SYMBOLS IN A WORLD WITHOUT SOUND

With this in mind, Dr Norman Kagan of Michigan State

University conducted a study among deaf people. They

were shown films of men and women in various situations

and asked to guess at the emotional state of these people

and describe what body-language clues they used to

convey this state. Because of technical difficulties they

were unable to use lip reading.

' It became apparent to us,' Dr Kagan said,' that many

parts of the body, perhaps every part to some extent,

reflect a person's feeling-state.'

As an example, talking while moving the hands or

playing with a finger ring and moving restlessly were all

interpreted by the deaf as nervousness, embarrassment and

anxiety. When the eyes and face suddenly 'came down',

when the person seemed to ' swallow back' his expression,

or when his feature ' collapsed' it was interpreted as guilt.

Excessively jerky movements were labelled frustration,

and a shrinking body movement, as if hiding oneself,

spelled out depression. Forcefulness was seen as the snapping

forwards of the head and whole body including the

arms and shoulders, and boredom was inferred when the

head was tilted or rested at an angle and the fingers

doodled. Reflectiveness was linked to intensity of gaze, a
wrinkled forehead and a downcast look. Not wanting

to see or to be seen was signalled by taking off eyeglasses

or looking away.

These interpretations were given by deaf people, and

sound played no part in transmitting clues, yet the interpretations

were accurate. The gestures were interpreted

within the total context of a scene, but the scene was

played without any words. Body language alone, it

seems, can serve as a means of communication if we have

the ability to understand it, if we are extremely sensitive

to all the different movements and signals. But this

requires the supersensitivity of a deaf person. His sense of

vision has become so heightened, his search for supernumerary

clues so intense, that the total context of a

scene can be transmitted to a deaf person through body

language alone.

The real value of body language, however, still remains

in a blending of all levels of communication of the

spoken language, and whatever else is transmitted on the

vocal wavelength, with the visual language including

body language and self-imagery, with communication

along any other bands. One of these other bands is the

tactile, which sometimes overlaps the visual but is really

a more primitive and basic form of communication.

According to the late Dr Lawrence K. Frank of

Harvard, a child's knowledge of his world starts with the

touch of his mother, with caressing and kissing, the oral

touch of her nipple, the warmth and security of her arms.

His education proceeds with a 'don't touch' indoctrination

to fit him into the 'property rights' aspect of his

culture, to teach him a sense of possession and belonging.

As a child and as an adolescent his touching of his own

body, his adventures with masturbation - the ultimate

self-touch - his exploration in young manhood of the touching of love,
 the mutual body exploration with his

love partner, are all aspects of tactile communication.

But these are obvious aspects. We also communicate

with ourselves tactually by scratching, patting or pressing

against objects. We say, 'I am aware of myself. I am

giving myself pleasure and satisfaction.' We communicate

with others by hand-holding, handshaking and all

kinds of touching, saying, ' Be reassured. Be comforted.

You are not alone. I love you.'

Just where body language leaves off and tactile communication

takes over is difficult to pinpoint. The barriers

are too hazy and uncertain.

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

As the facts about body language are studied and

analysed and it is gradually elevated to a science, it

becomes available as a tool in the study of other sciences.

There was a recent report, from the Fifty-fifth Annual

Convention of the Speech Association of America, by

Professor Stanley E. Jones in which he applied bodylanguage

principles to challenge Dr Hall's statement that

a basic difference between cultures lies in the way they

handle space. Latin Americans, he said, stand closer when

they talk than Chinese or Negroes, and Arabs stand even

closer than Latins do.

Professor Jones, after working for two years in

Harlem, Chinatown, Little Italy and Spanish Harlem, all

ethnic areas of Manhattan in New York City, produced evidence
 that this pattern changes. He believes that

conditions of poverty have forced these people to change

some of their cultural behaviour. According to him, there

is a culture of poverty that is stronger than any ethnic

subcultural background.

Professor Jones, discussing his paper in a Press interview,

said, 'When I began studying the behaviour

patterns for subcultures living in New York's so-called

melting pot, I expected to find that they would maintain

their differences. Instead I was tremendously surprised to

discover that poverty conditioned them to behave with

remarkable similarity.'

In overcrowded areas with poor housing, Professor

Jones found that virtually everybody, regardless of their

ethnic background, stood about one foot apart.

Here is a sociological use of the growing science of

body language in an attempt to discover how poverty

affects culture. What Professor Jones' findings seem to

indicate is that the culture of the American poor overrides

ethnic and national distinctions. America has become a

melting pot, but it is the quality of poverty that melts

down the barriers to produce a common body language.

It would be interesting to take this work further and

see what other areas besides space are influenced by

poverty, or to carry it in the other direction and see

if wealth also breaks down the ethnic rules of body

language. Are the forces of economics stronger than

those of culture?

There are any number of possible studies open to the

future student of body language, and the beauty of it all

is that a minimal amount of equipment is necessary. While

I know of a number of sophisticated studies that have

been done with videotape and sixteen-millimetre film and

dozens of student volunteers, I also know of a perfectly bedroom
 overlooked a street telephone box in New York City.

He used an eight-millimetre motion-picture camera to

film as much footage of people using the box as his allowance

would permit, and he then used the family projector

to slow up motion while he noted and identified each movement.

I know another, older student who is working towards

his doctorate by studying the way people avoid each

other on a crowded street and on a not-so-crowded street.

' When there is enough space,' he explained, 'they wait

till they're about ten feet apart and then each gives the

other a signal so they can move around each other in

opposite directions.' He hasn't yet discovered the exact

signal or how it is used to convey which direction each

will take.

Sometimes, of course, the signals are confused and the

two people come face to face and both move to the right

and then to the left in unison and keep up this silly dance

till they stop, smile apologetically and then move on.

Freud called it a sexual encounter. My friend calls it

kinesic stuttering.

Body language as a science is in its infancy, but this

book has explored some of the ground rules. Now that

you know them, take a close look at yourself and your

friends and family. Why do you move the way you do?

What does it signify? Are you dominant or subservient in

your kinesic relationship to others? How do you manage

space? Are you its master or do you let it control you?

How do you manage space in a business situation? Do

you knock on your boss' door and then walk in? Do you

come up to his desk and dominate him, or do you stop at a
 respectful distance and let him dominate you? Do you

allow him to dominate you as a means of placating him or

as a means of handling him?

How do you leave an elevator when you are with business

associates? Do you insist on being the last one off

because of the innate superiority such a gracious gesture

gives you? Or do you walk off first, allowing the others

to please you, taking their courtesy as if it were your due?

Or do you jockey for position? 'You first.' 'No, you.'

Which of all of these is the most balanced behaviour?

Which does the perfectly secure man indulge in? Think

about each one. Your guess is as good as a trained psychologist's.

This is still a beginning science.

Where do you position yourself in a lecture hall? At

the back where there is a certain amount of anonymity,

even though you may miss some fine points of the lecture,

or up front where you can hear and see comfortably but

where you are also conspicuous?

How do you function at an informal gathering? Do

you tie up your nervous hands with a drink? Do you

lean against a mantelpiece for security? It can serve as an

immobilizing force for half your body and you needn't

be concerned about what to say in body language - or

only half concerned. Except that the very way you lean is

betraying you!

Where do you sit? In a chair in the corner? In a group

of your friends, or near a stranger? Which is safe and

which is more interesting? Which spells security and

which spells maturity?

Start observing at the next party you go to: who are the

people who dominate the gathering? Why? How much is

due to body language and what gestures do they use to do it? "

Notice how people sit in subway carriages: how do they space themselves when the car is uncrowded? How do they cross their legs, feet and arms?

Hold the glance of a stranger a fraction longer than is

necessary and see what happens. You may be in for a rude

experience, and on the other hand, you may have a few

good experiences. You may find yourself speaking to

perfect strangers and liking it.

You know the groundwork and some of the rules.

You've been playing the game of body language unconsciously

all of your lifetime. Now start playing it

consciously. Break a few rules and see what happens. It

will be surprising and sometimes a bit frightening,

adventurous, revealing and funny, but I promise you it

won't be dull.

PLUCK THIS LITTLE FLOWER AND TAKE IT

Pluck this little flower and take it, delay not! I fear lest it droop

and drop into the dust.

I may not find a place in thy garland, but honour it with a touch

of pain from thy hand and pluck it. I fear lest the day end before I am

aware, and the time of offering go by.

Though its colour be not deep and its smell be faint, use this

flower in thy service and pluck it while there is time.

OTHER CULTURES,OTHER LOOKS

The recognition of the eye as a means of communication,

or of a look as having special significance is nothing new.

Looking is something that has always had strong emotions

attached to it and has been forbidden, under certain

circumstances, in prehistory and legend. Lot's wife was

turned to a pillar of salt for looking back, and Orpheus

lost Eurydice by looking at her. Adam, when he tasted

the fruit of knowledge, was afraid to look at God.

The significance of looking is universal, but usually

we are not sure of just how we look or how we are looked

at. Honesty demands, in our culture, that we look someone

straight in the eye. Other cultures have other rules,

as a principal in a New York City high school recently

discovered. A young girl at the high school, a fifteen-year-old

Puerto Rican, had been caught in the washroom with a

group of girls suspected of smoking. Most of the group

were known troublemakers, and while this young girl,

Livia, had no record, the principal after a brief interview

was convinced of her guilt and decided to suspend her

with the others.

' It wasn't what she said,' he reported later.' It was simply

her attitude. There was something sly and suspicious

about her. She just wouldn't meet my eye. She wouldn't

look at me.'

It was true. Livia at her interview with the principal

stared down at the floor in what was a clear-cut guilty

attitude and refused to meet his eyes.

' But she's a good girl,' Livia's mother insisted. Not to

the school, for she was too much of a 'troublemaker' the

principal felt, to come to the authorities with her protest.

Instead, she turned to her neighbours and friends. As a

result there was a demonstration of Puerto Rican parents

at the school the next morning and the ugly stirrings of a

threatened riot.

Fortunately, John Flores taught Spanish literature at

the school, and John lived only a few doors from Livia

and her family. Summoning his own courage, John asked

for an interview with the principal.

'I know Livia and her parents,' he told the principal.

'And she's a good girl. I am sure there has been some mistake

in this whole matter.'

'If there was a mistake,' the principal said uneasily, 'I'll

be glad to rectify it. There are thirty mothers outside

yelling for my blood. But I questioned the child myself,

and if ever I saw guilt written on a face - she wouldn't

even meet my eyes!'

John drew a sigh of relief, and then very carefully, for he was
 too new in the school to want to tread on toes, he

explained some basic facts of Puerto Rican culture to the

principal.

' In Puerto Rico a nice girl, a good girl,' he explained,

' does not meet the eyes of an adult. Refusing to do so is a

sign of respect and obedience. It would be as difficult for

Livia to look you in the eye as it would be for her to

misbehave, or for her mother to come to you with a complaint.

In our culture, this is just not accepted behaviour

for a respectable family.'

Fortunately the principal was a man who knew how to

admit that he was wrong. He called Livia and her parents

and the most vocal neighbours in and once again discussed

the problem. In the light of John Flores' explanation

it became obvious to him that Livia was not avoiding

his eyes out of defiance, but out of a basic demureness.

Her slyness, he now saw, was shyness. In fact, as the

conference progressed and the parents relaxed, he realized

that Livia was indeed a gentle and sweet girl.

The outcome of the entire incident was a deeper, more

meaningful relationship between the school and the community

- but that, of course, is another story. What is of

particular interest in this story is the strange confusion of

the principal. How did he so obviously misinterpret all

the signals of Livia's behaviour?

Livia was using body language to say, 'I am a good

girl. I respect you and the school. I respect you too much

to answer your questions, too much to meet your eyes

with shameless boldness, too much to defend myself.

But surely my very attitude tells you all this.'

How could such a clear-cut message be interpreted as,

' I defy you. I will not answer your questions. I will not

look you in the eyes because I am a deceitful child. I will

evade your questions slyly—' The answer of course is a cultural one.
Different cultures have different customs and, of course, different

body language. They also have different looks and different

meanings to the same looks.

In America, for instance, a man is not supposed to

look at a woman for any length of time unless she gives

him her permission with a body-language signal, a smile,

a backward glance, a direct meeting of his eye. In other

countries different rules apply.

In America, if a woman looks at a man for too long a

period of time, she commits herself to a verbal approach.

Her signal says, ' I am interested. You can approach me.'

In Latin countries, though freer body movements are

permissible, such a look might be a direct invitation to a

physical 'pass'. It becomes obvious then why a girl like

Livia would not look the principal in the eye.

Again, in America, two men are not allowed to stare

at each other for more than a brief period of time unless

they intend to fight or to become intimate. Any man who

looks at another man for too long embarrasses and annoys

him and the other man begins to wonder just what he

wants.

This is another example of the rigidity of the rule of

looking. If someone stares at us and we meet his eye and

catch him staring, it is his duty to look away first. If he

does not look away as we engage his eye, then we become

uncomfortable and aware that something is wrong.

Again we become embarrassed and annoyed.

ON THE DAY WHEN THE LOTUS BLOOMED

On the day when the lotus bloomed, alas, my mind was straying,

and I knew it not. My basket was empty and the flower remained

unheeded.

Only now and again a sadness fell upon me, and I started up from

my dream and felt a sweet trace of a strange fragrance in the south

wind.

That vague sweetness made my heart ache with longing and it

seemed to me that is was the eager breath of the summer seeking

for its completion.

I knew not then that it was so near, that it was mine, and that

this perfect sweetness had blossomed in the depth of my own heart

OBSTINATE ARE TRAMMELS

Obstinate are the trammels, but my heart aches when I try to

break them.

Freedom is all I want, but to hope for it I feel ashamed.

I am certain that priceless wealth is in thee, and that thou art my

best friend, but I have not the heart to sweep away the tinsel that

fills my room

The shroud that covers me is a shroud of dust and death; I hate

it, yet hug it in love.

My debts are large, my failures great, my shame secret and

heavy; yet when I come to ask for my good, I quake in fear lest my

prayer be granted.