A Little Book of
Body Language As the name suggests, this book is a brief but informative write up on body language. The
first chapter serves as an introduction to what
body language is. The next section deals with facial and hand gestures including palm, hand-to-face as well as hand and arm gestures. Common facial gestures like flaring of nostrils, pulling back of lips etc are interpreted in a combination of settings with other gestures. Palm gestures comprise open palm, pointing finger downwards, handshakes, and rubbing palms together. The segment on hand and arm gestures talks about thumb indications, clenching hands, steepling hands (to form an arch), gripping one’s own hand, arm, wrist and the like. The hand to face gestures’ section examines how different ways of hand movements towards the face is indicative of various behavioral patterns. The mouth guard or cupping of the mouth with the hand can signify an attempt at lying. Similarly, touching the eyes, nose, ear or neck in different ways can convey different meanings. A separate part is dedicated to limb barriers, which is how folding one’s arms or legs can act as a barrier against any hostile environment. Crossing of legs accompanied by crossing of arms can denote something totally different from what crossing of arms or crossing of legs denote separately. The chapter dealing with eye signals explores various types of gazes, including the business gaze, the social gaze and the intimate gaze. Characteristics that determine what kind of gaze it is are enlisted. Sideways glances and eye block gestures are also delved into. Other common gestures like the way in which a person straddles a chair or nods his head or places hands behind the head are discussed. Gestures pertaining to aggressiveness, like sexual aggressiveness or the undercurrents of aggressiveness between men have been touched upon by the author. Various attitude revealing mannerisms and sets of gestures are enlisted to help the reader understand a person’s frame of mind. It includes gestures that indicate boredom, positive or negative attitude, etc. Courtship gestures have male courtship and female courtship gestures analyzed separately. It involves understanding very common gestures like a woman’s running her hand through her hair. Territorial and ownership behavioral patterns are based on the way people lean against or touch objects or people around them. Putting one’s feet on the desk is an ownership gesture. Pointers are essentially how people face each other- with feet pointing outwards or the angle at which people may be standing or seated. The angle is the basis on which one can judge the closeness of the people concerned. The last chapter deals with the five spatial zones- close intimate zone, intimate zone, personal zone, social zone and the public zone. The classification of these zones is distance based. For instance the intimate zone is from 6 inches to 1 foot and 6 inches. People who are close to the person are allowed to comfortably enter this zone. Similarly, the social zone, (4 feet to 12 feet) is the zone designated for acquaintances and colleagues at work. Zonal demarcations vary from culture to culture. Despite the variations, the basic body language and its interpretation is roughly the same all over the world. The author concludes with an observation about how developed verbal
communication has reduced our use of non-verbal gestures in day to day life. However, the importance of body language should not be undermined as that is part of basic human nature.