Crosscultural Communication and Nonverbal Channels

Crosscultural Communication and Nonverbal Channels

This paper points out the pressing need to address nonverbal channels such as gestures and silence in second language education, especially where it concerns two distant languages such as Korean and English. After examining nonverbal channels as well as speech acts as sources of cross-cultural misunderstanding, it underlines the importance of transfer in understanding the mechanism of cross-cultural misunderstanding. In doing so, it stresses the need to incorporate communicatively meaningful nonverbal behaviors in the notion of communicative competence. Apparently communicative acts are realized verbally and/or non- verbally and nonverbal communication is strongly culture-based. The paper concludes that textbook writers and second language teachers will have to pay more attention to the cross-linguistic similarities and differences in the occurrence and functions of nonverbal communication than ever.