KINESICS

January 11, 2010

Kinesics
\ke- ‘ne-siks\ n: a systematic study of the relationship between nonlinguistic body motions (as blushes, shrugs, or eye movement) and communication*

It could be argued that teenagers have perfected the art form of rolling one’s eyes, usually followed by a non committal shrug and if parents are lucky a grunt. These nonverbal cues to one’s emotions (combined with any verbal diatribe that might be coming because Johnny’s dad wouldn’t let him borrow the car), are described as kinesics. I know for certain as an adolescent and even now in my early adulthood, I have relied on more than one non-verbal clue; my favorite being the raised right eyebrow which has been a humorous staple in my household for years.
My mother always says anyone can tell I am Italian because as I speak, my hands never stop moving. When preparing to go on a travel study in Italy, my non-verbal communication class studied different examples of kinesics and how they affected different cultures, by the end of the course, we knew what gestures would be welcome in Italy and which would not. I observed many different usages of nonverbal communication while in Italy; a simply flick of the wrist while crossing the street was thanks enough and a classmate putting up two fingers when her waiter clearly has three up with a confused look on his face, accompanied by “Ahh, Ahh,” as soon as he understands; now that’s kinesics at its finest!
The English language is tricky as it is, without the subtleties and nuances thrown in just for good measure. On the other hand, the relationship that is forged between non-verbal and verbal styles of communication is valuable, specifically in other countries that do not rely on the spoken word as frequently. Non-verbal communication has become more widely accepted and even more widely used.

*first letter “e” is upside down creating sound of “uh”