a great communicator, unless one is able to process both nonverbal and verbal communication at the same time. However, this is a very difficult thing to do if you have been ignoring nonverbal information for years, reading an article like this one is unlikely to cause one to change. For if one practices something for hundreds of hours wrong, it's very hard to change it to with the right. Look at the

References

Moss, Stewart, and Tubbs, Sylvia (2006). Human Communication, Principles and Contexts, 11th Edition. New York: Prentice Hall.