Nonverbal communication

“ They exchange subtexts, camouflage-wrapped by elaborate, florid, texts. They read between the lines, spawning a multitude of private languages, prejudices, superstitions, conspiracy theories, rumours, phobias and mass hysterias. Theirs is a solipsistic world – where communication is permitted only with oneself and the aim of language is to throw others off the scent. ”

“ This is a poor medium of communication between man and man. Whether this pure language here spoken of, which is to be spoken here upon the earth among mankind in their mortal state, is to be as perfect as the language that has to be spoken in our immortal state, is not for us to say ”

“ It is in accordance with all that we know of the history and present use of language, and, not less, with all that we know of the development of man's powers in other departments. Through all its existence, speech is primarily and above all a social possession, its unity made and preserved by mutual intelligibility, all its items and their changes requiring the adoption of a community before they become language at all. Those who, by isolation or physical defect, are cut off from communication with their fellows, do not speak, and have no inclination to speak. ”

“ In the same way words of low meaning are all the time being raised into the realm of good language.
Speech depends as much on the totality of mental life as perception. A person’s choice of words, their forms and their connections, are determined by previous habits of using words, by experience concerning those qualities of things which are most important to his own interests, by his consciousness of his present needs and ends. The general purpose of communication between the members of society tends to obliterate differences between individuals and between generations. ”

“ I hate bright colours, unnecessary conversation, useless noises—such as vocal and instrumental music, and the neighing of horses—and I can't bear to see people in quick motion. If I had my way, no one should speak to me except on matters of pure business, and only then when the communication could not be conveniently reduced into the form of a memorandum. ”

“ Again, let one who had grown up even to manhood among his fellows, in full and free communication with them, be long separated from them and forced to live in solitude, and he would unlearn his native speech by degrees through mere disuse, and be found at last unable to converse at all, or otherwise than lamely, until he had recovered by new practice his former facility of expression. ”

“ What are we to make of men who edge toward each other, apparently bent upon some sort of a secret communication—and then when they get within speaking distance, work away doggedly and at last depart without exchanging a word? ”

“ The proverb is: 'From the mouths of scholars, but not from the mouth of books.' Verbal communication finds various aids either in pausing or continuing to speak, according to the requirements of the sentence, by raising or lowering the voice, in expressing astonishment, question, narrative, desire, fear or submission by means of gestures, without which speech by itself would remain inadequate. Occasionally the speaker even has recourse to movements of eyes, eyebrows, or the whole head and hands, in order to express anger, pleasure, humility or haughtiness to the degree desired. ”

“ There are examples of almost wordless men, who, though suffering no deprivation of any of the physical organs of speech, have yet been so deficient in language-power that they could not employ it as the medium of ordinary communication. Such a man—an Illinois farmer—well known to the writer, could not find words to make an ordinary statement without long and embarrassing pauses. ”

“ The evidence of the best observers tends to prove that they are capable of developing the gesture-language out of their own minds without the aid of speaking men. Indeed, the deaf-mutes in general surpass the rest of the world in their power of using and understanding signs, and for this simple reason, that though the gesture-language is the common property of all mankind, it is seldom cultivated and developed to so high a degree by those who have the use of speech, as by those who cannot speak, and must therefore have recourse to other means of communication. ”

“ Do we not use signs and gestures as well as words? And what do we mean by 'silent converse,' when mind speaks to mind and soul to soul without the intervention of spoken language? We have the potentiality of telepathic intercommunication, but we have not yet developed it into a kinetic form as these people have done. ”

“ Lack of communication points to limitations of the humans involved in an activity. Miscommunication makes people question (themselves, others) about what went wrong, why, and what, if anything, can be done to avoid practical consequences affecting the efficiency of their activity. Other forms of language malfunction can affect people as individuals or as members of a community in ways different from those peculiar to communication. The failure of political systems, ideologies, religion (s) , markets, ethics, or family is expressed in the breakdown of patterns of human relations. ”

“ Suppose him to have as a medium of communication a language which he and those from whom he seeks information can use freely for the ordinary purposes of life, he finds that to fail when he seeks to know what is the real meaning of those expressions which his informant must needs use in his own tongue, because he knows no equivalent for them in the common language which is employed. ”

“ In world culture, on the other hand, writing paved the way for verbal intercourse. The reason for this difference lies in the fact that speech is a natural product of the direct intercourse of individuals who are sharing a common life. Writing, however, is an invention by which individuals seek to disseminate and to preserve the ideas embodied in speech far beyond the spacial and temporal bounds that limit oral communication. Hence, communication in writing is the first step from folk culture to world culture. ”

“ In this manner is a connection brought about between listener and speaker, and by these means is generated that force which is commonly called magnetism but which is, in reality, the active mind of the speaker getting into communication with the mind of the listener through the mediumship of the vitalized spoken word. The language is but the wire which carries the message, or the atmosphere on which the message is sent; the thought is the electricity which produces the message. The language is material, the mentality is spiritual ”

“ At present, due to the integrative mechanisms that humans have developed in the processes of labor division, natural language has lost, and keeps losing, importance in the population's practical experience. The lower quality of writing, reading, and verbal expression, as they apply to self-constitution through work and social life, is symptomatic of a new underlying structure for the pragmatic framework. Literacy-based means of expression and communication are substituted, not just complemented, by other forms of expression and communication. ”

“ These are the mental facts realised in each man and assumed by him to be also realised in his neighbours, when communication takes place by speech. If a man could be supposed to believe nothing, and to disbelieve nothing; — if he had no forms of speech to express his belief, disbelief, affirmation, and denial — no information could be given, no discussion would be possible. ”

“ We do not need to enter here into any detailed inquiry as to the modes and reasons of the special adaptedness of vocal utterance to the uses of expression. The fact is palpable, recognized by every mind, and illustrated by the whole history of human communication. We feel that those who learn to talk well without speaking are to be compared with the mutilated beings who, deprived of hands, learn to make their feet do the ordinary and natural work of hands. ”

“ The proposition that the subjective mind is constantly amenable to control by suggestion is not affected in the slightest degree by mesmeric phenomena. On the contrary, they distinctly prove the universality of that law. Suggestion is not necessarily limited to oral communication. Nor is it necessarily a communication which can be taken cognizance of by means of any of the objective senses. Telepathic communication is just as much a suggestion to the subjective mind as is oral speech. ”

“ If those which were actually written and sent were to be printed in parallel columns with those mentally formed but not written out responses and comments, the reader would get some idea of the internal conflicts an honest and not unamiable person has to go through, when he finds himself driven to the wall by a correspondence which is draining his vocabulary to find expressions that sound as agreeably, and signify as little, as the phrases used by a diplomatist in closing an official communication. ”

“ Background information is more readily available in oral communication. In orality, things people refer to are closer to the words they use. Human co-presence in conversation results in the possibility to read and translate the word under the guise of a willingness by others to show what a particular word stands for. In orality, the experience pertinent to the word is shared in its entirety. This is possible because the appropriate world of experience (corresponding to the circular scale of human praxis) is so limited that the language is in a one-to-one relation with what it describes. ”

“ More encompassing effective forces, relatively independent of words, images, sounds, textures, and odors continuously directed at society's members, from every direction and with every imaginable purpose, define social dynamics. They define goals and means of communication as well.
The gap between the performance of communication technology and the effectiveness of communication is symptomatic of the contradictory condition of contemporary humans. It often seems that messages have lives of their own and that the more communication there is, the less it reaches its address. ”

“ The fault of imperfect communication is just as likely to be ours as theirs. Let us but see to it that the lines of telegraphic communication are laid in correctness of moral living, and clearness of intellectual conception, (on our side of the abyss of death) before we rashly assume the fault to be theirs. ”

“ The loneliness of the place had entered our very bones, and silence seemed natural, for after a bit the sound of our voices became a trifle unreal and forced; whispering would have been the fitting mode of communication, I felt, and the human voice, always rather absurd amid the roar of the elements, now carried with it something almost illegitimate. It was like talking out loud in church, or in some place where it was not lawful, perhaps not quite safe, to be overheard. ”

“ I have put the question to clever men thus: "Suppose yourself, after having been able to write and talk to me, suddenly deprived of the powers of speech and touch, and made invisible, so that we could not understand each other by signs, what better means than by taps or tilts on any article, when the right word or letter is named, could you think of by which to communicate with me?" ”

“ They believe that we communicate without speech, and above speech, and that no right action of ours is quite unaffecting to our friends, at whatever distance; for the influence of action is not to be measured by miles. ”

“ Communication, says Professor Ellwood, is “a device to carry on a common life-process among several distinct, though psychically interacting, individual units.”XXIII-50 This definition probably emphasizes unduly the “individual units,” which are doubtless a product, in part, of the stream of social life. Suggestion is an elemental, but quick form of communication, related in its simpler phases to sympathetic emotion. Imitation is a common mechanism whereby actions and ideas spread. Communication in the form of oral and written language is the chief mechanistic factor in securing social change. ”

“ Even if all the superscriptions of names and persons, all forms of address and reply, and, in short, the whole conversational garb, were taken away from it, and we were merely to follow the inner threads of the thought according to their connection and course, the whole would, nevertheless, remain a dialogue, where each answer calls forth a new question, and the eddying stream of speech and counter-speech, or, rather, of thought and counter-thought, moves livingly onward. ”

“ If then the power of speech is a gift as great as any that can be named,—if the origin of language is by many philosophers even considered to be nothing short of divine,—if by means of words the secrets of the heart are brought to light, pain of soul is relieved, hidden grief is carried off, sympathy conveyed, counsel imparted, experience recorded, and wisdom perpetuated,—if by great authors the many are drawn up into unity, national character is fixed, a people speaks, the past and the future, the East and the West are brought into communication with each other,—if such men are, in a word, the spokesmen and prophets of the human family,—it will not answer to make light of Literature or to neglect its study; rather we may be sure that, in proportion as we master it in whatever language, and imbibe its spirit, we shall ourselves become in our own measure the ministers of like benefits to others, ”

“ We no longer value ourselves sufficiently highly when we communicate our soul’s content. Our real experiences are not at all garrulous. They could not communicate themselves even if they wished to. They are at a loss to find words for such confidences. Those things for which we find words, are things wehave already overcome. In all speech there lies an element of contempt. Speech, it would seem, was only invented for average, mediocre and communicable things.—Every spoken word proclaims the speaker vulgarised— (Extract from a moral code for deaf-and-dumb people and other philosophers.) ”

“ Nor is a systematic use of signs of so great assistance in communicating with foreigners, whose speech is not understood, as might at first be supposed, unless indeed both parties agree to cease all attempt at oral language, relying wholly upon gestures. ”