ABSTRACT
This chapter starts with the definition of nonverbal communication and emphasizes that nonverbal communication is ambiguous. The chapter includes information related to the functions of communication—repeating, substituting, accenting, complementing, and regulating. Moreover, students read about the types of nonverbal communication—specifically, kinesics (gestures, body orientation and posture, haptics, and facial expressions and eye behavior), paralanguage (vocal qualities, silence, and accents), physical characteristics (general attractiveness, body shape, and artifacts), and the environment (architectural style, chronemics, territoriality, and proxemics). Attention is also devoted to how the culture, gender, and workplace contexts influence nonverbal communication, and the relationship between deception and nonverbal communication is explained. The chapter ends by teaching students about immediacy behaviors, which enable them to communicate civil and effective nonverbal behavior.
