主题: 自考英语9（二）课文文本16
3-A. Non-verbal Communication
If anyone asked you what were the main means of communication between people, what would you say? That isn’t a catch question. The answer is simple and obvious. It would almost certainly refer to means of communication that involve the use of words. Speakers and listeners-oral communication, and writers and readers-written communication. And you’d be quite right. There is, however, another form of communication which we all use most of the time, usually without knowing it. This is sometimes called body language. Its more technical name is non-verbal communication. Non-verbal, because it does not involve the use of words. NVC for short.
When someone is saying something with which he agrees, the average European will smile and nod approval. On the other hand, if you disagree with what they are saying, you may frown and shake your head. In this way you signal your reactions, and communicate them to the speaker without saying a word. I referred a moment ago to \"the average European”, because body language is very much tied to culture, and in order not to misunderstand, or not to be misunderstood, you must realize this. A smiling Chinese, for instance, may not be approving but somewhat embarrassed.
Quite a lot of work is now being done on the subject of NVC, which is obviously important, for instance, to managers, who have to deal every day with their staff, and have to understand what other people are feeling if they are to create good working conditions. Body language, or NVC signals, are sometimes categorised into five kinds: 1.body and facial gestures; 2.eye contact; 3.body contact or \"proximity\"; 4.clothing and physical appearance; and 5.the quality of speech. I expect you understood all those, except perhaps \"proximity.\" This simply means \"closeness\". In some cultures-and I am sure this is a cultural feature and not an individual one-it is quite normal for people to stand close together, or to more or less thrust their face into yours when they are talking to you. In other cultures, this is disliked; Americans, for instance, talk about invasion of their space.
Some signals are probably common to all of us. If a public speaker (like a professor, for example) is all the time fiddling with a pencil, or with his glasses, while he is talking to you, he is telling you quite clearly that he is nervous. A person who holds a hand over his mouth when he is talking is signalling that he is lacking in confidence. If you start wriggling in your chairs, looking secretly at your watches or yawning behind your hands, I shall soon get the message that I’m boring you. And so on. I\'m sure you could make a whole list of such signals-and it might be fun if you did.
All the signals I have mentioned so far can be controlled. If you are aware that you are doing these things, you can stop. You can even learn to give false signals. Most public speakers are in fact nervous, but a good speaker learns to hide this by giving off signals of confidence. Other kinds of NVC are not so easy to control. Eye contact, for instance. Unless you are confessing intense love, you hardly ever look into someone else’s eyes for very long. If you try it, you’ll find they will soon away, probably in embarrassment.
I’ve already mentioned proximity, so just a brief word now about our last two categories, which concern the way people dress and the way they speak. These are both pretty obvious signals. People may dress casually and speak casually, which signals that they are relaxed. Or they can dress formally and speak formally, showing their tenseness. In fact, non-verbal communication can, as the saying goes, speak volumes.
23-B. Body Talk
Have you ever wondered why you sometimes take an almost immediate liking to a person you have just met? Or worried about why someone you were talking to suddenly became cool and distant? The chances are that it wasn’t anything that was said but something that happened: a gesture, a movement, a smile. Social scientists are now devoting considerable attention to \"non-verbal communication,” what happens when people get together, apart from their actual conversation.
Professor Erving Goffman of the University of Pennsylvania is involved in a continuing study of the way people behave in social interaction. He feels that gestures, movements and physical closeness have meaning which the words that the people are using do not carry.
For example, North Americans tend to expect more physical distance between two speakers than do Latin Americans. Consequently, when the Latin American seems to be leaning too close, the North American complains of \"invasion of his space. \" The Latin American,
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