Language is more than words, more than a collection of ordered sounds: using and understanding language also involves posture, facial expressions, eye movements, hand movements, and physical space. In linguistics, the academic field which studies language scientifically, these things are called kinsesics and proximics.
Kinesics:
The technical term for what most people call body language is kinesics. The term was originally coined by Raymond Birdwhistle. Anthropologist Edward T. Hall, in his book The Dance of Life, defines kinesics this way:
“The study of body motion as a communicative process (either conscious or unconscious but frequently unconscious).”
Kinesics and spoken words are closely intertwined into a larger language system. D. McNeill, in an article in the
Encyclopedia of Languages & Linguistics, writes:
“Gestures and language are best thought of as a single system, larger than either language or gesture as traditionally assumed.”
Also writing in the the
Encyclopedia of Languages & Linguistics, J. B. Haviland puts it this way:
“When people come together to interact, they can exploit everything at hand (as we might say) to communicate with one another. They position their bodies in relation to both interlocutors and other copresent people; they manipulate objects in the surround; they orient their senses towards one another; they talk; they look; they listen; and they gesture—they move their bodies (and sometimes other entities as well) as part of interaction.”
Because body language and spoken language are closely intertwined, it is important to understand that gestures and postures associated with one language may not be the same as those in other languages. Use of the wrong gesture may cause misunderstanding in a cross-cultural context.
One example in the cultural differences in kinesics can be seen in pointing. In European cultures it is common to point with a finger, but in many American Indian cultures this gesture is considered to be rude. In her book Anti-Indianism in Modern America: A Voice from Tatekeya’s Earth, Elizabeth Cook-Lynn writes:
“The language of gesture, the lifting of the chin and pointing with the lips, is filled with meaning. It is a custom among first language Lakota and Dakota tribal speakers, taught from childhood that pointing is rude.”
The Crazy Horse Monument, a giant sculpture carved out of a mountain shows the Sioux leader pointing his finger. It is evident that the sculpture is non-Indian with no understanding of Sioux kinesics. As a result, Elizabeth Cook-Lynn writes:
“the pointing finger of the sculpture is the first thing that is noticeably outrageous and ridiculous from the Lakota cultural perspective, and it forces the question. Can you conquer with seeming and studied indifference?”
One of the problems faced by many Anglo teachers on Indian reservations deals with eye contact. In many Indian cultures, looking someone directly in the eye is considered to be impolite, while in Anglo culture, failure to look someone directly in the eye is interpreted as impolite. Thus, the teacher is expecting to have the students make eye contact, while the culture of the students tells them to avoid eye contact.
In some American Indian cultures, when two people are speaking, they are often side-by-side, looking, not at each other, but in the same direction.
It is not just gestures and body posture that accompany language and is a part of the total communication process, but also a number of “props” which may also enhance communication. These “props” include things such as clothing, jewelry, make-up, and other forms of body adornment. In their chapter on “Social Relations, Communication, and Cognition” in the Handbook of Human Symbolic Evolution, Andrew Lock and Kim Symes write:
“A principal function of body adornment is to provide a visible ‘badge’ of status.”
Body adornment includes tattooing, scarification, and mutilation. Mutilation would include piercing the ears, lips, or nasal septum for the insertion of jewelry. Among some American Indian groups this would have also included cranial deformation.
Proxemics:
Proxemics refers to the social uses of space, including how close or far people position themselves from one another while interacting. Space is defined culturally and relates to social setting. Edward T. Hall defines it this way:
“Proxemics is the study of people’s use of space as a function of culture. That is, the effect of culture on the structuring and use of space.”
When used in connection with language, proxemics generally refers to the space people maintain, or try to maintain, when speaking with other people. In the U.S., for example, people engaged in conversation will assume a social distance of roughly four to seven feet apart, but in many parts of Europe the expected social distance is roughly half this distance. It is not uncommon for many Americans traveling overseas to experience the urgent need to back away from a conversation partner who is getting too close.
In general, there seem to be four spatial bubbles regarding proxemics: (1) intimate space into which only the closest friends enter, (2) personal space, (3) social and consultative space which is the space in which people feel comfortable conducting routine social interactions with acquaintances as well as strangers, and (4) public space which is the area of space beyond which people will perceive interactions as impersonal and relatively anonymous.
Also associated with space during conversation is touching. In some cultures, when people speak to each other they also use their hands to touch the other person. While touching in some cultures is associated only with intimate space, in other cultures it is common in social and consultative space as well.