Thursday 11 February 2016

Evaluating Verbal and Nonverbal Behavior

There is a famous myth about nonverbal cues in face to face communication, which states that 93 percent of communication is nonverbal in nature. We humans are usually dominated by visual so it seems reasonable but there are other key factors such as culture, age and gender which influence a lot in communication. As a student studying in foreign country, I have encountered lots of communication barriers with other people. The only option to convey my message is through nonverbal communication.

Since I arrived in Singapore, I stayed in a hostel for the very first 3 months before I moved out and stayed with my friend. I have no relatives and friends in Singapore and my hostel mates were my immediate acquaintance and they came from parts of Asia such as Tibet, India, Laos, Vietnam, China and Indonesia. So my very first experience in Singapore was more like living in collective of different foreign countries in a small place than living in a foreign country.

Although we all have good command of English as a second language, but there are times it seems impossible for us to convey the right message. After reflecting my experience in hostel, I realized one of the most important factors which can only be shown by nonverbal communication, which is cultural values. As we communicate verbally there are some common traits such as tone, speed, emphasis, exclamation which are similar across Asian countries and can be categorized in same group but when it comes to nonverbal communication, it is unique even for people from same country with different ethnic background.

Nonverbal communication can also be transmitted by the attire. It reminds me of the famous case of Barbie dolls in Iran. In short, Western culture decedents Barbie dolls wear revealing dress and this culture is totally diverse from values of women in middle east culture. Many Iranians believed that these Barbie dolls were imposing threats to their culture and eventually all Barbie dolls were banned in toy shops. We may not intend to offend through our attire, but sometimes our attire also plays crucial parts in transmitting nonverbal cues in different culture and gender.

In Asian culture, we may be familiar with paying respectful manner to elders and toning down when we talk to elders but both verbal and nonverbal communication may not match across different countries. In order to avoid misunderstanding we must first respect and study the culture when we do intercultural communication so that we can earn the respect and trust from members of the other culture. 

Edited on 2/19/2016

7 comments:

  1. As a classmate who understand a little of your background, I empathise with your stress and pain. I had backpacking experiences in Malaysia before school started. Even though my international hostel mates and I shared a common language, we find it difficult to understand each other. If I happen to not understand them, I would just smile and hope not to be caught into another question related to the previous one. (guilty as charged)

    I share your opinion that people from different countries, races, religions and cultures share different verbal and nonverbal interactions. Nevertheless, we should respect and study on other people's culture to avoid misunderstanding.

    The essay is well-written and little to pick on. You should consider adding a new line between each paragraph to ease reading.

    In addition, you mentioned "As a student studying in foreign country, I have encountered lots of communication barrier and most of the time, nonverbal communication is the only option to convey my message.". The sentence is a little too long and could be written like this "As a student in a foreign country, I encountered communication barriers with other people. The only option to convey my message is through nonverbal communication."

    Keep it up Lin!

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    1. Thank you JS for understanding me and sharing your experience. It is always been a hard time for me to communicate effectively. Thank you again for making an effort to rectify my mistakes. I made changes according to your comment and hopefully I am able to convey my message properly.

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  2. Hi Lin Zaw,
    your post was very interesting as you talk about your personal experience. Perhaps you can consider adding a new line to each paragraph so that your post is easier to read.

    First, your post was very clear as you talked about your difficulties in communicating with your hostel mates regarding verbal and non-verbal behaviour. You wrote that there are still some similarities in verbal behaviour but there is some difference in the non-verbals. Can you perhaps write down some examples in regard to how the non-verbals are different to be clearer?

    Second, your post is concise. You kept to the point explaining your situation, verbal then non-verbal behaviour.

    Third, your post is also concrete. However, when you talk about how nonverbal communication can also be transmitted through attire. Perhaps you can write down how attire affect you and your hostel mate? It will be more concrete and give me a clearer picture.

    Fourth, your post is correct. It fits the title perfectly.

    Fifth, your post is coherent as you first explain about your situation followed by the verbal then the nonverbal behaviour. For the "Nonverbal communication can also be transmitted by the attire", the example that you had gave proof your idea but I think that maybe by putting another example on how attire affected you and your hostel mates may be better and more coherent. What do you think about this?

    Sixth, your post was complete and maybe you can add in a conclusion to summarize your points on verbal and nonverbal behaviour?

    Last, your post is very courteous.

    I really enjoyed reading your post as I had never experienced living with people from different countries. Your post gave me some insight as to how to communicate with people from different countries. I maybe be wrong about the evaluation on the 7 Cs of communication, if I am wrong, please tell me about it. Thanks Lin Zaw!

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    Replies
    1. Hi Zong Hong, thank you for taking time and effort to read and comment on my blog post. Your comment clearly highlight my weakness and I also can see my room for improvement. I should have given more examples to convey the bigger picture of my view clearly. I do not have good example of my own personal experience to point out about attire as non verbal communication. So I have pointed out just a particular case I have heard before. I also see some weakness in organizing skill in my composition as I failed to summarized all my views. I am trying to improve on these skills and I am hoping that you can also help in my future blog post.

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  4. This is an interesting post, Lin, as your readers have already pointed out. I appreciate how you have chosen two example contexts for your discussion of apparent differences in verbal and nonverbal behavior: your initial living arrangement in Singapore in an international hostel and then case of Barbie dolls being banned in Iran due to their attire being seen as inappropriate for the cultural context.

    For the first scenario, you mention how you often had to rely on nonverbal communication in order to communicate your ideas. That reminded me of being in Mae Hong Song, a tiny town in the north of Thailand many years ago. At that time, I couldn't find any English speakers in the town, and so in order to order dinner at a restaurant on the center of the town, I had to draw pictures. What I would have liked to have read in your essay is a specific example to illustrate your point.

    The Barbie doll case is indeed more specific, but it doesn't actually align with the assignment, which calls very specifically for an observation. Still, given that you have connected the case of Barbie dolls in Iran to varying communication norms, I'll give you my views.

    What would make your point clearer is a short discussion of how differing norms in Iran, especially with regard to the way women dress, was at the heart of the anxiety people might have felt about the way the Barbie dolls were dressed.

    You also mention that "As we communicate verbally there are some common traits such as tone, speed, emphasis, exclamation which are similar across Asian countries..." However, I wonder what you mean by that. Are you saying that, for example, the Thai and Burmese languages are similar in areas such as tone or emphasis? Is that true? (And then what about the differences between Malay and Mandarin?)

    Here are a few comments on grammatical correctness:

    1) lots of communication barrier >>> lots of communication barrierS

    2) before I moved out and stay >>> before I moved out and stayED

    3) Although we all have good command of English as a second language, but there were times it seems impossible for us to convey the right message. >>> (inconsistent verb tense)

    4) one most important factors >>> one OF THE most important factors

    5) can be categorize >>> (verb form)

    6) Iran see these Barbie dolls were imposing threats to their culture and eventually banned all Barbie dolls in toy shops.
    >>>
    Many Iranians BELIEVED THAT these Barbie dolls were imposing threats to their culture and eventually all Barbie dolls WERE BANNED in toy shops.

    7) our attire also play >>> (subject-verb disagreement)

    8) we may familiar >>> (wrong verb form) we BE may familiar

    9) so that we can earn the respect and trust from other culture... >>> so that we can earn the respect and trust from MEMBERS OF THE other culture

    10) Although we all have good command of English as a second language, but there were times it seems impossible for us to convey the right message. >>> (sentence structure)
    Although we all have good command of English as a second language, there are times it seems impossible for us to convey the right message.

    My suggestion for you to continue to develop your English language and organizational writing skills is for you to look carefully at all the comments we've made in an effort to understand how you can improve. I'd be happy to discuss any of these comments with you.

    Thanks for the hard work!

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  5. Hi Lin,

    I enjoyed reading your post as I could relate to it very well.

    When I first moved to Singapore, I had trouble understanding Singlish, and a lot of the Chinese words. Something as ordinary as placing an order in a hawker center used to be a challenge as the older generation in Singapore at that time din't have a good command of English. Non-verbal cues definitely helped me out though! Did you experience something similar?

    I look forward to reading more from you!

    Cheers!

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