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2. Literature Review
2.1Body Language
In Wikipedia, body language is defined as various forms of nonverbal communication, wherein a person may reveal clues as to some unspoken intention or feeling through their physical behavior. These behaviors can include body posture, gestures, facial expressions, and eye movements. Language specialists found that only 7% of the emotional meaning of a message is communicated through explicit verbal channels. About 38% is communicated by paralanguage, which is basically the use of voice. About 55% comes through nonverbal language. (Hu Sui’e, 2005:40)
As one of the most important means of non-verbal communication, body language plays an important role in our daily life, especially in cross-cultural communication where verbal language may be the biggest obstacles.
2.1.1 Features of Body Language
2.1.1.1Unconscious and Real
Being different from other non-verbal language which may be a well prepared and intentional act of communication, body language is typically a subconscious behavior and therefore reflects the true mental activity of human being. Some of the body language is body’s unconscious reaction to the exterior stimulation, which is believed to be more reliable than verbal language. For example, when you have to sit together with someone you dislike, unconsciously you will keep a great distance from him or her. A girl once told her psychologist that she loves her boyfriend, her head, however, was unconsciously shaking slightly. Actually, the time when she met the psychologist, she had already denied her lover to be her boyfriend. Just as Freud said, “no one can hide secret. If his lips don’t talk, he will ‘speak’ with his fingertips”
Because it is unconscious, body language can fully reveal the reality of a person’s mind. When using verbal language, no matter how short time is, the speaker can still have time to think about what to say and how to say it. Therefore, what you are speaking may not be quite the same as what you are thinking. Body language, mostly an intuitive reaction to the exterior stimulation, can fully reveal what is going on in your mind. For example, when faced with a cobra, though someone says that he is not afraid of it at all, you find his hands are shaking out of panic. A thief’s shifty-eyes may well betray him no matter how he insisted that he is innocent. Therefore, from the unconscious body language, we can easily tell the real metal condition of a person.