Before Words, There Was Body Language

Picture this:  You are walking down the hallway at your place of work.  Your eyes are a little sleepy still as you enter the building, coffee in hand. Passing you on the way, your coworker smiles and asks, “Long night last night?” You smile and laugh, maybe roll your eyes a little, and continue walking. In the distance, you spot the attractive new intern approaching. You fidget a bit in preparation, making sure every hair is in place. You poke your chest out as you pass each other, strutting your stuff. Coy smiles are exchanged.  You finally make it to your desk and settle in, reflecting on the 2 mini-conversations you just had… without saying a word. 
How can this be? Let’s review.  When your coworker asked, “Long night?,” she was probably referring to the look in your eyes that said “I’m tired.”  Her smile as she was saying this was to show that she was joking and being lighthearted.  You return the smile as if to say, “Message received. This is all in good fun, I’m not actually in trouble.” Rolling your eyes in response was eye-code for  “Whatever! I’m brushing it off.” When you see your crush nearby, fidgeting is an unintentional release of nervous energy. You also poke your chest out and strut to show off and attract attention (which both sexes do to emphasize the body shape). And coy smiles, like the ones you just traded with your crush, are the cornerstone of flirty signals. As this scenario shows, plenty can be said without the use of verbal speech.  These numerous and varied signs include such things as facial expression, body position, and the use of the hands in gestures or touching (Cox, 2003).
The position and direction in which we hold our body can say a lot about what we are feeling in the moment, perhaps about the person you are standing next to or speaking with. If you crossed your arms and/or legs, did not make eye contact, and held your head down, you would be displaying many common signs of a “closed” body position. This would signal that you are not very welcoming to communication with people at the moment. Others would very likely steer clear of your grumpy body language. But if you looked up and showed your face, held your hands at your sides, and uncrossed your legs, it would make you much more approachable (Cox, 2003). 
Body position (as is body language overall) is very important in the mating rituals that we have as humans.  When we are on a date with someone, we can show that we are “on the same page” as them by mirroring body movements and positions. This is not to say that one person is deliberately copying the other’s moves, but most people when feeling chemistry with someone will mimic their partner’s movements subconsciously. If one person is crossing their legs and leaning forward, the other may soon follow in about 15 seconds. A classic example of this is the affectionate pair who are both leaning across the table, holding hands and gazing into each other’s eyes (Cox, 2003).
The use of the hands serves two important functions in the language of the body: touching and gestures. Touching can be used in a way that encourages friendship, affection, and of course flirting. While bonding with friends, playful arm-punching and wrestling is fairly common among men (and women as well, on a smaller scale) (McNeill, 1982). If one wanted to ask how someone is doing, gently touching their arm while inquiring about their wellbeing would show tenderness.  And of course, any type of touching (except aggressively) in courting a mate is considered flirtatious (Bateson, 1968).
The investigation of gestures in speech has been receiving much attention by researchers lately, mostly in the differences between the sexes. Some have even broken them down into types.  According to McNeill’s Gesture Production Model, there are three types of gestures: iconic, metaphoric, and beat (p. 272). Iconic gestures are those that actually mimic the shape of the physical object being referred to. Metaphoric gestures represent an abstract, nonphysical idea or object. Beat gestures are simple and vary greatly with each person, usually placed with certain words or feelings and are generally evenly dispersed within the person’s dialogue.
Facial expressions are probably the most important aspect of communicating wordlessly. Studies have shown that people (adults and children alike) respond more quickly to a “mad” face than a “happy” one (Larson, 2010). The movement of the facial features is highly important in the way that people perceive human faces. A study which used computer technology to “freeze” certain facial features on a video while the rest of the face formed an expression shows that watching the movement of the eyes and mouth almost exclusively indicates to others the mood/mental state of the person.  In this experiment, “the eyes were found to be as informative as the whole face when judging mental states and significantly more informative than the mouth alone.” (Baron-Cohen et al., 1997, 2001) The eyes are considered such a subtle, varied, and vital source of emotional display that some researchers argue there is a “language of the eyes.”
    Humans are so used to relying on verbal language to talk that we forget that so much of our communication relies on subconscious physical messages.  It could be tempting to think that nonverbal communication is an obsolete form of communication that’s on its way out, but it is actually very helpful and necessary in fully fleshing out what we are trying to say. “Our iconic (i.e., analogical) communication serves functions totally different from those of language and indeed performs
functions which verbal language is unsuited to perform” (Bateson, 1968, p. 614). To talk without words has been evolutionarily advantageous to arguably every animal, including humans. Before we developed language, there was (and still is) an entire language of the body.












Bibliography

Back, E.,  Jordan, T.R, & Thomas, S.M. (2009). The recognition of mental states from dynamic   
and static facial expressions.Visual Cognition, 17, 1271-1286.

Bateson, G. (1968). Redundancy and coding. In Thomas A. Sebeok (ed.), Animal    
       communication, 614–626. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Cox, Tracey (2003). Superflirt. New York, NY. DK Publishing, Inc.

Larson, C.L. & LoBue, V. (2010). What makes an angry face look so ... angry? Examining visual      
        attention to the shape of threat in children and adults.Visual Cognition, 18, 1165-1178.

McNeill, D. & Levy, E.T. (1982). Conceptual representations in language activity and gesture.
       In Robert J. Jarvella & Wolfgang Klein (eds.), Speech, place, and action: Studies in deixis
       and related topics, 271–295. Chichester: Wiley.