Kinesics Communication: Understanding Non-Verbal Cues

Running head: PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION PRACTICE
Professional Communication Practice
Structured Reflection
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1PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION PRACTICE
1. Kinesics
Kinesics communication can be defined as the communicating through body movement
and it is one of the popular and well-known non-verbal forms of communication. As stated by
Burgoon et al. (2015), kinesics is interpretation of the body motion communication like gestures,
facial expression and movement of any part of the body. The author further stated that kinesics
has the equivalent popular term ‘body language’. Kinesics is the visual communication and it has
the expressions like eye behaviour, facial expression, posture and gesture and personal
appearance. In the year 1952, Ray Birdwhistell started to study on the area of gesture, posture,
movement and stance. His ideas were then resulted and synthesised in the paper Kinesics and
context. The way individuals’ body is held to communicate in many various messages is body
posture and the open body takes up space to indicate the domination and comfort whereas, the
closed-body can make small signal inferiority (Eunson 2005). Whenever, one person copies of
other person’s body as it shows the trust, agreement and liking. Kinesics is the study of body
motion as related to the non-verbal aspects of interpersonal communication. In addition, as stated
by Dwyer and Boyd (2003), gesture is the process of communicating through movement of the
arms and body. There are mainly five types of body gestures and emblems mean the direct
replacement of the words. Illustrators mean shaping the words what is being said whereas, affect
displays states about the shows of emotion. Regulators show the controlling of the flow of
conversation and adaptors mean self-oriented tension receivers.
Kinesics behaviour is a significant part of the non-verbal communication as body
movement can express the information as interpretation can vary by the culture (Archee et al.
2013). Body movement can carry out subconscious or low awareness level; however, kinesics
movement has a risk of being misinterpreted in the inter-culture communication circumstances.

2PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION PRACTICE
When the individuals communicate with others; the persons tend to look at the face. According
to Alves et al. (2014), the way the persons tilt the head can change the message and the eyes seek
to make an eye-contact. The individuals can re-establish the eye-contact and forehead or eye-
brows can add significant signals of anger and surprise.
2. Personal reflection
Kinesics includes the postures, gestures and expressions of the hand and understanding
the non-verbal communication helps to use it effectively to navigate many of the challenges in
life. Kinesics communication can help me to get success in job interviews as proper kinesics
communication is effective in giving all right verbal answers. I think that poor kinesics can
hinder during the interview in getting the success. Therefore, kinesics topic gives me interest as
kinesics helps me to understand the concept of disorganised, irresponsible and not-interested in
position. For me, the most meaningful aspect of the kinesics communication as it will help me to
understand the positive message and it will further help me to make the eye contact with the
interviewer. Kinesics interests me as it assists me to gain the information in non-verbal
communication through using the audio-visual, vidual and silent means.
Kinesics communication provides cues for understanding the verbal message by giving
meaning to this. Verbal communication further gets heightens if we add kinesics with it. The
people can pat someone if they are offended at the back as the indication of sorry. For me, the
most relevant element of kinesics communication is helpful when the sender of the message
cannot use the verbal communication. Kinesics communication is the substitute for the verbal
message. According to me, kinesics communication can help to share the information if verbal
communication is blocked because of interruption, noise and long-distance.