Question: How do we use body language to interact with other people?

Jack Joyce answered on 21 Nov 2019: last edited 21 Nov 2019 9:50 am

‘Body language’ or in Conversation Analytic wording: embodied conduct. Isn’t very crucial for interaction (how would we ever talk on the phone?)… but it is something which we use in our interactions — for instance, our body position to show that we’re listening to the other person, or how we can use the “open palm” gesture to signal disbelief, or how we can explain things (like give directions) by pointing! 👉
⠀

However! (and it’s a big however), saying things like “crossing your arms shows that you’re introverted and unwilling to talk” is completely false — unless in the interaction itself the people treat crossing arms as having that meaning! ‘Body language’ has no inherent meaning — they have cultural meanings that people make up, right? so if I put my hand up 🤚 it could mean ‘stop’, but that’s a meaning we’ve created for putting a hand up.
⠀

There’s also the question of how much ‘body language’ can be seen by other people — people very subtly move their throats just before speaking (you can see it on a zoomed in, slowed down camera!) that could signal some ‘readiness’ to talk — but it’s very difficult to see without a camera, so does this count as body language? Also, what about sign-language, is that body language too?!
⠀

My point is: body language is important in how we communicate, but it’s no more important than the sounds we can make with our mouths. We can see that it is important because we have hand and body emojis, right? so we can use these when we’re texting to mean something… they’re all just symbols which people decide on what those symbols (i.e. sounds, emojis, gestures) mean!
⠀

Language is built out of the these symbols, so body language is simply a ‘resource’ for people to use to help the person we’re speaking to understand what we’re saying — but we can never know if they *fully* understand us, because we can’t read minds! 🧠