Body Language

A detailed Summary of Body Language

Lisa F. Bohannon's "Is Your Body Language on Your Side?" portrays a classic example of how our nonverbal communication effects the impressions of people upon us. In the article, Jonathan Myers believes that he is well prepared for an important job interview, because he has practiced his answers to vital questions and his appearance is neat. However, once in the actual interview, he leaves a bad impression and does not get the job, because his body language depicts him as sloppy, uninterested, and insincere. This incident proves the importance of appropriate eye contact, vocal expression, posture, and facial expression not only in job interviews, but also in every other occurrence of formal or informal communication that we experience throughout our lives, especially in first impressions.

Leathers defines eye contact as two people that are looking at each other but not specifically any one part of the body or face. What most people consider "eye contact" is what Leathers calls "eye-gaze." This is mutual eye contact where two people are directing their gazes at each other's eyes. In Bohannon's article, Jonathan leaves a bad impression on his interviewer in part by practicing "gaze omission," unintentional failure to make eye cont

communicated his uneasiness to the public with rapid eye shifts.

Eye contact, vocal expression, posture, and facial expression are just a few elements of body language that directly effect how others perceive us. Bohannon offers suggestions to remember for improving body language in job interviews, and ultimately in all social interactions: focus on the person, make your voice heard, make posture count more, and again, be sure that your facial expressions mirror your words. While at first this may seem to be too much to remember, Bohannon says that practice and relying on the confidence that being prepared provides will, in the end, prove that your body language is indeed on your side.

d easily interpret as lack of motivation. Later in the interview, when asked the questions for which he had prepared, Jonathan's voice becomes monotonic, or flat, as he tries to repeat his answers just as he had to his mother in practice (Bohannon). This probably gave the interviewer the impression that Jonathan was uninterested. Therefore, the interviewer was not obligated to show any more interest in Jonathan either.

A second element of nonverbal communication is vocal expression. While at first this may seem contradictory, in fact it is not, because we are not focusing on the content of what is being said, but instead on how it is said in terms of loudness, pitch, rate, duration, quality, regularity, articulation, pronunciation, and silence. All of these elements of vocal expression can convey the wrong impression if used inappropriately. And unfortunately, we are not always aware of them. Jonathan made vital mistakes in his vocal expression during his interview. In Chapter Eight, Leathers claims that loudness is the most basic attribute to vocal expression, because if a voice cannot be heard, none of its other attributes can be used to convey meaning (159). When Jonathan enters the office, he mumbles his greeting, name, and objective (Bohannon). Not only would this seem avoidant to the interviewer, but it also proves Jonathan's lack of confidence, which one hiring someone for a job coul!

act, and "gaze aversion," a movement of the eyes away from interacti

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Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Miscellaneous