Communication - Verbal vs. Nonverbal
As we said in another article, information has to be transmitted for communication to take place. But information, by itself, cannot travel, it is merely a thought in our mind, so we need to find a “transportation medium” that can convey the messages to their destination, something that can help us transmit our thoughts to other people in a way they can understand.
The logical choice as a “transportation medium” is our voice.
With voice we can send our information to the desired destination and receive messages from the surroundings. This way of transmitting information is called “verbal communication” (communication by words).
Two questions arise at this point.
- The first one is : how can we be certain
that the receiver will decode the message we send him in the correct way and without distortions? - The second question is: are words the only medium we can use to transmit messages and is it good enough to convey difficult and subtle information such as feelings and emotions?
The answer to both questions is : “body language” or nonverbal communication as opposed to verbal communication, i.e. words.
Body language is everything we do with our body, except the words we speak: Facial expressions, gestures, body movements, body postures and even some of the components of voice as tone, pitch, volume and inflection are part of nonverbal communication.
Basically only the content we send, the words we speak, are part of verbal communication, everything else, including the way words are spoken, is body language
