Body Language And Body Culture

According to the World Book Encyclopedia (2010), “Body language is communication by means of facial expressions, gestures, postures, and other wordless signals. Body language also includes … hair and clothing styles.” (p.614). People can show their feelings, attitudes and personalities in these ways. It might be formed by nature or nurture. In different cultures, body language is explained in different manners. It is consciously or unconsciously used to communicate with each other through micro actions of people’s body.

As the significant part of body language, facial expressions can be directly observed by others. It refers to “the act of communicating a mood, attitude, opinion, feeling, or other message by contracting the muscles of the face.” (Givens, 2002, p. 18). People use eyebrows, eyes, nose, lip, cheek, and chin muscles to display joy, sorrow, anger, fear, disgust and surprise. Joy is described as smiling with cheek raised and the skin around the eyes wrinkled. Fake joy makes face unmatched. The French neurophysiologist Guillaume Duchenne de Boulogne in 1862 made an experiment, observing the difference between false smiles and genuine smiles. He picked up an unfortunate old man as their subject. By electronic photographic technology, he analyzed how the old man’s muscles worked when he made the two kinds of smiles. The result showed that “the zygomatic major muscles, which run down the side of the face, are under your conscious control”; hence, it could produce