Non-verbal communication – Mr. Bean
Non-verbal communication
Ever watched a Charlie Chaplin film before? Or perhaps Mr. Bean would be more relevant to those of our age; Perhaps the finest example of non-verbal communication for communication students – no dialog, only facial expressions, eye behavior, gestures, the use of settings, props and the environment.
Part innate, part learned, part cultural influence, part personal experiences. We have all learnt to the interpretation of gestures, the deciphering of eye behavior and reading of facial expressions. We all communicate using a wide array of gestures, varied facial expressions to convey and communicate our message in the most effective manner. Just imagine for a second attempting to express your affections for a person you’re interested in without any of the above mentioned. Or worse, an episode of Mr. Bean with out any of the above. Your loved one would leave you. And we certainly would not be laughing at Mr. Bean anymore.
A simple smile conveys joy, a smirk conveys mischief, a frown suggests anger or frustration, tears convey sadness. These are our norms, examples of the non-verbal communication that we are accustomed to. Sometimes, we utilize our store of knowledge about non-verbal communication to mask or neutralize another emotion.
Take a look at this clip of Mr. Bean from Youtube.com. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsgJC6brhgc : Mr. Bean on the train.
If you take a close look at 0:27, Mr. Bean used his facial expression and eyes to express his discomfort at the speed of the trains’ movement. Then at 1:15, frowns, eye behavior, expressing his displeasure towards the other character. Subsequently, at 1:23, he puts his fingers in his ears to show the need to block out the noise. All perfect examples of non-verbal communication, all of which we take for granted.
We all use non-verbal communication in our day-to-day lives, sometimes for persuasion, other times, merely to better express ourselves. I find myself using my facial expressions to convey things I think better left unverbalized or cannot be verbalized very often. Nonverbal communication skills is indispensable when there is a need for persuasion, and personally, I do not relish the idea of persuading my father to pay for a particular something without being able to use facial expressions, hand gestures, and eye behavior. The result would be dismal. Other wise, I find myself using non-verbal communication skills every so often just to coax a laugh or a smile out of my classmates and friends.
The Ugly Truth
The Ugly Truth
Synopses Abby Richter (Katherine Heigl) is a romantically challenged morning show producer whose search for Mr. Perfect has left her hopelessly single. She’s in for a rude awakening when her bosses team her with Mike Chadway (Gerard Butler), a hardcore shock jock who promises to spill the ugly truth on what makes men and women tick.
Launch date: 17 September 2009 (Singapore)
I’m sure some of you must have already caught this movie. I did. Along with a troupe of friends. And while most would notice its cliché story line, I noticed a few other things. This story is essentially about a control freak women attempting to find her perfect man, and a cynical man plagued by past experiences.
Looking pass the story line, you will notice that in this movie, how one man’s perception is translated into a mass communicated message through the media, a talk show. He perceived his surroundings: the general population, men in particular, to be animals, to be treated and dealt with as such, fueled and motivated only by lust. He perceived his experiences to be solid proof that women are deceptive and manipulative creatures. All that was in turn translated into a cynic with the privilege of a talk show, broadcasting his own perception to the public at large.
Although the movie did not show the public’s response per se, the talk show’s rating were proof enough that it influenced a large amount of people. We can only imagine how the audience took his message and what they did in turn to their own lives.
Perception is the process by which we make sense of the world around us. And for Mike Chadway, his perception was shaped by his negative experiences, and that cynical, twisted way he perceives things helps him make sense of his bad experiences.
Our perception is influenced by psychological factors, through our thought processes, character, and experiences. Our experiences triggers a thought process that will eventually be aided or can only be curbed by our character. If one man allows his bad relationship experiences to alter his perception to such a degree, without a strong character, can that individual still remain an objective, responsible communicator?
If any of us becomes part of the media industry, we will be partaking as an influence in our changing society. Will we remain conscious of our role and be mindful of the ideas and opinions we disseminate?
Our perception is often incomplete or flawed. And while we may as individuals feel we are right, we must also remain vigilant to the fact that our perception when communicated to other, may have negative impacts on other’s lives.
Been giving advice flippantly recently??
Week 2: Save Our Vowels
Article: Save Our Vowels
All over the planet, they are disappearing. Scientists are worried. It may be a sign of THE END OF THE WORLD. No, I’m not talking about absent vowels. I got a message the other day that said, “Mt @ 3 rd st crnr @ 12”, signed “QT.” What did it mean? A young text-savvy person in the office told me that QT meant “cutie,” and translated: “An attractive young woman wants to meet you at the corner of Third Street at noon.”
I turned up at the designated spot and found a large insurance salesman called Quentin who used his body odour as a lethal weapon. I narrowly avoided purchasing ten year coverage against being kicked to death by emus. Curiously, there were no policies available against assault by insurance agent.
The following week I was at a private dining club when a Hong Kong banker named David told me he had encountered a man who pronounced his name Choong, but spelt in C-H-N-G. “There can’t be many names with no vowels in them,” he said/ it turned out he was sitting next to a Singaporean doctor named Ng.
That got me thinking. Names without vowels are springing up everywhere. One of the tip executives at DBS Group, one of Asia’s biggest banks, is another Chng. And the real name of Top Singaporean Singer Stephanie Sun is Sng. This columnist gets regular story tips from an Indian girl called Shyrnne. I’ve also heard from a s South Asian reader named Mythry.
Vowels are disappearing at high speed among businesses, too. Ever wondered what happened to Reebok, the sportswear firm? It’s still around but has renamed itself Rbk, which to me looks like it should be pronounced rrrrrbuk. Kentucky Fried Chicken became KFC. I have an aged uncle who doesn’t utter it as three initials, but pronounces it as time before he is arrested for uttering obscenities in public. I hope the KFC staff will have the decency to visit him in prison.
The loss-of-vowels ailment spread to phone maker Motorola, which launched a phone called the Razor, spelt RAZR. This was followed by the ROKR, the SLVR and the PEBL. The really weird thing is that the company itself is gratuitously oversupplied with vowels. Shouldn’t Motorola become MTRLA for the sake of consistency? Could someone suggest that to the company’s boss Greg Brown, or is he now Grg Brwn?
I’ve read articles saying that the no-vowels trend is caused by companies trying to give their products the flavor of the trendy shorthand spelling favoured by young people. But a bit of research reveals that the real reason is often more mundane. Flickr, one of the busiest websites on the internet, was set up by people who wanted the name Flicker, but were to slow to register that word and too uncreative to find any alternatives.
Incidentally, any reader been to that tiny town in the dusty mountains of California called Zzyzx? A quack named Curtis Howe Springer founded it as a health spa and called Zzyzx because he thought it sounded different. The business failed. People who looked through listings or directories for somewhere to go, never reached it.
Older readers may recall the computer game Zzyzzyxx, launched in 1982. It got rave reviews from critics but flopped in the stored. Fans did not know how to ask for it. They must have been going into shops and saying: “Do you have a game called zz, ziz, zy, er, um, ah, never mind, just gimme Pac Man.”
James Gleick’s book Faster has been issued in paperback, now re-titled FSTR. But the publishers’ revision is half-hearted, with the main text of the book STILL containing vowels. Why not go the whole hog? U cn stll rd ths wtht vwls. On the other hand, just be aware that vowel-free words can be interpreted in various ways. One day I’ll get a message from a QT who actually is a Cutie. But I won’t take the risk. Quentin is out there.
Reader’s Digest – September 2009 issue – Pages 36 and 37
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This article brings to our attention a very real issue that we currently face, of which I am sure many can easily relate to; the misuse of short-forms, and jargons.
In the course of the pass week, we learned Bacon’s four idols, and one that we can see this article highlighting would be the idols of the market place – vocabularies and jargons, and faulty, vague or misleading names.
In the first paragraph we see an example of a text message. This is a perfect example of how a sender can miscommunicate a message by blatantly ignoring the fact that the recipient might not understand the same lingo or short-forms used. Now, do not tell me you have never been on the receiving end of such a message. We have all, in the course of our lives been a victim of such a message at least once, and know how awfully wrong it can be interpreted. And for some of us, we are also guilty of sending them. How often have we sent back a reply requesting for clarification? And how often have we argued with our friends over a mis-construed message?
This problem is a wide-spread and rampant one. Always there, never fixed. We have so many acronyms, short-forms, jargons that are unique to us, or our generation, or to a certain group of people, and we are so used to utilizing them in our day-to-day, non-face-to-face communications that we often forget that some of the receivers do not or cannot understand our message. And in the case of the horrid example in the article, even a text-savvy person, one whom we would assume can understand such lingo, misinterpreted it.
In the case of having faulty, vague or misleading names; KFC, RBK, RAZR as cited in the article, companies wishing to appeal to the young with trendy-sounding names have over done with the the short-forms don’t you think? An admirable attempt at marketing, but as we can see in the example cited in the article, it can easily back fire irregardless of the quality of the product in question. Especially the ridiculous names given to a multitude of phones from Motorola. I find them impossible to remember, and sometimes difficult to decipher. Needless to say, I have never been a big fan of Motorola.
This article is brilliant in its campaign against the abuse of short-forms and vague names and their vanishing vowels, but I disagree in terms of the joke made out of Asian names. If all of our surnames were to contain vowels, half of our names will not sound like they ought to. Boy am I glad my surnames is Lee.
If we were all sent the text message: “Cls cncld. Dnt trn up fr cls tmmrw.” Half the class will be waiting outside the lecture theater wondering where our professor has gone. That would be most undesirable do you not think? Let us Communication students vow never to commit such a crime again. I for one do not look forward to going to school when I have no classes.
Hope you enjoyed the article as much as I did.
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