Unit 3: Non verbal communication through body language and posture

The features of body language

Body language is made up of a whole range of features many of which we combine together without ever thinking about what it is we are doing or what we are expressing.

Eye contact can have a very significant influence when you are interacting with them.

• It can play a key role in helping to establish rapport and failing to make eye contact in many cultures is associated with being dishonest or having something to hide.
• Eye contact also plays an important role in turn taking during conversation. Among a group of people, a speaker will often make eye contact with the person he or she wants a response from. Someone who wants to enter or interject in a conversation will catch the eye of the person speaking to indicate that they want to interrupt, and equally someone who no longer wants to listen will avoid eye contact.
• People who know each other well can communicate mutual understanding with a single look.
• Eye contact is also a way of communicating attraction.