Short Essay On Body Language

1665 Words7 Pages

Body language is defined as “communication by means of facial expressions, gestures, postures, and other wordless signals. Body language also includes … hair and clothing styles.” (World Book 2010, 435). It is used as an effective tool to understand how people feel and convey what they think. It is a product of learning or genetic inheritance. In different cultures, body language is explained in different ways. It can be used to communicate with others through micro facial expressions, gestures, postures and hair and clothing styles. (World Book 2010, 435).

Facial expressions refer to “the act of communicating a mood, attitude, opinion, feeling, or other message by contracting the muscles of the face.” (Givens 2002, 18). Dr. Paul Ekman, who is “a professor of psychology at the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF)”, reveals that facial expressions are able to display six basic sentiments including cheer, sorrow, rage, fright, aversion or astonishment by controlling the movements of eyebrows, eyes, nose, lip, cheeks, and chin. (Goman 2008, 61). Smiling, raising muscles on both sides of nose and wrinkling the skin that is around the eyes describe cheer. (Goman 2008, 62). False cheer, however, makes an odd face which is acted on only one side and the …show more content…

For an instance “zero” in France, “money” in Japan and “homosexuals” in certain Mediterranean countries all can be expressed by the gesture “OK”. (Pease 1981, 4). Moreover, when the thumb is quickly performed it becomes a derogatory signal, meaning “up yours” or “sit on this”. In addition, it means “one” in Italy while in America, Australia and Britain it refers to “five”. (Pease 1981, 4). Different cultures have various customs that make an influence on thinking methods of people which lead to diverse clarification of same gestures; in order to avoid embarrassment and effectively converse with other people, it is vital to carefully use

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