To achieve effective intercultural communication, participants must understand how behavioral differences may lead to miscommunication. Such behavioral differences can be illustrated by Arab and American nonverbal behavior. Individualism is the ideal for the American middle class, whereas Arabs are motivated by public opinion. Yet in the Arab…

Each culture has its own nonverbal as well as its verbal language. Movements, gestures and sounds have distinct and often conflicting interpretations in different countries. For Americans communicating with Japanese, misunderstandings are of two types: Japanese behavior which is completely new to the American, and Japanese behavior which is…

This handbook of Colombian and U.S. gestures was prepared originally as an aid to English teachers in Colombia. The Colombian gestures were collected via personal observations and interviews with Colombian informants. Approximately 20 informants from various regions of the United States were also interviewed. To this orginal collection, published…

A discussion of the role of nonverbal communication in foreign language learning focuses on culturally-conditioned aspects of nonverbal behavior. Various means of nonverbal communication, including posture, gestures, facial expression, occulesics, proxemics, haptics, chronemics, and syncing are examined, and some of the cultural differences found…

This bibliography for counseling psychologists focuses on differences in nonverbal behavior as an aspect of cross cultural psychotherapy. The introductory section discusses the purpose, scope and limitations of the report. Different theories of emotion (dimensional versus typological) are also discussed and classifications of nonverbal behavior…

Discusses the signals that are used to create, sustain, and end conversational involvement in two different languages, with examples provided of paralinguistic attention getters, linguistic conversation initiation signals, "in-tune" signals, and "face-saving" signals from a study of English and Greek. (CB)

Differences between American and Japanese society and culture that contribute to differences in the use of body language are examined. These include historical and social factors. Examples of the differences and of the misunderstandings that can result are analyzed and illustrated, using a system of classifying kinesic codes into categories…

This study attempts to show the intrinsic connection between the verbal and nonverbal components of human communication. It suggests that consecutive interpreters should not transform spoken language into what amounts to an incomplete form of the corresponding written language, but that they should transfer gestures of the source language and…

Body language, also called kinesics, is the discipline concerned with the study of all bodily motions that are communicative. An understanding of kinesics across cultures necessitates a close look at posture, movement, facial expression, eye management, gestures, and proxemics (distancing). The popularity of one posture over another and the…

Culture-specific non-verbal communication is regarded here as an essential "language" that has been neglected in modern language teaching pedagogy, though the substance of culture is often referred to in the curriculum. A distinction is drawn between the public aspects of culture commonly experienced by the second language learner and the private…

This quarterly newsletter includes a variety of articles on the teaching of English as a second language. The first article discusses the use of the enquiry method and problem solving as classroom procedures. This approach involves the development of four cognitive processes: framing questions, imposing order on data, making extrapolations, and…

This quarterly newsletter contains articles on a variety of subjects relevant to teaching English as a second language. The first article concerns cloze procedures to test reading ability; the article includes a list of procedures in non-technical terms for teachers to follow. The second article discusses the use of games in teaching English as a…