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In modern society, most countries in the world communicate with each other frequently, and at the same time, people speaking different languages have different cultural backgrounds, ways of living, faith of religion, personal values and so on, which interfere with the communication of people from different countries.
When a Chinese meets an American, would kissing each other be offensive for the Chinese? If two young people of the same sex walk with each other with their arms on each other’s shoulder, would English-speaking people regard this as being proper? Does nodding head means “yes” and shaking head means “no” in all cultures? I am afraid nobody can directly give positive or negative answers to the above questions, because the same gesture in different cultures has different meanings. Language is one of the gifts of human being. It lets us share our experiences, help us learn from others, and allow us to communicate with others across time and place. But language is not the only way we communicate, we communicate with gestures or body language as well.源[自*751^`论\文'网·www.751com.cn/
Body language is a way which human use by their facial expressions, gestures, body postures to express and transmit thoughts and feelings. Using postures to communication is almost a kind of instinct of human itself, because it is simple, quick and intuitive, it is used extremely extensive in real life, and sometimes it can convey information more subtly and leave each other more space for imagination.
Body language is performed in many respects, specifically, as the followings are the major types of body languages: facial expressions, gesture action language, posture body language, eye contact.
This thesis mainly enumerates several body languages: interpersonal distance, eye contact and handshaking. These are main ways of nonverbal communication. Through examples and contrast of different cultures, we have more knowledge of the three meaningful languages and be aware of the richness of nonverbal language. Based on all this information, this thesis is trying to help us in applying body languages in daily life. There are some examples of communication failure. To avoid failures in communication, this thesis puts forward some principles to help.
2. Literature Review
Nowadays, the world is becoming smaller and smaller, which has become a global village. Thus people have more chance to contact with people who are from different cultures as to the quick development of science, technology and economy. Cross-cultural communication, involving communication among people who are from different countries, among many others, has been enjoyed in a great popularity. It consists of verbal as well as nonverbal communication. As Liu Yongfa said in Practical Body Language “There is no doubt that verbal language is very important, however, body language is also a significant tool for communicating thoughts and emotions. Body language is irreplaceable in daily communication. The same body language may have totally different meanings in different cultures.” It is very necessary for us to have knowledge about meanings of several main body languages.
Researchers have showed that most parts of people’s communication are conveyed by nonverbal communication. Many researchers have found that when we interact with others face to face, the verbal information covers no more than 35 percent in the social meaning, while other forms of nonverbal communication carries more than 65 percent. Albert Mehrabian finds that 7 percent of a message is conveyed through explicit verbal information. As Yang Hua said in A Brief Discussion on Body Language “The face has been called ‘ organ of emotion’, because we constantly read facial expressions to understand what others are feeling.”, facial expressions are important body languages as well as some other body language such as handshaking. From body language in English Country, we know that one gesture has many meanings in different cultures. So we need to pay attention to cultural differences. The author has received inspiration from them. Basing on these researches, the author deepens research and analysis, and aims at forming a more impeccable and comprehensive outcome.