Body Language (Unmasked: A Revealing Look at the Fascinating World of Body Language) by Craig James Baxter

Author:Craig James Baxter
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: www.all-about-body-language.com
Published: 2012-10-03T00:00:00+00:00

Dr. Morris again makes an excellent point in ‘The Human Animal’ where he states that “In reality there are two distinct kinds of gesture: those which we are hardly aware of and we all share, and those which we use deliberately in place of speech and which have a special, local history. The former act like animal signals, the latter like foreign words.” (1994: 31)

You might think this is an insignificant example, however Dr. Morris again shows us why it’s important to learn the non-verbal customs of other countries in his book ‘Peoplewatching’ ‘An example that demonstrates this concerns two northern European swimmers who were holidaying in the Mediterranean region. Strong swimmers, they had struck out beyond the usual tourist beach and found themselves approaching a restricted military zone. The coastal station was protected by armed guards who, seeing the swimmers approaching, thought that they might be spies and beckoned to them to come ashore for questioning. The gesture they used was the Mediterranean Beckon, performed with the hand sweeping downwards with the palm down. To the swimmers, who were used to the palm-up beckon, the gesture employed by the guards appeared to be a ‘go away’ signal. Realizing that they were in a no-go zone, they responded accordingly, turned in the water, and started to swim quickly away. The guards, seeing them retreat, assumed that they must indeed be spies and that they were now trying to escape, so they took aim, shot, and killed both swimmers. In such a case, greater knowledge of regional differences in Guide Signs would have saved the swimmers’ lives. There is nothing trivial about body language.’ (2002:96)

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