To communicate means to share thoughts, feelings, ideas and experiences. Thus, the communication is the process through which we can understand and transmit the meanings of our own values and beliefs. As a process it involves an exchange of messages between at least two people. The human communication deals with the meaning of verbal information, presented in an oral or written form, and also with the nonverbal information represented by paralanguage, body movements and use of space.



The nonverbal communication is that type of communication that does not use spoken language, and neither any substitute of it ( verbal codes for deaf, Morse code, etc). This type of communication is divided by professional authors, in :



1. The tactile communication (touch)

2. The gesture – kinesthetic communication (by significant movement of the body parts, excepting those parts of the body that mean the verbal communication).

3. The communication with the help of the objects (color, order, size, distribution, movement, etc).

4. The artistically communication (the communication of the artistic emotion, beyond its own content).

The nonverbal communication has the following characteristics:

-         has a great credibility, beating the verbal communication.

-         It can expand into more areas of development / repertoires. So, those who are speaking they are accompanying the verbal communication with gestures but also those who read or look out the window they actually communicate, nonverbal.

-         It is almost totally uncontrolled and unstructured.

-         It is innate, a part of it was formed by acquisitions mostly evolutionary (example: through the imitation of gestures seen to the others).

The nonverbal messages may be in conflict with those of the verbal communication. The people tend to look at the right side of the face which is a wrong way if it is wanted an intense perceiving of emotions; most of the nonverbal messages are unconscious; the nonverbal channels are very important in the communicating of feeling and attitudes. ‘

The functions of nonverbal communication:

-         the nonverbal communication it is meant to highlight the verbal one;

-         the nonverbal communication can fill the message transmitted verbally.

-         the nonverbal communication may deliberately to contradict certain aspects of the verbal communication;

-         the nonverbal communication may regulate the flow of the communication and it can moderate the own dynamics of the verbalize communication;

-         the nonverbal communication repeats or updates the meaning of the verbal communication and is giving the receiver the possibility to understand and identify in real time the motion or affirmations.

-         The elements of the nonverbal communication can replace verbal aspects of the communication (e.g. through a gesture the teacher is indicating to the student to answer the question).



In practice, we are distinguishing different types of the nonverbal communication. The body movements are integrated in the area of the nonverbal communication, the range of five categories: emblems (symbols), illustrators, regularized, feelings exposure, adapters.