Understanding Verbal & Nonverbal Communication
Think of the difference between reading a book and listening to an audiobook. Think of the difference between listening to an audiobook and watching a movie. Between watching a movie and going to a play. All of these media communicate things to us, but they are communicating in different ways. What makes each media of communication distinct from the others, and what is the effect? In this post, we’ll look at the differences between verbal and nonverbal communication through this lens of storytelling.
Verbal & Nonverbal Communication
When you read a book, you are only getting one kind of communication – words on a page. This is solely verbal communication. There is nothing supporting or complimenting it. Listening to an audiobook is, of course, very similar in a lot of ways because you are receiving the exact same words as you would be if you were reading. It’s the same verbal communication, but audiobooks incorporate an additional dimension of communication that comes with the voice of the narrator. With the simple addition of someone’s voice, we’ve entered the world of nonverbal communication. Now you don’t just get words, but you also get the pitch, speed, variety, and expression of a human voice. And that makes a big difference. Humans cannot keep themselves from infusing meaning and interpretation into words when we say them, so the difference between you reading silent words on a page and hearing them read by a narrator is significant.
And the differences have only just begun. Going from an audiobook to a movie is another huge leap because we’re adding another kind of nonverbal communication in the form of visuals. Now we’re not just hearing the expression and variety of someone’s voice, but we’re also seeing their facial expressions and gestures too. Now there’s a score of music underneath the emotional moments of the story. There are special effects to show us the danger of a situation, communicating heightened tension and stakes. There are montages to speed things up and flashbacks to slow things down. Or, going to a live stage production instead of a film, now there’s a live orchestra to emphasize the emotional scenes, there is the electricity of being twenty feet from the actors as they tell this story in real time. You’re receiving the communication in a special kind of community as you react alongside a whole theatre of other people.
Long story short, there are so many forms that communication can take, and most of them are nonverbal. I don’t know about you, but that fact often catches me off guard. Almost every story requires words, but even the best lines in our favorite movies are great (at least partly) because of the delivery, because of the music behind it, because of the moving expression on the actor’s face. Think of your favorite line from a favorite movie or tv show. Would it pack the same punch if you were just reading the words written on a page? At the same time, would the actor have been able to accomplish what they did without those words? The very best lines combine the power of verbal and nonverbal communication. We all know the pain of hearing a bad delivery of a great line or seeing a great actor try their best to infuse greatness into weak dialogue. It’s a shame for one or the other, and it makes it all the better when a great writer and a great actor work together to tell a story and communicate incredible things to us.
How to Communicate Effectively
This has been a very long illustration of the significance of verbal and nonverbal communication and the way that they relate to each other. Sometimes we will communicate only verbally, like when we send an email. Sometimes we will communicate only nonverbally, like when we listen to a friend with an empathetic expression. But we need to be mindful of every dimension of our communication if we hope to be effective in it.
In case you’re still not convinced that there are a bunch of different ways to communicate nonverbally, here are some more examples. With our voices, we communicate with pitch, volume, tone, and speed. With our faces, we communicate with our eyes, eyebrows, and mouths. With our bodies, we communicate with our posture/stance, hands/gestures, and motion/stillness. With our appearance, we communicate with how we do our hair/makeup and how we dress. We communicate with our laughter, our silence, and our punctuality or tardiness.
So what can we do with this information? Personally, I think we would all do well to take a moment from time to time to consider what we are communicating to those around us – both with our verbal and nonverbal communication. What does your behavior say to your family? What does your tone say to your subordinates? What does your appearance say to your clients? I know I sound like a broken record in this series, but the fact remains that we cannot communicate effectively until we communicate intentionally.
