Types of Non-Verbal Communications:

 Kinesics refers to body movements and posture and includes the following components:
 Gestures are arm and hand movements and include adaptors like clicking a pen or scratching your face,
emblems like a thumbs-up to say “OK,” and illustrators like bouncing your hand along with the rhythm of
your speaking.
 Head movements and posture include the orientation of movements of our head and the orientation and
positioning of our body and the various meanings they send. Head movements such as nodding can
indicate agreement, disagreement, and interest, among other things. Posture can indicate assertiveness,
defensiveness, interest, readiness, or intimidation, among other things.
 Eye contact is studied under the category of oculesics and specifically refers to eye contact with another
person’s face, head, and eyes and the patterns of looking away and back at the other person during
interaction. Eye contact provides turn-taking signals, signals when we are engaged in cognitive activity,
and helps establish rapport and connection, among other things.
 Facial expressions refer to the use of the forehead, brow, and facial muscles around the nose and mouth
to convey meaning. Facial expressions can convey happiness, sadness, fear, anger, and other emotions.

 Haptics refers to touch behaviors that convey meaning during interactions. Touch operates at many levels,
including functional-professional, social-polite, friendship-warmth, and love-intimacy.

 Vocalics refers to the vocalized but not verbal aspects of nonverbal communication, including our speaking
rate, pitch, volume, tone of voice, and vocal quality. These qualities, also known as paralanguage, reinforce the
meaning of verbal communication, allow us to emphasize particular parts of a message, or can contradict verbal
messages.

 Proxemics refers to the use of space and distance within communication. US Americans, in general, have four
zones that constitute our personal space: the public zone (12 or more feet from our body), social zone (4–12
feet from our body), the personal zone (1.5–4 feet from our body), and the intimate zone (from body contact to
1.5 feet away). Proxemics also studies territoriality, or how people take up and defend personal space.
Public Space (12 Feet or More)
Public and social zones refer to the space four or more feet away from our body, and the communication
that typically occurs in these zones is formal and not intimate. Public space starts about twelve feet from a
person and extends out from there. This is the least personal of the four zones and would typically be used
when a person is engaging in a formal speech and is removed from the audience to allow the audience to see or
when a high-profile or powerful person like a celebrity or executive maintains such a distance as a sign of power
or for safety and security reasons. In terms of regular interaction, we are often not obligated or expected to
acknowledge or interact with people who enter our public zone. It would be difficult to have a deep
conversation with someone at this level because you have to speak louder and don’t have the physical
closeness that is often needed to promote emotional closeness and/or establish rapport.

Social Space (4–12 Feet)

Communication that occurs in the social zone, which is four to twelve feet away from our body, is typically in
the context of a professional or casual interaction, but not intimate or public. This distance is preferred in many
professional settings because it reduces the suspicion of any impropriety. The expression “keep someone at an
arm’s length” means that someone is kept out of the personal space and kept in the social/professional space.
If two people held up their arms and stood so just the tips of their fingers were touching, they would be around
four feet away from each other, which is perceived as a safe distance because the possibility for intentional or
unintentional touching doesn’t exist. It is also possible to have people in the outer portion of our social zone but
not feel obligated to interact with them, but when people come much closer than six feet to us then we often
feel obligated to at least acknowledge their presence. In many typically sized classrooms, much of your
audience for a speech will actually be in your social zone rather than your public zone, which is actually
beneficial because it helps you establish a better connection with them. Students in large lecture classes should
consider sitting within the social zone of the professor, since students who sit within this zone are more likely to
be remembered by the professor, be acknowledged in class, and retain more information because they are
close enough to take in important nonverbal and visual cues. Students who talk to me after class typically stand
about four to five feet away when they speak to me, which keeps them in the outer part of the social zone,
typical for professional interactions. When students have more personal information to discuss, they will come
closer, which brings them into the inner part of the social zone.

Personal Space (1.5–4 Feet)

Personal and intimate zones refer to the space that starts at our physical body and extends four feet. These
zones are reserved for friends, close acquaintances, and significant others. Much of our communication occurs
in the personal zone, which is what we typically think of as our “personal space bubble” and extends from 1.5
feet to 4 feet away from our body. Even though we are getting closer to the physical body of another person,
we may use verbal communication at this point to signal that our presence in this zone is friendly and not
intimate. Even people who know each other could be uncomfortable spending too much time in this zone
unnecessarily. This zone is broken up into two subzones, which helps us negotiate close interactions with
people we may not be close to interpersonally (McKay, Davis, & Fanning, 1995). The outer-personal zone
extends from 2.5 feet to 4 feet and is useful for conversations that need to be private but that occur between
people who are not interpersonally close. This zone allows for relatively intimate communication but doesn’t
convey the intimacy that a closer distance would, which can be beneficial in professional settings. The inner-
personal zone extends from 1.5 feet to 2.5 feet and is a space reserved for communication with people we are
interpersonally close to or trying to get to know. In this subzone, we can easily touch the other person as we
talk to them, briefly placing a hand on his or her arm or engaging in other light social touching that facilitates
conversation, self-disclosure, and feelings of closeness.

Intimate Space
As we breach the invisible line that is 1.5 feet from our body, we enter the intimate zone, which is reserved
for only the closest friends, family, and romantic/intimate partners. It is impossible to completely ignore people
when they are in this space, even if we are trying to pretend that we’re ignoring them. A breach of this space
can be comforting in some contexts and annoying or frightening in others. We need regular human contact that
isn’t just verbal but also physical. We have already discussed the importance of touch in nonverbal
communication, and in order for that much-needed touch to occur, people have to enter our intimate space.
Being close to someone and feeling their physical presence can be very comforting when words fail. There are
also social norms regarding the amount of this type of closeness that can be displayed in public, as some people
 get uncomfortable even seeing others interacting in the intimate zone. While some people are comfortable
engaging in or watching others engage in PDAs (public displays of affection) others are not.

So what happens when our space is violated? Although these zones are well established in research for
personal space preferences of US Americans, individuals vary in terms of their reactions to people entering
certain zones, and determining what constitutes a “violation” of space is subjective and contextual. For
example, another person’s presence in our social or public zones doesn’t typically arouse suspicion or negative
physical or communicative reactions, but it could in some situations or with certain people. However, many
situations lead to our personal and intimate space being breached by others against our will, and these
breaches are more likely to be upsetting, even when they are expected. We’ve all had to get into a crowded
elevator or wait in a long line. In such situations, we may rely on some verbal communication to reduce
immediacy and indicate that we are not interested in closeness and are aware that a breach has occurred.
People make comments about the crowd, saying, “We’re really packed in here like sardines,” or use humor to
indicate that they are pleasant and well adjusted and uncomfortable with the breach like any “normal” person
would be. Interestingly, as we will learn in our discussion of territoriality, we do not often use verbal
communication to defend our personal space during regular interactions. Instead, we rely on more nonverbal
communication like moving, crossing our arms, or avoiding eye contact to deal with breaches of space.

Territoriality
Territoriality is an innate drive to take up and defend spaces. This drive is shared by many creatures and
entities, ranging from packs of animals to individual humans to nations. Whether it’s a gang territory, a
neighborhood claimed by a particular salesperson, your preferred place to sit in a restaurant, your usual desk in
the classroom, or the seat you’ve marked to save while getting concessions at a sporting event, we claim
certain spaces as our own. There are three main divisions for territory: primary, secondary, and public (Hargie,
2011). Sometimes our claim to a space is official. These spaces are known as our primary territories because
they are marked or understood to be exclusively ours and under our control. A person’s house, yard, room,
desk, side of the bed, or shelf in the medicine cabinet could be considered primary territories.

Secondary territories don’t belong to us and aren’t exclusively under our control, but they are associated with
us, which may lead us to assume that the space will be open and available to us when we need it without us
taking any further steps to reserve it. This happens in classrooms regularly. Students often sit in the same desk
or at least same general area as they did on the first day of class. There may be some small adjustments during
the first couple of weeks, but by a month into the semester, I don’t notice students moving much voluntarily.
When someone else takes a student’s regular desk, she or he is typically annoyed. I do classroom observations
for the graduate teaching assistants I supervise, which means I come into the classroom toward the middle of
the semester and take a seat in the back to evaluate the class session. Although I don’t intend to take
someone’s seat, on more than one occasion, I’ve been met by the confused or even glaring eyes of a student
whose routine is suddenly interrupted when they see me sitting in “their seat.”

Public territories are open to all people. People are allowed to mark public territory and use it for a limited
period of time, but space is often up for grabs, which makes public space difficult to manage for some people
and can lead to conflict. To avoid this type of situation, people use a variety of objects that are typically
recognized by others as nonverbal cues that mark a place as temporarily reserved—for example, jackets, bags,
papers, or a drink. There is some ambiguity in the use of markers, though. A half-empty cup of coffee may be
seen as trash and thrown away, which would be an annoying surprise to a person who left it to mark his or her
table while visiting the restroom. One scholar’s informal observations revealed that a full drink sitting on a table
could reserve a space in a university cafeteria for more than an hour, but a cup only half full usually only
worked as a marker of territory for less than ten minutes. People have to decide how much value they want
their marker to have. Obviously, leaving a laptop on a table indicates that the table is occupied, but it could also
lead to the laptop getting stolen. A pencil, on the other hand, could just be moved out of the way and the space
usurped.

 Chronemics refers the study of how time affects communication and includes how different time cycles affect
our communication, including the differences between people who are past or future oriented and cultural
perspectives on time as fixed and measured (monochronic) or fluid and adaptable (polychronic).
 Time can be classified into several different categories, including biological, personal, physical, and cultural time
(Andersen, 1999). Biological time refers to the rhythms of living things. Humans follow a circadian rhythm,
meaning that we are on a daily cycle that influences when we eat, sleep, and wake. When our natural rhythms
are disturbed, by all-nighters, jet lag, or other scheduling abnormalities, our physical and mental health and our
communication competence and personal relationships can suffer. Keep biological time in mind as you
communicate with others. Remember that early morning conversations and speeches may require more
preparation to get yourself awake enough to communicate well and a more patient or energetic delivery to
accommodate others who may still be getting warmed up for their day.

Personal time refers to the ways in which individuals experience time. The way we experience time varies
based on our mood, our interest level, and other factors. Think about how quickly time passes when you are
interested in and therefore engaged in something. I have taught fifty-minute classes that seemed to drag on
forever and three-hour classes that zipped by. Individuals also vary based on whether or not they are future or
past oriented. People with past-time orientations may want to reminisce about the past, reunite with old
friends, and put considerable time into preserving memories and keepsakes in scrapbooks and photo albums.
People with future-time orientations may spend the same amount of time making career and personal plans,
writing out to-do lists, or researching future vacations, potential retirement spots, or what book they’re going
to read next.

Physical time refers to the fixed cycles of days, years, and seasons. Physical time, especially seasons, can affect
our mood and psychological states. Some people experience seasonal affective disorder that leads them to
experience emotional distress and anxiety during the changes of seasons, primarily from warm and bright to
dark and cold (summer to fall and winter).

Cultural time refers to how a large group of people view time. Polychronic people do not view time as a linear
progression that needs to be divided into small units and scheduled in advance. Polychronic people keep more
flexible schedules and may engage in several activities at once. Monochronic people tend to schedule their time
more rigidly and do one thing at a time. A polychronic or monochronic orientation to time influences our social
realities and how we interact with others.

Additionally, the way we use time depends in some ways on our status. For example, doctors can make their
patients wait for extended periods of time, and executives and celebrities may run consistently behind
schedule, making others wait for them. Promptness and the amount of time that is socially acceptable for
lateness and waiting varies among individuals and contexts. Chronemics also covers the amount of time we
spend talking. We’ve already learned that conversational turns and turn-taking patterns are influenced by social
norms and help our conversations progress. We all know how annoying it can be when a person dominates a
conversation or when we can’t get a person to contribute anything.

 Personal presentation and environment refers to how the objects we adorn ourselves and our surroundings
with, referred to as artifacts, provide nonverbal cues that others make meaning from and how our physical
environment—for example, the layout of a room and seating positions and arrangements—influences
communication.