body language

(noun)

Nonverbal communication by means of facial expressions, eye behavior, gestures, posture, and the like; often thought to be involuntary.

Related Terms

Examples of body language in the following topics:

  • Applied Body Language

    • Body language is a form of human non-verbal communication, which consists of body posture, gestures, facial expressions, and eye movements.
    • Body language may provide clues as to the attitude or state of mind of a person.
    • Note the significant attention paid to body language.
    • Does it have anything to do with her body language?
    • Discuss the importance of body language as a means of social communication and give specific examples of body language

  • Symbols and Nature

    • Written language is the representation of a language by means of a writing system.
    • Written language exists only as a complement to a specific spoken language.
    • A sign language is a language which, instead of acoustically conveying sound patterns, uses manual communication and body language to convey meaning.
    • This can involve simultaneously combining hand shapes; orientation and movement of the hands, arms or body; and facial expressions to fluidly express a speaker's thoughts.
    • Sign languages, like spoken languages, organize elementary units into meaningful semantic units.

  • Gestures

    • The gesturer then waves the fingers in toward the body.
    • Gestures include movement of the hands, face, or other parts of the body.
    • Gestures allow individuals to communicate a variety of feelings and thoughts, from contempt and hostility to approval and affection, often together with body language in addition to spoken words.
    • Gestural languages such as American Sign Language and its regional siblings operate as complete natural languages that are gestural .
    • American Sign Language, or ASL, is a gestural language.

  • Introduction

    • In short, because you recognize that the individual driving the car belongs to a specific social category (or group), you can enter this interaction with a body of knowledge that will help guide your behavior.
    • In the case above, for example, you (as the driver) would note the information given (e.g., the special car, the lights, and the uniform worn) to ascertain what was happening and who the other driver was, and then you could note the information given off (e.g., the apparent mood of the police officer based upon her or his body language, verbal language, and mannerisms) to predict (accurately or otherwise) what was about to happen to you.

  • Cultural Universals

    • The elements of culture include (1) symbols (anything that carries particular meaning recognized by people who share the same culture); (2) language (system of symbols that allows people to communicate with one another); (3) values (culturally-defined standards that serve as broad guidelines for social living; (4) beliefs (specific statements that people hold to be true); and (5) norms (rules and expectations by which a society guides the behavior of its members).
    • Taken together, the whole body of cultural universals is known as the human condition.
    • For example, Boas called attention to the idea that language is a means of categorizing experiences, hypothesizing that the existence of different languages suggests that people categorize, and thus experience, language differently.
    • Therefore, although people may perceive visible radiation the same way, in terms of a continuum of color, people who speak different languages slice up this continuum into discrete colors in different ways.

  • Language

    • The word language has at least two basic meanings: language as a general concept, and a specific linguistic system (e.g.
    • Ferdinand de Saussure first explicitly formulated the distinction, using the French word langage for language as a concept, and langue as the specific instance of language.
    • One definition sees language primarily as the mental faculty that allows humans to undertake linguistic behaviour--to learn languages and produce and understand utterances.
    • Human languages are usually referred to as natural languages, and the science of studying them falls under the purview of linguistics.
    • Members of a culture usually share a common language.

  • The Origins of Language

    • The origin of language is a widely discussed and controversial topic due to very limited empirical evidence.
    • The origin of language in the human species is a widely discussed topic.
    • Theories about the origin of language can be divided according to their basic assumptions.
    • Other continuity-based models see language as having developed from music.
    • The origin of language in the human species is a widely discussed topic.

  • Biological Differences

    • In addition to different sex organs and sex chromosomes, the average male is 10 percent taller, 20 percent heavier, and 35 percent stronger in the upper body than the average female[9] Some researchers believe that these physiological differences may have been influenced by social/cultural decisions in our evolutionary past.
    • Even so, when measured against their own body size, rather than on an absolute scale (e.g., how much females can carry relative to their body size versus how much males can carry relative to their body size), actual strength differences are minimal.
    • Others have noted the negative effects that stress and lack of emotional expression (a hallmark trait associated with masculinities) place on the body, and the tendency for females to seek help and treatment (traditionally feminine behaviors) as factors in this pattern.
    • In fact, the temporal lobe, which is the part of the brain associated with language and emotion, develops up to 4 years earlier in females in comparison to boys (which mirrors patterns of gender socialization for femininities) On the other hand, the left parietal lobe, which is associated with mathematical and spatial reasoning, is thought to develop up to 4 years earlier in males (which corresponds to masculine socialization in terms of rationality and noted encouragement favoring male students in the physical sciences).
    • This difference could account for the fact that females are sometimes thought to be better when it comes to language and are more emotional (following their gender socialization requirements), while males are thought to be better in math (following their gender socialization requirements).

  • Culture

    • That person's genetic material and physical body is what is considered his nature.
    • This includes how he dresses, what he eats, what language he speaks, and every way in which he behaves.
    • Biology gives us the neural capacity for things like language and culture, but our environments teach us how to use these capacities.
    • For example, biology enables humans to learn a language; this makes us different from other species.
    • Which language one speaks is a learned behavior.

  • Health Problems

    • This is the condition defined by the inability of the heart to provide adequate blood flow to the body.
    • Treating cancer involves some combination of radiation, chemotherapy, or surgery, all of which are more stressful on an aged body than a younger body.
    • Recognition of the stress that treatment may have on an older body limits the options available for treatment.
    • Symptoms of Alzheimer's include confusion, irritability, aggression, mood swings, difficulty with language, and memory loss.
    • A person's body is more likely to encounter disease as he or she ages.