This is http://www.essayz.com/a9502251.htm Previous-Essay <== This-Essay ==> Following-Essay Click HERE on this line to find essays via Your-Key-Words. {Most frequent wordstarts of each essay will be put here.} ========================================================== %FORMAL VERBAL ORAL WRITTEN LANGUAGE MESSAGE VIEW+950225 %EYE CONTACT BODY POSTURE MOTION ATTITUDE ASSUME+950225 %COHERENT INTEGRITY GIVE SEND RECEIVE RESPONSE 950225 Much is communicated by means of formal language through oral and/or written words; but there are also other means of communication which do not entail words. Much is communicated by means of body language: body posture and bodily motions, eye contact and eye motions, touch and stroking---and through responses thereto. What is communicated? Information, facts, relation- ships, attitudes, assumptions, desires fears, emotions, etc. Body and eye languages reveal whether we are secure, defensive, offensive, willing to be vulnerable, wanting to be intimate/vulnerable, manipulative, wanting to be manipulative, abusive, wanting to be abusive, etc. How hands are held tells much: open towards others, fisted, perhaps holding something and ready to strike, open and extended in greeting, behind the back secretively, crossed in tight defiance, etc. The posture of standing tells much: laid back at ease, ready to run, ready to attack, crouched ready to pounce, etc. Personal distance tells much in sitting, standing or walking: distant and wary, formal with public reserve, personal with friendly spacing, intimate in closeness, etc. Eye contact and motion tells much: fearful, reluctant, evasive, timid, discrete, friendly, flirting, probing, suggestive, intense, penetrating, etc. The meaning and significance which may be read into body and eye language of course depends upon the context and who is watching or may be watching. All language is contextual in its meaning and what it leads to. Meaningful communication in dialogue entails sending, receiving and responding to messages which as a whole entail personal and communal integrity. If the messages within any one mode of communication are incoherent---the communications/dialogues are not as meaningful as if they are coherent; have integrity. So also if the messages across various modes of communication are incoherent or coherent. If body, eye and verbal messages and responses are incoherent---we lack personal and communal integrity. We need then to consider and talk about why our body, eye and verbal messages and responses are incoherent; and how we can cooperate the move towards enjoying coherent body, eye and verbal messages. (c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in (On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy) ==========================================================