One of our topics tonight in class will be nonverbal communication, which is just as important as the words we speak and how we say them. There is an interesting story behind how I came to discover this article from Ritts and Stein, which I may be able to share with you in class. While this is mostly aimed at an audience of teachers, I think that the overall nonverbal behaviors would be of use to any public speaking situation.
- Eye contact
- Facial expressions
- Gestures
- Posture and body orientation
- Proximity
I left paralinguistics and humor off the list, as they are largely verbal attributes in my opinion. So, really, our six ways to communicate are down to five (even though there were seven in the original list). I don’t know if they used “new math” to count them or what, but maybe that was some of that humor they were trying to impart.
I look forward to meeting everyone (finally) for our class tonight.
