Comes from the Latin verb communicare, “to impart,” “to share,” “to make common.” We communicate by agreeing, consciously or unconsciously, to call an object, a movement, or an abstract concept by a common name. For example, speakers of English have agreed to call the color of grass green, even though we have no way to comparing precisely how two persons actually experience the color. Any system of language consists of publicly accepted symbols by which individuals try to share and pass on our complex configuration of attitudes, beliefs, and patterns of behavior.

The spoken words does not communicate all that we know about a social situation. We can usually tell when someone say, “It was good to meet you,” whether he or she really means it. We can tell if people are sad from their demeanor, even if they just say, “I’m fine.”

Our Communication is not limited to spoken language. We communicate directly through Facial expression Body stance Gesture Tone of voice

We communicate indirectly through system of signs and symbols, such as Writing Algebraic equations Musical scores Dancing Painting Code flags Road signs.

“Every act, every pause, every movement in living and social system is also a message; silence is communication; short of death it is impossible for an organism or person not to communicate.” ~ Anthony Wilden

How can silence be a communication? Silence may reflect companionship, as when two people work side by side on a project. Silence also communicate unfriendliness.

Some nonverbal communication appears to be universal in humans. For example, humans everywhere appear to understand facial expression in the same way; that is they are able to recognize happy, sad, surprised, angry, disgusted, or afraid face. How the face is represented in art appears to evoke similar feelings in many different cultures. Nonverbal communication is also culturally variable. The distance between people when they communicate. In the realm of facial expression, different cultures have different rules about the emotions that are acceptable to express. One study compared how Japanese and Americans express emotions. Individuals from both groups were videotaped while they were shown films intended to evoke feelings of fear and disgust. When the subjects saw the films by themselves, without other people present, they showed the same kind of facial expressions of fear and disgust. But there was a cultural effect too. When authority figure was present during the videotaping, the Japanese subjects tried to mask their negative feelings with a half-smile more often than did the Americans.

Kinesics is the study of communication by nonverbal or nonvocal means, including posture, mannerisms, body movement, facial expressions, and signs and gestures. Informally we may refer to nonverbal communication as “body language.” Some aspects of body language such as facial expression may be human universal. Specific signs and gestures are often culturally variable and the cause of cultural misunderstandings.

Nonverbal communication can even involve the voice. Consider how we might know that a person is not fine even though she just said “I’m fine.” We can tell a lot by tone of voice. A depressed person might speak very quietly and use a flat tone of voice. Even a person’s accent can tell a lot about the person’s background, such as place of origin and education. There are also nonverbal (nonword) sounds that people make – grunt, laughs, giggles, moans, and sighs. Paralanguage refers to all the optional vocal features or silences that communicate meaning apart from the language itself. While body language and some forms of paralanguage enable humans to communicate without spoken language, language spoken by humans probably never occurs without kinetic communication and paralanguage.