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　　Unit 4   Actions Speader than Words
　　TEACHER: OK, class, OK . . . let's begin. What do we mean when we say that actions speader than words?
　　STUDENT 1: Uh . . . that means we believe people's actions more than we believe their words.
　　TEACHER: Yes, exactly right—and, uh, in a sense, actions are more important than words. That's because we usually judge speakers' intentions by the nonverbal signals they send us. And that's what our subject today's all about, nonverbal communication—how we communicate through our actions— facial expressions, eye contact, tone of voice, uh, body movement, and so on. And if any of you doubt the importance of these things, you might like to consider a couple of statistics I've got here in front of me. Some communication specialists estimate we spend about 75 percent of our wars communicating. And, more to the point, words account for only, mm, 10 to 30 percent of that communication—the bulk's nonverbal. That's food for thought, uh? Now although people clearly understand its importance, nonverbal communication—I'll call it N.V.C. for short—is actually a rather recent field of study and owes a lot to an American anthropologist named Raymond Birdwhistle— spelled B-I-R-D-W-H-I-S-T-L-E. Easy name to remember, right? Birdwhistle began studying nonverbal communication in the 1950s and, um ... one of his main ideas was that the meaning of nonverbal behavior depended on the context in which it was used.... Uh, it depends on the context. So, he looked at the whole context of nonverbal behavior— how and, uh, where certain types of nonverbal behavior appeared—and not just one particular behavior in isolation. Facial expressions, for example—frowns, smiles, raised eyebrows, and, uh, so on—we all use these to convey many different meanings. But those meanings are largely determined by the situations we're in and the relationships that we have with the people we're communicating with. So, the same expression can have different meanings, right? Take a smile, for example, what does it mean?... Uh, Mike?
　　STUDENT 2: Uh .. . uh, agreement, I guess. "I li."
　　TEACHER: OK. Yes, it could mean "I li," but it could also mean "I'm trying to ma feel comfortable," or maybe, uh, "I thin said something funny. " Hmm? The point is, the situation or the relationship between the people involved gives a particular meaning to the smile. All right. Now although today I want to focus on physical nonverbal communication—uh, often called body language or kinesics, that's K-I-N-E-S-I-C-S—you should know that there are other types of nonverbal communication. G. W. Porter, for example, divides nonverbal communication into four categories, which I'd like to loost briefly. There's the Physical N.V.C. I just mentioned. That includes facial expressions, tone of voice, sense of touch and smell, and body movement. Secondly, there's Aesthetic N.V.C.—that's A-E-S-T-H-E-T-I-C, meaning related to beauty. And Aesthetic N.V.C. takes place through creative expressions, like playing instrumental music, dancing or painting, sculpting. And we certainly know that we can communicate with