Caps 3 Nebraska Students

Nebraska Student Union

CAPS 3

The concept that learning unit 3 is based upon is nonverbal communication.  Nonverbal communication is the communication between the sender and the receiver but excludes the actual message being sent.   As said in the text, “Nonverbal elements of cultural communication are highly dynamic and play an important role in understanding intercultural communication” (273 Martin, Nakayama).  This means by understanding the elements of nonverbal communication we can use this knowledge and apply it to understanding nonverbal communication between cultures.

Everyday I spend an hour or so between classes studying in the student union.  Now that we have dove into this chapter I have started to notice how little students communicate between one another and rather use nonverbal communication to communicate.  The most common nonverbal cue that I noticed was the casual head nod that two men do while passing by one another in the hallways.  They also make eye contact and sometimes use verbal communication with the head nod but it is usually short.  Girls on the other hand are much more complicated.  I noticed some girls glaring at other girls with arms crossed with a closed body language posture while others smile and wave at one another.

After observing student interactions over the past week I have come to realize that most of the verbal and nonverbal communication are between those who know one another.  When two individuals who do not know each other are in a situation where they could communicate they choose not to and are standoffish.  This makes me think that maybe our student culture is shy and reserved and this can be seen by all student cultures at Nebraska.  Personally I feel that I fall under this category and only communicate either verbally or nonverbally with people I know and typically never share communication with random students.

The video attached shows one of the core nonverbal forms of communication which is eye contact or in this case the man starting in the video takes making eye contact to the extreme and stairs at random people for long periods of time.  Some don’t say anything but through their nonverbal cues you can tell that they are uncomfortable.  Take a look! 

References

Martin, J.N., & Nakayama, T.K. (2013). Intercultural communication in contexts (6th ed.) New York, NY: McGraw Hill

LAHWF – Staring at People (2013) http://youtu.be/GLBCsWQbwJ0