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

Descriptive Reflection: Communication Breakdown

It was one of the most exciting moments of my life when I decided to study in overseas, a few years back in Myanmar. At the same time, I felt belittled whenever I subconsciously asked myself how would I communicate with other students in overseas? I assumed that communicating is one of the innate abilities and it is the only barrier for me to communicate.

Until now, I have been lucky enough to share the same room in Singapore with my childhood friend. We know each for my whole life, minus five years before primary school, so we presumably know almost everything about each other and sometimes in some aspects, my friend may know more than my family does. Since we arrived in Singapore, we walked into different paths. We rarely talk to each other as both of us are busy with our own schedules and sometimes it is even hard to do household chores together. Ever since, I gradually feel that something is setting us apart and until recently, I realized that we became a total stranger to each other. I am more open to my overseas classmate then my childhood friend. Now I see the big picture that we have a serious communication breakdown. When I refer to my own perception of communication barrier, my hypothesis is totally wrong for my case. We speak the same language, we came from the same country, we came from the same cultural background, we go through same childhood life and ultimately we lived in same road where only a few houses separate our homes in our hometown.

The intricacy of communication is getting more and more complex as we go through different phases of our lives but the basic rule to establish successful rapport is as simple as the main purpose of communicating. So why do we communicate in the first place? We may define it in different ways but ultimately we do communicate because we want to deliver the right information to our destination. So we cannot probably expect to receive the information which is not delivered in the first place. This is where the communication breakdown start to happen when we take our relationship for granted and we tend to assume or we expect he/she to understand without even communicating. For my case, I failed to communicate in the first place, we assume each other to understand some underlying problems and so I do not try to make effort to reestablish my communication. This trivial problem is snowballing into total communication breakdown. I also forgot to nurture my innate ability to make full use of it. I hope to communicate effectively and handle my communication mistakes very well in the future. 

Edited on 2/19/2016

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Jia Sheng