Blackwell Reference Online

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Humans communicate verbally through words and nonverbally via facial expressions and body movements. Nonverbal communication refers to any human behavior, other than words, that serves a communicative purpose (→  Interpersonal Communication ). Such behavior can occur voluntarily or involuntarily, either simultaneously with words or alone. Nonverbal communicative behaviors that have been under intensive research include high–low context, silence, turn-taking, facial expressions of emotion, head nod, and gaze and mutual gaze. Culture is defined as “the way of life of a people” ( Hall 1959 , 31), who often live in a well-defined geographic area, speak the same language, and use the same nonverbal codes, with a set of norms and values regulating their thoughts and behaviors (→  Intercultural Norms ). The relationship between culture and communication, verbal or nonverbal, is a reciprocal one, as crystallized by Hall (1959 , 169): “culture is communication” and “communication is culture.” People communicate according to the dictates of their culture, and, in turn, through communication, culture is manifested, specified, and developed. In the long journey of human evolutionary processes, cultural groups have formed distinctively different languages and nonverbal communication cues, which are understood among themselves but can be enigmatic for outsiders. As nonverbal communication is ... log in or subscribe to read full text