Silenisbeerhansound-CuluralDifferencesofKinesicsbeweenChinaandEnglish_开题报告

Non-verbal behavior is called a silent language. It is the carrier of culture and is restricted by culture, just like voiced language, and any culture has its own unique non-verbal system.

The term kinesics was first coined by Professor Birdwhistle in his monograph "Introduction to Kinesics", which refers to gestures and movements that people intentionally or unintentionally use in practice. Body language generally includes Gesture, Eye Contact and Gaze, and Facial Expression. Body language is very different in different cultural backgrounds, showing a variety of national characteristics and times.

Body language is an important way that people communicate with each other. The scope of body language is very wide and hard to limit. Meanwhile, because the cultural tradition and the manners and customs are different in different countries and regions, the body language is not the same.Sometimes, the identical body language has different meaning in other countries; even express the opposite meaning totally. Many scholars have pointed out the importance of body language in intercultural communication. The experimental result of Birdwhistell indicates that the information from body language, in communication, approximately composes 65%.The psychology findings also discovered that only 11% information is obtained through the sense of hearing, 83% obtain through the vision.[Jia Yuxin. Intercultural Communication. [M] Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press, 1997. (94)] This gives enough reasons to explain the importance and to make us learn it better and further. According to statistics, a person's face can express more than 250,000 expression or action, and hands can make 1,000 different gestures, which can convey people's opinion, fantasy, expectations, frustration, loneliness, joy, and love thoroughly.[Journal of Sichuan International Studies University May , 2001 Vol. 17 No. 3] One tiny facial expression can reveal a person's inner world; a subtle gesture may reflect a person's deeply emotions.  Obviously, in human communication, body language provides the convenience which the verbal language cannot offer and play the influential role which verbal language cannot substitute.Postures communicate just as language does. Valdes once said “the popularity of one posture over another and the emotion conveyed by a given posture seem to be largely determined by culture.”[ Valdes.J.M. ed. Culture Bound: Bridging the Cultural Cap in Language Teaching. Cambridge UP.1986.66] Postures offer insight into a culture’s deep structure and often reflect a person’s attitude toward people he is with.

The research history of body language can be dated from pre-qin period and ancient Greece. In 19th century, Darwin began to research nonverbal language formally and published the work: Expression of human and animal. The scholar started studying body language at home in the 1980s based on the translation of foreign works. As far, there are more than 20 works on nonverbal communication and more than 200 essays related body language. The scholars are more focusing on the study of body language’s definition, nature, function; and the differences of body language in intercultural communication; and the application of the theory of body language.  In a word, the study of body language will became mature with the economy development and more frequent communication among countries. In order to reduce the barriers in intercultural communication, we need to the difference of body language in the other country. Thus my study may hopefully make some contribution in this direction.

Outline 

1.Introduction

2. Brief Introduction of Body Language

2.1 Definition of Body Language

2.2 classification of body language

2.3 present conditions of body language research

3. Importance of Body language 

3.1 Function of body language

3.2 The necessity and importance of learning body language

4. Comparison body language in different types

4.1 Head movement

4.1.1 The whole head

4.1.2 Facial expression

4.1.3 Eye contact

4.2 Gesture

4.3 Leg and arm

4.3.1 Leg movement

4.3.2 Arm movement

4.4 Touch and distance

4.4.1 Touch

4.4.2 Distance

4.5 postures

5. Conclusion

6. References

           References

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