@prefix vivo: . @prefix edm: . @prefix ns0: . @prefix dcterms: . @prefix skos: . vivo:departmentOrSchool "Education, Faculty of"@en, "Language and Literacy Education (LLED), Department of"@en ; edm:dataProvider "DSpace"@en ; ns0:degreeCampus "UBCV"@en ; dcterms:creator "Helmer, Sylvia"@en ; dcterms:issued "2010-07-15T02:26:04Z"@en, "1985"@en ; vivo:relatedDegree "Master of Arts - MA"@en ; ns0:degreeGrantor "University of British Columbia"@en ; dcterms:description """Studies indicate that children acquire both verbal and nonverbal acuity at a very early age. Since it is also agreed that the nonverbal forms of communication children learn are culture-specific the acquisition of nonverbal gestures by second language learners is of considerable interest. A study by Kumin and Lazar(l974) indicates that first language speakers as young as three have considerable ability in encoding and decoding the group of gestures known as emblems. The present study extends their findings by comparing the decoding of gestures by native English speakers (age 3-5) with non-native speakers. Thirty-six emblems and illustrators, two forms of commonly used gestures, were decoded by forty children, twenty native speakers and twenty ESL speakers. The gestures chosen .were screened by a panel of ten practicing ESL teachers who considered them to be typical of classroom interaction. The videotape of the gestures was validated by 62 native speakers before being administered to the children. Analysis of variance results indicate there is a main effect for age as well as a very strong effect for ethnicity (native speakers vs ESL). A Spearman's rho rank correlation on the sequence of acquisition of the gestures raises the interesting possibility that there may be a developmental pattern such as is found in the verbal domain."""@en ; edm:aggregatedCHO "https://circle.library.ubc.ca/rest/handle/2429/26487?expand=metadata"@en ; skos:note "c ESL PRESCHOOLERS' INTERPRETATION OF NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION by Sy lv i a Carmen L ie se lo t t e \"Helmer B . E d . , The Univers i ty of B r i t i s h Columbia, 1981 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT- OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES (Department of Language Education) We accept th i s thesis as conforming to the required standard THE UNVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA December,1985. (c)Sylvia Carmen Lieselotte Helmer, 1985 In presenting this thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the University of British Columbia, I agree that the Library shall make it freely available for reference and study. I further agree that permission for extensive copying of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by the head of my department or by his or her representatives. It is understood that copying or publication of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. Department Of T . a n g n a g o F H n r ^ - i nr, The University of British Columbia 1956 Main Mall Vancouver, Canada V6T 1Y3 Date December 3, 1985. DE-6(3/81) Abstract Studies indicate that ch i ldren acquire both verbal and nonverbal acui ty at a very early age. Since i t i s also agreed that the nonverbal forms of communication ch i ldren learn are cu l tu re - spec i f i c the acqu i s i t i on of nonverbal gestures by second language learners i s of considerable in te res t . A study by Kumin and Lazar(l974) indicates that f i r s t language speakers as young as three have considerable a b i l i t y in encoding and decoding the group of gestures known as emblems. The present study extends the i r f indings by comparing the decoding of gestures by native Engl ish speakers (age 3-5) with non-native speakers. T h i r t y - s i x emblems and i l l u s t r a t o r s , two forms of commonly used gestures, were decoded by forty ch i l d r en , twenty native speakers and twenty ESL speakers. The gestures chosen .were screened by a panel of ten p rac t i c ing ESL teachers who considered them to be t y p i c a l of classroom in t e rac t ion . The videotape of the gestures was va l ida ted by 62 native speakers before being administered to the ch i l d r en . Analysis of variance resu l t s indicate there i s a main effect for age as wel l as a very strong effect for e thn ic i ty (native speakers vs ESL). A Spearman's rho rank co r re l a t ion on the sequence of acqu i s i t i on of the gestures ra ises the in teres t ing p o s s i b i l i t y that there may be a developmental pattern such as i s found in the verbal domain. i l Table of Contents Abstract i i List of Tables v List of Figures vi Acknowledgement v i i CHAPTER ONE A. Background of the Problem 2 B. Assumptions 7 C. Research Questions . 7 D. Scope and Organization of the Study <> 8 E. Limitations of the Study . . . . . 9 F. Definition of Terms , 9 CHAPTER TWO I. Related Research 11 A. Introduction 11 B. Nonverbal Communication 18 C. Education and Nonverbal Communication 23 D. Cross-cultural Studies and Nonverbal Communication 28 E. The Interface - Nonverbal Communication, Education and Cross-cultural Studies 31 II Gestures as a part of Nonverbal Communication 35 CHAPTER THREE A. Design 46 B. Selection of Subjects , 51 C. Data Collection 53 D. Scoring Techniques and Reliability 55 E. Presentation of Data ' 56 CHAPTER FOUR Results 57 CHAPTER FIVE I Comparison with the Kumin & Lazar Study 71 II The Present Study 73 i i i I l l D r a w i n g C o n c l u s i o n s and what t h e y i m p l y 75 A . T h e o r e t i c a l I m p l i c a t i o n s 76 B. P r a c t i c a l I m p l i c a t i o n s 79 C . S u g g e s t i o n s f o r f u r t h e r r e s e a r c h 82 D. C l o s i n g Remarks 85 BIBLIOGRAPHY 88 APPENDIX A - MULT IPLE CHOICE QUESTIONNAIRE FOR EMBLEM/ ILLUSTRATOR TEST 97 i.v L i s t of Tables I Emblems and I l l u s t r a t o r s - Master L i s t 47 II Percent Scores of Adults on Emblem and I l l u s t r a t o r Test 49 III Analys is of Variance for Emblem/Il lustrator Task Performance 60 IV Rank Scores of Groups based on Age and E thn ic i t y 62 V Spearman's rho Rank Corre la t ion of Scores for Selected Groups 63 VI Rank Scores for Emblems common to both Studies 65 VII Percent Scores for Emblems common to both Studies 67 VIII Percent Scores for a l l t h i r t y - s i x Emblems and I l l u s t r a t o r s 68 V L i s t of Figures 1. Graph of Total Scores 59 v i Acknowledgement Many have been of invaluable a id throughout what often seemed an interminable task. I wish espec ia l ly to recognize: Dr. Bernard Mohan, thesis advisor , who gave uns t in t ing ly of both time and valuable suggestions, as wel l as having the unerring talent of the true t e a c h e r / f a c i l i t a t o r to force me constantly to exercise my own i n t e l l e c t u a l muscles rather than al lowing me to re ly on him or anyone for the ult imate answers. Professor Mary Ashworth, whose no nonsense approach, infectuous laugh and a b i l i t y to help me put the world back in i t s proper perspective when i t was desparately needed, combined to guide me through f rus t ra t ions and exul ta t ions a l i k e . Dr. C l a i r e Staab, who took the time not only to read the draft version of the thesis as she was required, but spent much time to set out lengthy comments and suggestions which have resulted in a much improved f i n a l vers ion . These are the professionals involved but in r e a l i t y no one, least of a l l myself, ex i s t s only as \"student\". A spec ia l debt i s owed to the others in my l i f e , my husband, my son, my mother and my f r iends . For unflagging f a i t h and moral support my husband, Lee, and my mother, Roswitha, deserve high commendation. For t ip toe ing about the house on demand and pa t ien t ly wait ing h is turn for my a t ten t ion , my son, Liam, has logged many hours of I . O . U . ' s . And f i n a l l y , to my many neglected friends my thanks that you are s t i l l there. v i i 1 There i s a legendary account of the voyages of Captain Cook which i l l u s t r a t e s c u l t u r a l condi t ion ing . I t i s said that when Captain Cook landed on the F i j i Is lands ' beach and walked to meet an oncoming band of nat ives , he thrust out h i s hand in token of f r iendship . It never occurred to him that an offer to shake hands could be interpreted as a threatening gesture, because his countrymen were a l l conditioned to ' read ' h is gesture as f r i e n d l y . In the s p l i t second of h is ac t ion , however, the nat ives, who were not so condit ioned, interpreted the thrust of hand and arm as an aggressive ac t ion , and promptly k i l l e d the explorer . Legend has i t that before he made h is gesture they were ready to be f r i end ly ; they just d id not know about the conventional gesture we c a l l a handshake. taken from BODY CODE by Lamb and Watson (1979) 2 CHAPTER ONE SCOPE AND FOCUS OF THE STUDY A. Background of the Problem In Canada, chi ldren of non-English-speaking background comprise an ever increasing percentage of the t o t a l school populat ion. The Vancouver School Board, for instance, estimates that close to hal f of i t s student population speaks a language other than Engl i sh as i t s mother tongue. Teachers, however, are s t i l l predominantly from the white ,English-speaking, middle c lass majority and therefore bring to the teaching s i tua t ion a l l that the i r c u l t u r a l heritage and i n s t i t u t i o n a l t r a i n ing has taught them. The question then a r i s e s : \"Are there areas of miscommunication between teacher and student by v i r tue of the i r d i f ferent c u l t u r a l , a s wel l as l i n g u i s t i c , backgrounds?\" A h is tory of extensive research in both f i r s t and second language acqu i s i t i on ensures that teachers can be wel l prepared to meet the l i n g u i s t i c needs of the i r non-English-speaking students. However,researchers and wr i te rs such as Edward T. H a l l (1959,1969,1976,1983) and John Porter (1965), each from his own perspective, point out that acquir ing the l i n g u i s t i c knowledge of the dominant cul ture i s not enough to permit f a c i l e in te rac t ion with members of that group. Schrank (1975) t e l l s us that from 200 to 5000 b i t s of nonverbal information per second are exchanged between two people engaged in an ordinary conversation. This he gauges to be 83% of an i n t e r ac t i on , leaving a mere 17% for the verbal exchange. In our h ighly word oriented society t h i s seems impossible,yet i t i s in North 3 American society that he co l l ec t ed his data. Equal i ty Now ,the report of the Special Committee on V i s i b l e M i n o r i t i e s in Canadian Society, defines th i s component of communication as the hidden curr iculum. The hidden curriculum i s the teaching of s o c i a l and economic norms and expectations to students. These norms and expectations are so much a part of schooling that they are seldom questioned or consciously examined. They range from the assumption that a l l students are fami l ia r with Chr i s t i an heritage to assumptions about the meaning of eye contact, pause length and s o c i a l distance.(p.118) The report goes on to say that many opportunit ies can be los t when th i s hidden curriculum i s the basis of teaching methods used in the classroom where a large percentage of the students do not have these norms and expectations in common with the i r teacher. One aspect of t h i s hidden curriculum i s what i s known c o l l e c t i v e l y as nonverbal communication. I t i s what Schrank concluded was the l i o n ' s share of any i n t e r ac t i on . Extensive research (Bi rdwhis te l l ,1970; H a l l , 1959,1969;Lamb & Watson,1979) indicates that nonverbal communication i s indeed common to a l l , i s used by everyone and appears to be cul ture based. In fact i t i s such an in tegra l part of our development that \"chi ldren acquire a nonverbal system of communication before the verbal system \" (Weeks,1979). Not only that , according to a study by A l l e n & Feldman (1975) ch i ldren are better at decoding nonverbal behaviour than adul t s . With th i s in mind, in a m u l t i c u l t u r a l and/or ESL (English as a Second Language) classroom, i t seems 4 highly relevant to examine the nonverbal element of communication, e spec ia l ly that of the teacher, who i s usual ly of a d i f ferent c u l t u r a l background from many of the students. Do the students, for instance, interpret the gestures commonly used to supplement, enhance or even replace the verbal message, in the way that the teacher has intended, or i s there miscommunication,misunderstanding of intent ion or meaning? Why i s i t important to know i f there i s mis in terpre ta t ion of gestures? \"It i s important because a c h i l d ' s a b i l i t y to learn from a teacher depends on the sharing of systems of nonverbal codi f ica t ion\"(Byers & Byers ,1972,p .27) . This means a way of behaving that i s expected by the teacher, not taught, and since i t i s to a large extent below the l e v e l of conscious awareness, involves much more than p o l i t e formulae of speech. As Scheflen (1974) puts i t : \" I f a person behaves in a customary and recognizable way h is act ion w i l l be communicative. I t w i l l evoke a common cogni t ive image in other people of the same cu l t u r e . \" (p.21) Since native English-speakers acquire language and i t s attendant nonverbal s t ra tegies from b i r t h and by example, they are already very adept by the time they begin formal school ing. The s o c i a l and contextual appropriateness i s taken as t a c i t knowledge in the classroom. For the second language learner,however, the s o c i a l , contextual and nonverbal aspects, while present in any communication, must take a proverbia l backseat to the l i n g u i s t i c because not only does the school system transmit knowledge v i a language, but a l so , society at large functions on a p r imar i ly verbal l e v e l . Consider, for instance, the d i f f i c u l t i e s involved for a second language 0 5 speaker to meet even the primary needs of food and shelter without using language to communicate. Thus while the native speakers are immediately at ease in the classroom s i tua t ion and \"know\" without being e x p l i c i t l y taught what i s appropriate language and behaviour in a given s i t u a t i o n , the non-English-speaker has d i f f i c u l t y concentrating on the subject matter at hand because s/he i s not conversant with the norms and expectations, the process of classroom in t e r ac t i on . Not knowing does not imply ignorance, however. ESL speakers may be pa in fu l ly aware that something i s missing in the i r a b i l i t y to communicate and be at ease in a s i t u a t i o n , but t h i s missing element i s not defined nor taught e x p l i c i t l y and in t h i s way leads to the v e r t i c a l socioeconomic mosaic of which John Porter speaks. Hitherto i t has, in essence, been demanded of minori ty ch i ldren to take the i r cul ture off at the door l i k e a coat and don the garment of the dominant group without any help or guidance concerning what i s or i s not appropriate in th i s new environment (Koogler,1980). Furthermore, when teachers have been urged to become more m u l t i c u l t u r a l l y competent, they are often inappropriately advised to do such things as make eye contact and smile, neither of which behaviours are equally acceptable or s i m i l a r l y interpreted by a l l cul tures (Wolfgang,1977). I t i s these nonverbal behaviours that f i r s t greet the non-English-speaking c h i l d who wishes to learn to communicate in Eng l i sh . An ESL teacher 's mandate i s to f a c i l i t a t e communication in a l l i t s aspects and thus help the second language learner to learn in his /her new language a l l that i s necessary to enjoy f u l l p a r t i c i p a t i o n in English-speaking, Canadian soc ie ty . 6 Therefore, i f the teacher i s cognizant of not only the l i n g u i s t i c aspects of the language, but also the s i m i l a r i t i e s and differences of in te rpre ta t ion of some of our nonverbal communicative acts , i t would further enhance t h i s process. The in tent ion i s not to have t h i s just be another burden for teachers, but rather the learning process should be that much easier with the conscious use of nonverbal means to a id comprehension and expression. This study attempts to elucidate one l i t t l e studied, but much used area of nonverbal communication behaviour. The group of gestures known as emblems, though used by teachers general ly , are p a r t i c u l a r i l y prevalent in the ESL classroom because of the i r highly funct ional value and the i r a b i l i t y to take the place of words, words that may not yet be understood by the learner . An emblem i s a conventionalized gesture (such as a head nod s ign i fy ing ' yes ' ) which can accompany speech or on occasion replace i t . A number of emblems common to North American cul ture are highly appropriate as classroom management t oo l s . For instance, meaningful actions spring to mind in associa t ion with such d i r ec t i ve s as: be quie t , s i t down, stop, come here, get up. Even beyond management d i r e c t i v e s , many other emblems are useful such as the expression of fee l ings : I'm t i r e d , i t ' s hot (cold) , I'm sad. Closely re la ted to emblems i s another group of gestures c a l l e d i l l u s t r a t o r s . This type of gesture seldom replaces but rather accompanies speech and serves to enhance the verbal message in some way such as v i s u a l l y demonstrating how long that 7 big f i s h caught r e a l l y was. Emblems and i l l u s t r a t o r s together form a s izeable part of a teacher 's repertoire of \" f a c i l i t a t i n g \" techniques used in the classroom, espec ia l ly the ESL classroom. Thus, when the teacher lays a finger perpendicular i ly across closed l i p s or crooks and wiggles a finger at a c h i l d to 'come here ' , does the non-English speaker understand what the gesture, in t h i s case an emblem, attempts to convey? The present study i s an attempt to answer th i s question about a number of both emblems and i l l u s t r a t o r s . Kumin and Lazar (1974) in the i r study with very young, Caucasian, middle c lass ch i ldren demonstrated that ch i ldren as young as three years old can decode and encode these types of gestures. The present study seeks to rep l ica te the i r f indings in part , and then extend the study by comparing the performance of Caucasian, middle c lass ch i ldren with that of non-English-speaking c h i l d r e n . B. Assumptions This study i s based on the fol lowing assumptions. 1. Young ch i ld ren are able to decode the nonverbal gestures t y p i c a l l y used in the classroom se t t i ng . 2. Both non-English-speaking chi ldren and native speakers of Engl ish of preschool age (3-5) have had enough exposure to t e l e v i s i o n to be able to watch a videotape of gestures and interpret them as in \"real l i f e \" . C. Research Questions This i s for the most part a f i r s t and exploratory study in 8 a f i e l d with no establ ished research t r a d i t i o n . Therefore an attempt i s made to answer the fol lowing questions. 1. Are there s ign i f i can t differences of in terpre ta t ion of gestures between non-English speakers and native speakers of English? 2. Is there a consistent pattern of acqu i s i t i on of gestures for ei ther group of chi ldren? 3. Which of these gestures are interpreted s i m i l a r l y or d i f f e ren t ly by the two groups of chi ldren? D. Scope and Organization of the Study This study i s confined to preschool ch i ld ren between the ages of three and f i v e , where half the ch i ldren are non-English-speaking, though they may be from more than one c u l t u r a l group, and the other hal f have Engl ish as the i r mother tongue. The chi ldren of the two groups are matched as c lose ly as possible in terms of age,and equivalent numbers of each sex are selected in both groups. The task consis ts of a \"guessing game\" where the chi ldren watch a videotape of 36 gestures performed by a p rac t i c ing teacher of ESL and are asked to t e l l the invest igator (with the help of an interpreter) o r a l l y what they think \"the teacher i s t r y ing to t e l l her c l a s s \" . Each c h i l d ' s t o t a l response i s recorded and l a te r evaluated for semantic equivalence with the agreed upon in te rpre ta t ion of each gesture. This agreed upon in terpre ta t ion i s based on the consensus of in te rpre ta t ion given by 10 p rac t i c ing ESL teachers as wel l as the test resu l t s from having 62 adults in ESL teacher t r a i n i n g watch the videotape and give the i r responses. 9 Adults were used for th i s purpose in order to follow as c lose ly as possible the Kumin and Lazar model. I t was further f e l t appropriate since adults are the models from which chi ldren learn the i r nonverbal behaviour. F i n a l l y , adults who have grown up in th i s cul ture can reasonably be expected to be conversant with i t s nonverbal behaviour. Therefore the i r scores would provide a useful baseline against which both groups of ch i ldren can be measured. o E. L imi ta t ions of the Study The chief l i m i t a t i o n s of t h i s study are: 1. The use of a videotape of performed gestures rather than a l i v e performance may lead to some incorrect in terpre ta t ion due to the incomplete contextual information ava i lab le to the viewer. 2. Completely random se lec t ion of subjects was not possible wi th in both the time framework and the nature of the study i t s e l f . Within the groups selected for study, ch i ldren to some extent chose themselves, once they q u a l i f i e d according to age and sex, by being w i l l i n g to attempt the task. F . D e f i n i t i o n of terms The fol lowing terms are frequently used in th i s study and are defined as fo l lows: Non-English-speaking c h i l d refers to a c h i l d whose mother tongue i s not Engl ish and has as yet only a minimal command of Eng l i sh . 10 Native speaker refers to a c h i l d whose mother tongue i s Eng l i sh . Mother tongue i s the f i r s t language learned and used in the home. Nonverbal communication refers to a l l that i s communicated over and above the use of words, thus including nonverbal acts (see below) as wel l as coverbal (voice modif icat ions , tempo, loudness ,nasa l iza t ion , e tc . ) behaviour. Nonverbal act refers to bodi ly movement used to enhance, underline,accompany or replace speech. Gesture refers to a nonverbal act that may be accompanied by speech. Generally speaking, a gesture involves some or a l l of the fo l lowing : f a c i a l expression; hand and arm movement;total body movement. Emblem refers to a nonverbal act that has been conventionalized to the point where i t has a d i rec t verbal t r ans la t ion common to members of the same cu l tu re . An emblem, therefore, can stand alone ( i . e . without speech) but can also be accompanied by i t s verbal counterpart. I l l u s t r a t o r refers to a nonverbal act that accompanies speech, serving to enhance, c l a r i f y or underline the words spoken. An i l l u s t r a t o r i s ra re ly performed without verbal accompanyment. 11 CHAPTER TWO REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE I Related Research A. Introduction Now that the project has been ou t l ined , i t i s necessary to consider i t in i t s h i s t o r i c a l perspective in terms of related study in th i s f i e l d . In order to set out the h i s to ry of theory and research that bears on the present study, i t i s f i r s t necessary to step back and look at a more global perspective of communication and espec ia l ly i t s nonverbal aspects. From th i s vantage point one can more eas i ly understand how th i s study came into being and i t s r e l a t i v e place in the fast growing body of research concerning the nonverbal component of communication. Communication can be l ikened to a tapestry of i n t r i c a t e design. Most people have some idea of how i t i s put together, but only an expert craftsman can speculate on the elements of i t s design, and even the expert tends to focus on one aspect rather than the whole. Using the verbal to describe the nonverbal has for centuries been the domain of nove l i s t s and playwrights , who seem to have been endowed with heightened powers of observation. If they had been asked whether the nonverbal i s important in communication, the present meteroic r i se of research in t h i s f i e l d would have taken place much sooner. Anyone who has read S i r Arthur Conan Doyle 's s tor ies of Sherlock Holmes, s leuth 12 ex t raord ina i re , or Agatha C h r i s t i e ' s accounts through the eyes of Hercule Po i ro t , fas t id ious and acutely observative Belgian de tec t ive , i s we l l aware how much, i s communicated by actions as wel l as such things as manner of dress, stance and f a c i a l expression. Even the physica l set up of a room can be considered for i t s s ign i f i cance , e spec ia l ly where i t controls interpersonal d is tance. S t i l l e a r l i e r in the world of f i c t i o n , Shakespeare def t ly described the power of the nonverbal element in communication in such passages as the fol lowing from Tro i lus and Cressida (Scene 4.5, Lines 54-57). His acute observer was Ulysses . F i e , f i e upon her! There's language in her eyes, her cheek her l i p . Nay, her foot speaks; her wanton s p i r i t s look out At every jo in t and motive of her body. In a more s c i e n t i f i c mode, Darwin (1872/1965) in h is t r e a t i s e , The Or ig in of the Species pointed out the prevalent use of nonverbal communication to express emotion. I t took nearly a century for h is work to be re-examined (Ekman, 1973) and i t s true value acknowledged. Nonverbal communication as a separate f i e l d of study was f i r s t considered by psychologists and psychoanalysts. In the i r attempts to help the i r pa t ien ts , they became acute observers of behaviour because i t gave them valuable clues concerning the \"hidden\" problems which were, often as not, ve rba l ly , 13 contradicted by the i r pa t ients . Since nonverbal communication i s part of a l l in te rac t ion and occurs l a rge ly below the l e v e l of conscious awareness, careful observation and thoughtful in terpre ta t ion can obviously be of great benefit in the analyst-c l i e n t r e l a t i onsh ip . In fact , we are a l l amateur psychoanalysts. Who has not a r r ived on a scene involving f r iend or family and interpreted a \" fee l ing\" being transmitted as anger, d i s t r e s s , or sadness. No words need be spoken, you walk into the room and you \"know\". Expressions l i k e \" a p ic ture i s worth a thousand words do not only refer to a two-dimensional scene on canvas. However, despite the myriad examples that abound both in l i t e r a t u r e and research i t i s s t i l l far too common, e spec ia l ly in Western soc ie ty , to assume that the words are the message, and nonverbal communication i s only a minor adjunct which may be relevant when the communicants don't speak the same language. Language, after a l l , i s a \"conventionalized code that i s dependable and predictable\" (Dittman,1978, p .70) . In fact , Funk and Wagnalls' d e f i n i t i o n of communication leaves l i t t l e room for the nonverbal: \"transmission or exchange of ideas, information, e tc . as by speech or w r i t i n g \" . Harrison (1983) postulates that at least part of the reason for the emphasis on the verbal part of communication l i e s in the fact that Western th ink ing , fol lowing a t r a d i t i o n that dates back to Pla to and A r i s t o t l e , conceives of communication as a product of the i n t e l l e c t , whose primary function i s to interpret in words the s t a t i c , r a t i ona l r e a l i t y out there beyond the f i n g e r t i p s . In contrast , Eastern teaching has long emphasized the importance of s o c i a l harmony, which Harrison claims i s achieved 14 through r i t u a l i s t i c acts , careful husbandry of time and space and judic ious use of anything else that w i l l further the ultimate goal of unity with s e l f , others and the world at la rge . He a t t r ibu tes the recent growth of in teres t in and respect for the nonverbal component of communication to the corresponding increase in contact and in te rac t ion between these two worldviews. Whatever the h i s t o r i c a l reasons for th i s soc i e ty ' s verbal o r i en ta t ion , a wider perspective on communication i s increas ingly becoming evident. In fact the power of the nonverbal to influence the consumer i s being exploi ted by such persons as adver t isers and salespeople who now use highly sophis t icated media to mold publ ic choice. In adver t i s ing , nonverbal communication may be being used to de l ibe ra te ly t r i c k or sway perception. Advert isers also use nonverbal communication in an attempt to determine our true feel ings no matter what we \"say\". In terms of education, the d e f i n i t i o n of what en t a i l s communication, a key s k i l l to be taught, i s expanding. Montagu (1967) makes i t c lear that the primary purpose of education i s to help ch i ld ren acquire the art of communication s ince, in h is view, ch i ldren l i t e r a l l y learn how to be human through communication. Cer ta in ly t h i s en t a i l s more than learning how to t a l k , read and wr i t e . Like V i c t o r i a (1970), he believes that education i s , in essence, a communication process, not only in the Funk and Wagnalls sense of transmission cf knowledge, but a lso as i t re la tes to interpersonal i n t e r ac t i on . Here again the nonverbal component of communication i s strongly implicated for 15 who can interact s a t i s f a c t o r i l y on a personal l e v e l without making automatic use of the norms and expectations that are part of s o c i a l intercourse. I t i s unfortuate that the study of human communication has been rather r i g i d l y departmentalized. L ingu is t s have t r a d i t i o n a l l y pursued the study of language as i f i t were an abstract system that i s f u l l y s e l f - s u f f i c i e n t and therefore can be analyzed quite apart from the context of and/or purpose for i t s use. While punctuation and grammar help, they do not give any ind ica t ion of the speaker's a t t i tude toward the l i s t e n e r , toward what i s said and why, nor can they take into account how the utterance has affected the l i s t e n e r . Anthropologists and other s o c i a l s c i e n t i s t s , on the other hand, have given much at tent ion to that part of human in te rac t ion that i s communicative but not necessar i ly l i n g u i s t i c . Their perspective l i e s in the understanding of the i nd iv idua l as a member of a group and in his /her attempts to communicate wi th in the constraints set out by th i s membership. The language used in th i s attempt i s regarded as a r e l a t i v e l y minor component in the complex act of communication. Neither perspective seems to admit the p o s s i b i l i t y that communication involves both a language of words and a repertoire of non - l i ngu i s t i c behaviours. Harr i s (1981) in h is book, The Language Myth postulates that what i s needed i s an \" in tegra t iona l l i n g u i s t i c s \" which would consider both the words spoken and the contextual se t t ing of the utterance. This se t t ing would include both the phys ica l environment and the actions of the communicants. 16 Har r i s , a l i n g u i s t himself , never once mentions nonverbal communication in h is book but indicates that the genesis, over t h e ' l a s t twenty years, of various branches of l i n g u i s t i c s (for example, s o c i o l i n g u i s t i c s ) i s symptomatic of the d i s s a t i s f a c t i o n wi th in the f i e l d that the o r i g i n a l perspective on language i s inadequate to the task of encompassing a l l that communication impl ies . Despite these movements toward a more who l i s t i c approach to communication, nonverbal communication i s s t i l l considered as a f i e l d apart and w i l l be discussed as such here. I t has been determined that the nonverbal part of a conversation i s by far the larger part of communication. B i r d w h i s t e l l (1970) est imates ' that only about 30 percent of an in te rac t ion between two speakers of the same cul ture i s verbal., Schrank (1975) suggests i t i s 17 percent and Mehrabian (1972) a l l o t s only 7 percent. While these figures must not be taken as d e f i n i t i v e , they do again indicate c l e a r l y the h i ther to unheeded importance of the nonverbal part of communication. Pennycock (1985) sums i t up succ inc t ly when he quotes David Abercrombie as saying: \"We speak with our vocal organs, but we converse with our whole body.\" Before proceeding to describe the parameters of nonverbal communication per se, i t may be helpful to summarize some of the more s i g n i f i c a n t differences between the verbal and the noverbal parts of communication. Condon and Yousef (1975) out l ine f ive areas of obvious contras t . 1. Spoken language varies from place to place but there i s a tendency to bel ieve that much of nonverbal communication i s un ive r sa l . Though th i s has not been proven to be s t r i c t l y true 17 (more on t h i s l a te r ) there i s some basis in fact to the assumption that nonverbal communication i s \"natural\" in the sense of being not consciously learned. 2. The spoken language has been l a i d out as a system and can therefore be systematical ly learned (and taught). B i r d w h i s t e l l (1970) has made a va l ian t attempt to treat nonverbal communication as a communication system but at present scholars are not able to set out \"rules\" s imi l a r to grammar and syntax simply because, as yet , we s t i l l know too l i t t l e about the t op i c . The obvious impl ica t ion i s that i f i t i s not a wel l defined system, we cannot take i t apart and teach i t as i s done with language. 3. The spoken language has been recorded in wr i t i ng for a l l . A d ic t ionary or phrase book w i l l give the meanings and usage of even foreign words. Though attempts have been made, there i s no d ic t ionary of body language except a few out l ines of cul ture spec i f i c hand gestures. There i s no way to check on the meaning of what a \"speaker\" may have meant. 4. If a speaker i s not completely understood s/he can be asked for c l a r i f i c a t i o n or r e p e t i t i o n . It would be extremely odd to ask a speaker what was meant by the frown and sudden exhalation of breath together with r o l l i n g eyes that the l i s t ene r observed. 5. Words can l i e . Except perhaps under duress, we exercise some conscious cont ro l over what we say. Though poss ib le , i t i s very d i f f i c u l t to cont ro l our nonverbal behaviour. 18 B. Nonverbal Communication The in t r i ca te , tapestry we c a l l communication has now yie lded up i t s main secret . Like the warp and woof on a loom, i t takes both verbal and nonverbal to complete the message of i t s design, to communicate. Taking the r e l a t i v e l y f ixed nature of language as the warp, i t i s the nonverbal, the woof, that i s at l i b e r t y to vary, to create a unique tapestry by var ia t ions in texture, mood, even the meaning of the message. To continue the analys is i t seems v i t a l to delve deeper into the very nature of nonverbal communication so that other experts may add the i r viewpoints. One w i l l have an educational perspective, the other a c ro s s - cu l t u r a l perspect ive. F i n a l l y , the contextual background for the present study which combines nonverbal communication with education in a c ro s s - cu l t u r a l s e t t i ng , can be presented. What then prec i se ly does nonverbal communication en t a i l ? Smith(1984) defines nonverbal communication, used synonymously with nonverbal behaviour in the present study, as including \" a l l e s sen t i a l l y non- l ingu i s t i c phenomena which impinge on and influence the human in te rac t ion process.\"(p.175) From th i s d e f i n i t i o n i t i s c e r t a in ly c lear that \"nonverbal\" implies much more than \"not words\". Condon & Yousef(1975) l i s t twenty-four areas subsumed under the rubric of nonverbal communication and point out that , depending on your perspective, many more may be included. In general terms nonverbal communication includes k ines i c s , proxemics, paralanguage and a r t i f a c t s . Less easy to c l a s s i f y but also of note are the use of time and s i lence in i n t e r ac t i on . 19 1. Kinesics The term kines ics refers to a l l bodi ly movement that i s involved in the communication process. The term was coined by Ray B i r d w h i s t e l l , whose minute analys is of body movement pioneered t h i s area of noverbal communication. Set t ing out to study body movement (kinesics) as a communication system, he l abe l l ed minute b i t s of movement or gesture, kinemes. An example would be an eyebrow ra i se . These can then be further subdivided into kines and s t i l l further into a l l o k i n e s . This proves necessary in order to analyze a l l bodi ly movement, since the body i s l i t e r a l l y in constant motion during an act of communication (Pennycock, 1985). Needless to say such painstaking analys is i s nigh impossible with only the human eye for observer, but can be more readi ly accomplished with the a id of sophis t icated f i lming techniques. The development of B i r d w h i s t e l l ' s system c lose ly p a r a l l e l s the phonetic d i v i s i o n s used by l i n g u i s t s , such that a kineme i s the nonverbal p a r a l l e l for the phoneme, the kine for the phone, the a l l ok ine for the allophone. He seems to have drawn t h i s p a r a l l e l quite de l ibe ra te ly in an effor t to point out the importance of t h i s part of communication, which had h i ther to not been considered s i g n i f i c a n t enough, or i f so, too unmanageable and undefinable to study along rigorous research methodology 1 ines . Though painstaking analysis using th i s system was not embraced wholeheartedly, the larger concept of a kine-morpheme, the nonverbal equivalent of a morpheme, led to a f ractur ing of the ent i re area of k ines ics into intense study of various of i t s 20 subsystems. Thus, as wel l as some \"whole body\" movement s tudies , there are a wealth of studies in selected areas such as f a c i a l expression (Ekman et a l , 1972; Boucher & Ekman,l975), eye movement and gaze (Bakan,1971; Argyle et a l , l 9 7 4 ) , and gesture (which includes stance and posture,hand, arm and trunk movement) (Michael & W i l l i s , 1 9 6 8 ; Cohen & Harrison,1973; Ekman,1976; Lamb & .Watson, 1 979) . What i s suggested by these studies i s that we a l l use k ines ics in our in te rac t ion with others and we modify our behaviour based on s o c i a l and c u l t u r a l ru les . Our a b i l i t y to interpret co r rec t ly the k ines ics of others i s hampered by our lack of conscious awareness of our own, e spec ia l ly where the interactants stem from dif ferent cul tures or sub-cul tures . 2. Proxemics Here again one man has coined the term and led the f i e l d of study. Edward T. H a l l , widely t r ave l l ed anthropologist , defines proxemics as \" . . . the in te r re la ted observations and theories of man's use of space . . . \" (Hall ,1969, p1). This includes interpersonal distance (personal space), touch (both in ten t iona l and accidenta l body contact) and the use of space on a larger scale (archi tec ture , for instance) . What these studies have c l a r i f i e d i s that man's personal boundary does not end with the skin but rather includes a f l e x i b l e sphere of influence that expands and contracts depending on such factors as mood, s o c i a l se t t ing and the r e l a t ionsh ip to the \"other\" in any given in t e r ac t ion . H a l l sees a l l use of space as cul ture based and draws on 21 examples from around the world to show the influence cul ture has on proxemic behaviour. Though H a l l dominates the f i e l d , others working in th i s area include Nine-Curt (1976) with touching patterns of Puerto Ricans and Jourard (1966), who has done world-wide studies of c ro s s - cu l tu r a l touching behaviour. 3. Paralanguage This term was f i r s t used by Trager(l958) as a g lobal term for a l l aspects of voice modificat ion in speech. Therefore, included were such factors as voice timbre (which gives information on mood, age, sex, e t c . ) , v o i c e qua l i t y (rhythm, tempo, a r t i c u l a t i o n and the l i k e ) and voca l i za t ion (noises made such as laughter, c ry ing , mmhmm, uh-uh or uh huh). Since then the narrow sense of paralanguage as above has been expanded by some to include a l l of what i s c a l l e d nonverbal communication in t h i s study. The part c a l l e d paralanguage here has been renamed paraverbal or coverbal behaviour. This wider d e f i n i t i o n appears to be gaining favour (Pennycock, 1985). Therefore the reader should be cognizant of t h i s a l ternate c l a s s i f i c a t i o n , although for the purposes of th i s review Trager 's long establ ished d e f i n i t i o n and usage holds . Key (1975) i d e n t i f i e d several factors that influence the vo ice : na sa l i z a t i on , p a l a t a l i z a t i o n , l a b i a l i z a t i o n , pharyngeal izat ion, sound placement and the use or non-use of the vo ice . The s igni f icance of these q u a l i t i e s l i e s in the c u l t u r a l l y d i f ferent use made of them. For example, Engl ish speakers use l a b i a l i z a t i o n exc lus ive ly when speaking to young chi ldren (what we know as baby ta lk ) while German speakers use 22 i t as part of normal speech. An Engl ish speaker would not take kindly to being addressed with what he considers a condescending, babyish manner at a business meeting, for instance. 4. A r t i f a c t s , Time and Silence Last , but not l eas t , i s the part of nonverbal communication created and consciously manipulated by man. A r t i f a c t s include the physical environment in which the in te rac t ion takes place, from the pictures on the wal l to the colour of the rug, from the pos i t ion of the seating ava i lab le to how much l i g h t there i s in the room or area. Also included are the personal adornments the communicants choose to wear, including jewel lery , c l o t h i n g , make-up and even hair s ty les and colours . When someone repeats the old adage that \"the clothes make the man\", i t implies much more than the cut of h is su i t or lack of i t . What you wear speaks loudly about you, with whom you a l l y yoursel f , what your p r i o r i t i e s are and in a very rea l sense whether or not you get the job or make the sa le . What has not yet been mentioned i s the importance of time and s i lence in communication. In Western society time i s very much a commodity: Time i s money; Don't waste my time. Being on time i s very important and a tardiness of more than a very few minutes c a l l s for extensive apologies, unless of course the intent ion was to express displeasure or anger by being de l ibe ra te ly l a t e . In La t in America being \"on time\" in the Western sense i s considered rude,, to say the l eas t , in the Arab world i t i s 23 d i f f i c u l t to pin down the day for a dinner date, l e t alone the hour. Hal l ( l983) explores the use of time in considerable d e t a i l in h is recent book, The Dance of L i f e . S i lence , a l so , i s a very strong nonverbal message and has been explored in r e l a t ion to p a r a l i n g u i s t i c behaviour (see above) where i t involves the length of pause in conversation turn- tak ing , and also in i t s use more generally (Hal l ,1959) . Si lence i s considered valuable in some soc ie t i e s (Japan, Hopi) and downright uncomfortable in North American s o c i a l i n t e r ac t i on . A stony-faced s i lence in a North American business meeting implies displeasure and ce r t a in ly not agreement with the topic under d i scuss ion . In Japan, th i s same semblance of displeasure may s igni fy agreement. To r e i t e r a t e , a large port ion of any in t e rac t ion , personal or s o c i a l , i s communicated by the nonverbal features ou t l ined , be i t f a c i a l expression, voice q u a l i t y , gesture, interpersonal distance while communicating, se t t ing , or personal dress chosen for the i n t e r ac t i on . I t i s said you cannot not communicate in the presence of another person, even your s i lence sends a message to be interpreted as s o c i a l and c u l t u r a l norms d i c t a t e . Or as Patterson (1983) so succ inc t ly puts i t : \" A l l behaviour i s communication.\" (p.37) C. Education and Nonverbal Communication Although the previous sect ion examines nonverbal communication in i s o l a t i o n , i t must be kept in mind that neither 24 the words spoken in an in te rac t ion nor the accompanying nonverbal elements usually ex is t as solo e n t i t i e s but are both in tegra l parts of the complex tapestry c a l l e d communication. The only acceptable purpose for such compartmentalization i s the furtherance of understanding of the whole. The education expert, rather than looking at what nonverbal communication i s , i s more concerned with i t s uses in the classroom se t t i ng . Argyle (1975), from his perspective of psychology, considers the primary functions of nonverbal communication to be fourfo ld : a. to express emotion b. to convey a t t i tude ( l i k e / d i s l i k e ; s u p e r i o r / i n f e r i o r , e t c . ) c . to present the se l f to others (c lo th ing , stance, e tc . ) d. to accompany speech (feedback and voca l i za t i ons ; emphasize, underline words; e tc . ) Do teachers and students use the nonverbal in these ways in the classroom? Since our classrooms are highly verba l ly oriented the l as t function l i s t e d i s c e r t a i n l y l i k e l y , and a moment's r e f l ec t ion w i l l remind us that neither teacher nor student stop being human and in te rac t ing as such simply because the s i tua t ion i s a classroom. Exchange of ideas and fee l ings , as we l l as encouraging, c r i t i c i z i n g , questioning and the l i k e are part of teaching, too. As Woolfolk & Brooks (1983) put i t , \"Teachers and students are involved in an ongoing, r ec ip roca l influence process.. . . in which both par t i c ipan ts are simultaneously making judgments, communicating a t t i tudes , and attempting to influence while being 25 influenced themselves, with nonverbal cues playing a major role in the exchange.\" (p.106) Stevick (1982) provides a good t r a d i t i o n a l education metaphor: \" I f verbal communication i s the pen which spe l l s out d e t a i l s , nonverbal communication provides the surface on which the words are wri t ten and against which they must be in terpre ted .\" (p.163) One of the f i r s t major studies that considered nonverbal communication in the classroom was done by Grant & Hennings (1971), and looked s p e c i f i c a l l y at the nonverbal a c t i v i t y of the teacher. In the i r seminal work they categorized the teacher 's nonverbal actions in the fol lowing manner: a. conducting - gestures and motions which cont ro l part ic ipat ion b. act ing - using the body to bu i l d in te res t , c l a r i f y , amplify, e tc . c . wielding - as technican, manipulating the environment d. personal - motions with no i n s t ruc t i ona l purpose. The f i r s t three come under the rubric of i n s t ruc t i ona l motions. Of these, conducting was observed to occur during 62.5 % of the teacher 's ac t ions , while wielding was exhibi ted 28.7% of the time, leaving the remaining 8.8% for ac t ing . Personal motions when compared with i n s t ruc t i ona l were used an average of 22% of the time. Thus three fourths of the nonverbal communication used by the teacher i s used d i r e c t l y , though perhaps not e n t i r e l y consciously, in connection with the teaching act , which of course implies transmission of knowledge. If so much nonverbal a c t i v i t y i s the norm in the classroom, and we accept even the more conservative estimate of 26 Birdwhistel l (1970) that 70 % of communication i s nonverbal, i t seems highly appropriate that teachers be made more e x p l i c i t l y aware of the nonverbal facets of communication. This need has been stressed by many researchers in the f i e l d , notably Koch (1971a), Thompson (1973) and Galloway (1970,1976). Pre-service and in -se rv ice t r a in ing in nonverbal communication and awareness have been implemented in at least some centers (French,1971; Love & Roderick,1971). S t i l l , the present lack of teacher t r a in ing programs that include nonverbal communication seems to indicate that teacher awareness of nonverbal communication i s not yet considered a v i t a l part of teaching s k i l l s taught. On the heels of the work of Grant & Hennings came a rash of studies looking at the classroom s i tua t ion from the perspective of teaching, each concentrating on a pa r t i cu l a r aspect of the nonverbal (proxemics, k ines i c s , e t c . ) . Among the resu l t s ind ica t ions are that classroom environment can influence student behaviour and achievement (Baron,1972; Stebbins, 1973; Romney, 1975 ), as can proximity to the teacher (Adams & Biddle ,1970) . The use of gestures, eye contact and f a c i a l expression as an influence on student performance and whether or not the student l i k e d or was w i l l i n g to co-operate with the teacher were researched by such persons as Mehrabian, 1971; Breed, 1971; Wyckoff,1973, and, more recent ly , Smith,1984. Perhaps the c l a s s i c example of the power of nonverbal communication in the classroom i s reported by Rosenthal & Jacobson (1968) in Pygmalion in the Classroom . Students were randomly assigned to the category of \" i n t e l l e c t u a l bloomer\", ind ica t ing that the coming school year should see them making 27 great s t r ides in cogni t ive development. This information was then given to the i r teachers. What i s c r u c i a l here i s that a l l of the students pa r t i c i pa t i ng in the study were given standard I .Q. tests but the \"bloomers\" were selected randomly, regardless of the i r scores. At the end of the school year those l abe l l ed as \"bloomers\" evidenced a sharp r i s e in I .Q. scores, while the control group exhibi ted only normal development. The researchers a t t r ibu te t h i s phenomenon to subtle nonverbal cues that make up what we c a l l teacher expectations. Of course i t must be remembered that the nonverbal influence i s not u n i l a t e r a l . Not only are teachers constantly in terpre t ing the nonverbal behaviour of the i r students and responding accordingly, but also the students in turn are in terpre t ing the i r teachers' behaviours in terms of f r i end l iness , approval and l i k i n g (Kel ly ,1973; Smith,1984). Looking from B i r d w h i s t e l l ' s perspective, Kei th et a l (1974) concluded that the nonverbal part of classroom in te rac t ion was more important than the verba l , while Koch (1971b) re la tes personal observations in which a teacher 's neutral voice tone did not deter student in teres t in the topic because her nonverbal behaviour as she spoke captivated them. This lack of synchrony between the verbal and nonverbal was also observed to be of importance by Galloway (1970,1971) and Woodall & Burgoon (1981), so much so that the l a t t e r concluded that the more \"out of synch\" the two l eve l s of communication, the less the t o t a l message w i l l be accepted or bel ieved. Further i f there i s a c o n f l i c t i n g message, i t i s the nonverbal that tends to be bel ieved. 28 Though th i s review i s by no means exhaustive, i t can be concluded that- what teachers do i s at least as important as what they say. What i s missing so far i s a discussion of the element of cu l tu re , another factor in today's classrooms. Does cul ture have any effect on the nonverbal communication taking place in the m u l t i c u l t u r a l classroom so common in Canadian schools? Before t ack l ing t h i s m u l t i p l i c i t y of in te rac t ing factors i t i s necessary to look at nonverbal communication from the cross-c u l t u r a l perspective taken by anthropologists and other s o c i a l s c i e n t i s t s . D. Cross -cu l tu ra l Studies and Nonverbal Communication So far the studies reported here have been conducted in Western soc ie t i e s by Western invest igators on Western subjects. What i s made c lear by Edward T. H a l l (1976), considered by many the foremost authori ty on cul ture and i t s effects on behaviour and communication, i s the important role cul ture plays in human in t e r ac t ion : \"Culture i s man's medium; there i s not one aspect of human l i f e that i s not touched and a l tered by cu l t u r e . \" (p.16). Therefore i t can be assumed that , although a l l humans use nonverbal communication in i n t e r ac t ion , what Western researchers have learned of nonverbal communication i s spec i f i c to Western s o c i e t i e s ' norms and expectations. This i s indeed the case. H a l l ' s (1959,1956,1976) work with foreign diplomats and others who must in teract across cul tures i s r i c h with examples of 29 miscommunication founded in the c u l t u r a l differences of the in terac tants ' nonverbal behaviours. Kines ics i s c a l l e d body language by Wood (1981).She defines i t as \" a l l r e f l ex ive and nonreflexive movements and posi t ions of the body that communicate emotional, a t t i t u d i n a l and informational messages.\" (p.189) She states further that \"body language i s cul ture bound, and a body motion may communicate two e n t i r e l y d i f ferent messages to members of two di f ferent c u l t u r a l groups.\" (p.173) This fact has been borne out by others including Efron, 1972; Garretson,1976; LaFrance & Mayo,1978; Lamb & Watson,1979; Smith, 1984, so much so that some d i c t i o n a r y - l i k e accounts of gestures have been compiled, for example Morsbach,1973 & Nine-Curt,1976. B i r d w h i s t e l l (1970) states that \"although we have been searching for 15 years, we have found no gesture or body motion which has the same s o c i a l meaning in a l l soc ie t i e s . \" (p .5 ) He argues further that \"insofar as we know, there i s no body motion or gesture that can be regarded as a universal symbol.\" (p.81) This may be considered an extreme statement. I t i s , in fact , a d e f i n i t i v e comment on one side of the s t i l l ongoing controversy concerning whether nonverbal communication i s based in \"nature\", as postulated o r i g i n a l l y by Darwin (1872/1965) or \"nurture\", as B i r d w h i s t e l l impl ies . ( In teres t ingly enough the same dichotomy i s s t i l l in evidence in the verbal domain of communication.) The only area lending i t s e l f to the p o s s i b i l i t y that nonverbal communication has universa l tendencies across cul tures i s in the expression of emotion, p a r t i c u l a r l y in the face. In looking for these universals in expression E i b l - E i b e s f e l d t 30 (1970) discovered that even the congeni ta l ly deaf and b l i n d express basic emotions in a way that i s recognizable by and s imi l a r to that of normal hearing and seeing people. Further study of expressive behaviour demonstrated that , while there are s i m i l a r i t i e s of in te rpre ta t ion of the nonverbal expression of emotions (Ekman & Friesen,1971; E i b l - E i b e s f e l d t , 1970,1983; Argyle,1975), these nevertheless show much va r i a t i on depending on the s o c i a l l y learned and c u l t u r a l l y spec i f i c \"display rules\" (Ekman & Fr iesen , 1975). According to Harper et a l (1978) these display rules cont ro l the extent of expression by: a. i n t e n s i f i c a t i o n - in some cul tures emotions such as g r i e f are highly exaggerated; a. de in tens i f i ca t ion - Germans and Br i t ons , fo r example are known for the i r understatement of emotion; c . neu t ra l i za t ion - in Western soc ie t i e s boys are t o l d not to cry or show fear; d. masking - del iberate or cul ture d ic ta ted display as when the \"sore loser\" pretends to applaud the winner or the Japanese smile to hide anger or sorrow. One of the most extensive studies in t h i s area i s the PONS (P ro f i l e of Nonverbal S e n s i t i v i t y ) Test created by Rosenthal et a l (1979). I t consisted of a 45-minute black and white motion pic ture in which a Caucasian woman enacted various emotions which were then interpreted by 2300 people representing 20 d i f ferent countr ies . Channels ava i l ab le to the observer (sound, no sound, sound and voice , e tc . ) were mixed randomly. Their main findings address the nature vs nurture issue. 31 They discovered that there was great v a r i a b i l i t y in a b i l i t y to decode. This would suggest that the un ive r sa l i t y of expression i s not supported. Nontheless, even the c u l t u r a l groups that d id worst on the test d id better than chance,while groups c u l t u r a l l y and l i n g u i s t i c a l l y s imi l a r to the PONS Test encoder ( B r i t a i n , Canada, New Zealand, Aus t ra l i a ) d id far better on the test than cul tures that are very di f ferent ( l i k e Japan), though s t i l l not as wel l as members of the same c u l t u r a l group as the encoder. This f inding suggests support for the nurture side of the issue. No so lu t ion to the controversy has been found but research continues. What has been c l e a r l y demonstrated in th i s part of the review i s that nonverbal communication in general, and body movement ( including proxemics and kines ics) in p a r t i c u l a r , i s cu l t u r e - spec i f i c and that incorrect use of th i s part of communication can lead to s i tua t ions ranging from amusement through misunderstanding to i n s u l t . H a l l (1976) even ventures to say that cul tures as c lo se ly a l l i e d as the Americans and the B r i t i s h have problems \"reading\" each other ' s nonverbal behaviour c o r r e c t l y . The PONS Test concurs. E . The Interface - Nonverbal Communication, Education and Cross- c u l t u r a l Studies The examination of the tapestry here c a l l e d communication i s now complete. The experts in a l l three areas, nonverbal communication, education and c ro s s - cu l t u r a l s tudies , have amply 32 demonstrated i t s complexity. It has been pointed out thus far that nonverbal communication i s an in tegra l and v i t a l part of communication, plays an important ro le in the teaching/ learning s i tua t ion and, for the most part , var ies considerably across cu l tu res . However, to the reader from an educational perspective the foregoing review raises at least as many questions as i t has answered. For instance, what does the factor of c r o s s - c u l t u r a l differences in nonverbal behaviour imply for the teacher? If i t i s r e a l l y important, does that mean we are dealing with miscommunication on the nonverbal l e v e l constantly because many of our students are not members of our cul ture group? If nonverbal communication i s v i t a l how do the ESL speakers learn English? Surely we can ' t be expected to learn the i r c u l t u r a l nonverbal communication when we have representatives of several cul tures in our classes? On the other hand, they must learn to l i v e in our cu l tu re , so shouldn't the onus be on them to learn our nonverbal behaviour patterns? How do you teach nonverbal communication and which cul ture or cul ture group should be used as the model? Would knowing the i r nonverbal communication patterns help us in our attempts to teach them to speak English? The l i s t of queries could go on and on and, unfortunately, the general response i s , \"Not enough i s known; not enough research has been done as yet, to advocate any one plan of a c t i o n . \" Foreign language teachers were perhaps the f i r s t group to recognize that there was more to teaching a language than i t s grammar and syntax (see for example A l l e n & Valet te ,1972; Norstrand,1974). H a l l (1959) had stated that \"culture i s 33 communication and communication i s cu l t u r e . \" (p.191) Seelye (1974) agreed that \"culture includes anything man has learned to do.\" (p.6) and defined several \" e x t r a l i n g u i s t i c \" s k i l l s he f e l t needed to be included in foreign language teaching in order that students might gain some understanding of the cul ture whose language they were lea rn ing . Though. Seelye mentions behaviour, he did not consider i t per se but rather as a r e f l ec t ion of the p o l i t i c a l , s o c i a l , r e l i g ious and economic systems which have shaped the people whose language i s under study. In other words, what makes people of X cul ture act and react the way they do, rather than spec i f i c s of how they \"behave\" while communicating. Thus, i f we look at nonverbal communication as including k ines i c s , proxemics, paralanguage and a r t i f a c t s (see Section B) , the emphasis i s c l e a r l y on the las t area. What was s t i l l the proverbia l missing l i n k in the t o t a l tapestry of communication was the nonverbal: \"We communicate simultaneously on at least three l eve l s in interpersonal s i t ua t ions : The verba l , nonverbal and the c u l t u r a l l e v e l which moderates and shapes the other two.\" (Wolfgang,1977,p.147). Seelye emphasized the c u l t u r a l l e v e l , a l l teachers work na tura l ly with the verba l , and f i n a l l y , some at tent ion began to be paid to the nonverbal. Hayes (1972) noted the importance of the nonverbal in \"colouring\" a message as early as 1972 and in 1971 Green had suggested nonverbal \" inventories\" to supplement foreign language teaching. But i t s t i l l took time to t r i c k l e through to a l l areas of education that i t was a d i s se rv ice to a l l i f the nonverbal 34 component of communication was, r e l a t i v e l y speaking, ignored. F i r s t the second language teachers took note (Ki rch , 1979, Barnett ,1983), then the regular classroom teachers began to see the nonverbal as an important element in the m u l t i c u l t u r a l se t t ing so common in today's classrooms (Feldman, 1977; Grove, 1977; Wolfgang, 1977,1979,1981; Matluck, 1979). ESL Teachers, to date, have had to be content, for the most par t , to glean information from other educational f i e l d s (Grove,1977), although some attempt has been made to t r a in them for the i r unique role (Taylor,1976; Adler & Towne,l978; Heaton,1978).Role playing a c t i v i t i e s have become a very popular adjunct to classroom learning (for instance Nine-Curt,1976) as have other materials and games that focussed on differences of perception based in cul ture (for instance, Levy, 1979). Though the increase in teacher and student awareness i s laudable, most of these a c t i v i t i e s do not take a language bar r ie r to communication into considerat ion, but rather take up the issue of nonverbal communication differences after the students have learned Engl ish or in the case of foreign language learners , teach the nonverbal component in the students' native language. In fac t , as w i l l be out l ined l a t e r , there i s a dearth of material in the l i t e r a t u r e that focusses on the role of nonverbal communication in the ESL classroom s e t t i n g . To summarize, though there i s increasing awareness of nonverbal communication c r o s s - c u l t u r a l l y , and some attempts at teacher t r a i n i n g , there are s t i l l large informational gaps that deal with the interface of a l l three areas, nonverbal, cross-c u l t u r a l and educat ional . A case in point i s the survey done by 35 Donaghy (1984). Of over 100 research f a c i l i t i e s responding to a survey conducted i n t e r n a t i o n a l l y , s ix of the ongoing studies were l inked with education, four looked at nonverbal communication c r o s s - c u l t u r a l l y , while only one dealt with an educational se t t ing that involved more than one cu l tu re , and that was in I t a l y . I t i s wi th in t h i s gap that the present study occupies a small space. II Gestures as a part of Nonverbal Communication This study focusses on a subset of the area previously defined as k ines i c s , the sum t o t a l of bodi ly motions involved in communication. Kendon (1984) defines th i s area as gesture, a global term loosely defined e a r l i e r and much employed in t h i s presentation: \"I use 'gesture ' to refer to any instance in which v i s i b l e act ion i s mobil ized in the service of producing an e x p l i c i t communicative act , t y p i c a l l y addressed to another, regarded by the other (and the actor) as being guided by an openly acknowledged in ten t ion , and treated as conveying some meaning beyond or apart from the act ion i t s e l f . \" (p.81) Gestures d i s t i ngu i sh themselves further as a group because they vary widely between cu l tu res , so much so that , as mentioned e a r l i e r , gesture d i c t i ona r i e s have been created. Therefore, such eas i ly i d e n t i f i a b l e subsets of nonverbal communication are eminently sui table for a study that i s considering the 36 p o s s i b i l i t y o f c u l t u r a l d i f f e r e n c e s o f g e s t u r e i n t e r p r e t a t i o n . A word o f c a u t i o n i s h e r e i n o r d e r b e f o r e p r o c e e d i n g t o f u r t h e r s u b d i v i d e d c a t e g o r i e s . A l t h o u g h many g e s t u r e s have l i t e r a l \" t r a n s l a t i o n s \" i n w o r d s , i t i s s t i l l v i t a l t o e x a m i n e g e s t u r e s i n c o n t e x t . S u c h p o p u l a r b o o k s a s How t o r e a d a p e r s o n l i k e a book l e a v e one w i t h t h e i m p r e s s i o n t h a t a g e s t u r e ha s one and o n l y one i n v i o l a b l e m e a n i n g , r e g a r d l e s s o f t h e c i r c u m s t a n c e s i n w h i c h i t i s u s e d . C o n s i d e r t h e g e s t u r e s u s e d by r e f e r e e s i n f o o t b a l l , s o c c e r o r b a s k e t b a l l . T r u e t h e y have c o n v e n t i o n a l i z e d m e a n i n g s common t o a l l who p l a y , r e f e r e e , s c o r e and w a t c h t h e games, b u t one o f t h e s e g e s t u r e s e n a c t e d i n a s o c i a l s e t t i n g w o u l d no t n e c e s s a r i l y be c o n s t r u e d t o mean t h e same t h i n g i t d i d on t h e p l a y i n g f i e l d o r c o u r t , u n l e s s o f c o u r s e t h e game was t h e t o p i c o f d i s c u s s i o n t h u s m a k i n g t h e c o n t e x t a p p r o p r i a t e f o r s u c h i n t e r p r e t a t i o n . A more g e n e r a l e x a m p l e w o u l d be a \" f i n g e r t o n o s e \" g e s t u r e w h i c h i s r e g a r d e d a s an e x p r e s s i o n o f d o u b t i n p o p u l a r n o n v e r b a l i n t e r p r e t a t i o n p a r l a n c e . The e n c o d e r may v e r y s i m p l y have an i t c h y n o s e . As Lamb & Wat son (1979) p u t i t , \" . . p r o p e r r e a d i n g o f g e s t u r e s d e p e n d s . . . o n u n d e r s t a n d i n g t h e u n d e r l y i n g c o n v e n t i o n . . \" w h i c h i n t u r n \" . . p r e s u p p o s e s a s i m i l a r c u l t u r a l u n d e r s t a n d i n g \" ( p . 1 5 ) . W i t h t h e s e c a u t i o n s i n m i n d l e t us now p r o c e e d . The t y p e s o f n o n v e r b a l b e h a v i o u r t h a t come u n d e r t h e r u b r i c o f g e s t u r e have b e e n g r o u p e d i n v a r i o u s ways . Of t h e s e , emblems and i l l u s t r a t o r s c o n s t i t u t e t h e f o c u s o f t h i s s t u d y . T h e y w i l l be f i r s t d e f i n e d , t h e n t h e r e s e a r c h t h a t s p e c i f i c a l l y r e l a t e s t o emblems a n d i l l u s t r a t o r s w i l l be p r e s e n t e d . 37 A. Emblems According to Ekman (1983) th i s term was f i r s t used by Efron in 1941 and i s defined as \" . .symbolic actions where the movement has a very spec i f i c verbal meaning, known to most members of a sub-culture or cu l tu re , and t y p i c a l l y employed with the in tent ion of sending.a message.\" (p.89) Further he states that \" . . the person performing the emblem takes r e s p o n s i b i l i t y for having communicated, for having said something with h i s face or body. He can be held accountable for h is message.\" (p.89) Words do not need to accompany emblems to convey meaning nor i s the context a necessary component (Ekman, 1976). In other words, the meaning i s t o t a l l y unambigious when the act ion i s seen in i s o l a t i o n of i t s contextual occurence. What remains i s whether one in te rpre t s , for example, the head nod for YES as 'yes , I agree' as i s done in North America, or 'yes , I'm l i s t e n i n g but not necessar i ly agreeing or understanding' as i s the case in Japan. Examples of emblems would be the head nod for YES (as above), shoulder shrug for I DON'T KNOW or a c i r c l e made with the index finger and thumb for A-OK. A quick perusal of the l i s t of emblems employed in t h i s study (see Chapter I I I ) demonstrates that those chosen are what Lamb & Watson (1979) c a l l functional gestures and f i t we l l into the large port ion of i n s t r u c t i o n a l motions observed by Grant & Hennings (1971). Though there are a number of gestures that are encoded in the same way across cu l tu res , the i r meanings are often r a d i c a l l y d i f f e ren t . The OK s ign , for instance, quite benign in North American c i r c l e s , i s i n s u l t i n g or even obscene in some cul tures (Harrison,1974) and means 'money' in Japan. 38 B. I l l u s t r a t o r s According to LaFrance & Mayo (1978), i l l u s t r a t o r s are gestures that accompany the verbal message in an in te rac t ion and serve to underl ine, emphasize, or i l l u s t r a t e the words. They are p r imar i ly enacted v i a the hands, although other parts of the body can come into p lay . An example would be to accompany the words \" i t was t h i s big around\" with arm and hand movements enclosing a c i r c l e . These gestures are less conventionalized and therefore can vary considerably in in terpre ta t ion as wel l as enactment. Unlike emblems, they are very much t i e d to the l i n g u i s t i c content and flow of the verbal message. I l l u s t r a t o r s tend to vary in type and frequency with ethnic group or cu l tu re , increase when a message i s d i f f i c u l t to convey in words (define a z ig -zag , for instance) , or be used in a \" f i sh ing for the r ight word\" sense to f i n i s h a thought (Ekman, 1976). Since what c h i e f l y d is t inguishes emblems and i l l u s t r a t o r s from other gestures i s the i r i n t e n t i o n a l i t y , they have received the most a t tent ion in the research (see for example Cohen & Harrison,1973). Ekman (1983) reports that many studies have been and are being conducted to e s t ab l i sh \"emblem repertoires\" of various cul tures around the world. In fact there i s great va r i a t ion in the number of emblems cons is ten t ly used by dif ferent cu l tu res , from less than 70 in the U.S . to over 300 in Iran (see for example Garretson,1976; Creider,1977; Morris et a l , l 9 7 9 ) . In t h i s area, a l so , some nonverbal universals were discovered. For instance,there are a number of emblems that look 39 the same but have di f ferent meanings in d i f ferent cu l tu res . Peter Co l l e t (1982) c i t e s many examples of miscommunication based on one c u l t u r e ' s in te rpre ta t ion of another cu l t u r e ' s emblems. H i s t o r i c a l l y , a l so , c ryp t i c use has been made of the fact that members of one cul ture do not understand the emblems of another. S t i l l today, secret soc ie t i es use a nonverbal s ignal of some sort to ident i fy members and keep out in t ruders . There are a number of \"messages\" that have an emblematic and d e f i n i t i v e performance, though the enactment d i f f e r s from one cul ture to the next (Ekman,1983). What th i s means i s that there are emblems for greetings, departures, i n su l t s and d i rec t ions found in a l l cul tures studied to date, but the enactments used vary from one group to the next (compare the HELLO handshake to the bow and steepled hands greeting in Eastern c u l t u r e s ) . Foreign language teachers, as mentioned e a r l i e r , have long been interested in emblems and i l l u s t r a t o r s in p a r t i c u l a r , because they are a r e l a t i v e l y stable r e f l ec t i on of the nonverbal s ty le of the target language group (see for example Brau l t , 1963; Barnett,1983; Nine-Curt ,1983). In actual fact , people who have t r ave l l ed have long been aware of the sometimes dramatic difference between c u l t u r a l gesture d i sp lays . Consider, for instance, the effusive use of gestures ( including emblems and i l l u s t r a t o r s ) by the French or I t a l i ans compared to the very low key expression of the B r i t i s h . This sometimes r a d i c a l difference was c l e a r l y demonstrated in Efron's (1972) c l a s s i c study of New York Yiddish-speaking Jews, Southern I t a l i a n s , and the ass imi la ted offspr ing of both groups. His 40 in tent ion was to compare gesture s ty les with a view to f inding differences based on r a c i a l descent. Instead he found very clear differences based on c u l t u r a l p rac t i ce . As a side issue, he found that the types of gestures used were also very d i f f e ren t . The I t a l i ans used many gestures that were highly p i c t o r i a l ( i l l u s t r a t i o n s to the words) while the Yiddish speakers used gestures that served more regulatory functions and used the p i c t o r i a l gestures not at a l l . In terms of emblems, the I t a l i ans had a large standardized reper toire (and invented extra ones freely when necessary) while the Jews did not. These findings have as yet not been explored further but such tendencies could po t en t i a l l y be useful as teaching/ learning t oo l s . L i t t l e research has been done in terms of the communicative value of gestures in general,the when and how of the i r use (Kendon,1983), or in the comparison of gestures or any of the i r subsets across cu l tu res . Work done in the classroom has been discussed e a r l i e r in t h i s review. I t has c h i e f l y re la ted the influence of teacher behaviour, student reaction and the i r i n t e r ac t i on , where both are members of the same c u l t u r a l group. In the mult ie thnic se t t ing we have gone l i t t l e further than the stage of \"awareness of di f ferences\" . Considering the long h i s to ry of the study of verbal communication, i t i s probable that a long time and much work stands between teachers and the knowledge they are now beginning to seek in the nonverbal area. It i s comforting, however, to see that l i n g u i s t s have at least recognized the existence of the nonverbal as part of the communication pattern (see Hatch,1983), 41 i f only in terms of spec ia l i zed speech such as motherese and foreigner t a l k . S t i l l much i s l e f t unknown about the in te rac t ive factors of nonverbal, verbal and c u l t u r a l in a c r o s s - c u l t u r a l s e t t i ng . In terms of chi ldren and nonverbal communication, as i s the modus operandi of the present study, research to date demonstrates that the fol lowing are present, in some cases at a remarkably young age. They are: a. cu l ture based guidel ines of phys ica l a t t ract iveness as wel l as a r e la t ionsh ip between at t ract iveness and popular i ty (Cavior & Lombardi,1973; Dion, 1973) b. developmental stages of proxemic behaviour ( A i e l l o & Jones,1971; Jones & A i e l l o , 1 9 7 3 ; Harper & Sanders,1975) c . ear ly responses to and production of f a c i a l expression (Ekman,1973) as wel l as eye contact (Norton & Dobson,l976) d. cu l ture and age re la ted p a r a l i n g u i s t i c behaviour (Dittman, 1972; Wood,1976) e. awareness of c u l t u r a l differences in nonverbal communication (Weeks, 1979) f. sex and age as factors of how wel l nonverbal behaviour i s decoded (Pendelton & Snyder,1982) g. ind ica t ions that young ch i ldren use more gestures and re ly on them more for communication (Evans & Rubin,1979). Cross c u l t u r a l differences in nonverbal communication dealing s p e c i f i c a l l y with very young ch i ldren are somewhat rare and so far have not included non-English-speakers. Carol Koogler (1980), doing f i e l d work as an anthropologist in integrated kindergarten classrooms in the United States, found that the 42 d i f f e r i n g c u l t u r a l s ty les of behaviour between white and black ch i ld ren created disharmony when the black ch i ld ren appeared to impede p a r t i c i p a t i o n in a c t i v i t i e s . The \"different\" ways of responding to music and dance as exhibi ted by the black chi ldren created a c o n f l i c t because of. how the white teacher reacted to, and interpreted that behaviour. When the group interacted with a black teacher no c o n f l i c t developed, presumably because her react ion to the same type of behaviour from the ch i ldren was in keeping with the i r common c u l t u r a l background. Two research projects have focussed on the use of emblems s p e c i f i c a l l y , only one.of which used \" c u l t u r a l group\" as a va r i ab l e . Michael & W i l l i s (1968) had chi ldren age 4 to 7 communicate 12 messages without using words: go away, come here, yes, no, how many, how b i g , be quie t , I don't know, h i , goodbye, shape (round, square ,e tc . ) , l e t me have your a t t en t ion . The resul t s showed that : a l l the ch i ldren are better decoders than encoders, older ch i ldren do better than younger ch i ld ren on a l l tasks, middle c lass ch i ldren do better than lower c lass ch i ldren in both encoding and decoding and boys were more accurate decoders than g i r l s . The second study d id not include cul ture as a factor , but rather looked for a b i l i t y to decode and encode in r e l a t i on to sex and age. The researchers, Kumin & Lazar (1974), used a video tape of 30 emblems with two age groups of middle c l a s s , Caucasian ch i l d r en , age 3 to 3.5 and 4 to 4 .5 . Their findings include the fo l lowing : a b i l i t y to decode and encode improves with age; boys decoded more emblems in the younger group; g i r l s 43 decoded more emblems in the older group; girls at both age levels encoded more emblems than the boys of corresponding ages; both groups decoded significantly more emblems than they were able to encode; there were some emblems that neither group could encode as well as some that were encoded and decoded with 100% accuracy by a l l groups. Both studies demonstrate that emblems are certainly a viable category for study with young children. The increased is ability with age hints at the possibility of a developmental pattern, perhaps coinciding with language development stages. Neither study considered the possibility that the reason a child decodes or encodes incorrectly may be related to different interpretations based on cultural background. Rather the implication seemed to be that the lower class children of the Michael & Willis study were merely slower to develop, not different. A well known example of this type of interpretation difference concerns the daughter of a university professor who was given a standard I.Q. test. One question depicted a man chopping wood and the child was asked whether the man was working or relaxing. She said that he was relaxing which, of course, was considered wrong by the creators of the test. When queried later about what it was the man was doing she knew, but related that her father, who spent a l l day in the classroom and office, enjoyed chopping wood to 'relax', as he put it.. A final summation will help pull together the various threads that make up communication. What the sum total of 44 research into nonverbal communication from a l l perspectives confirms i s the complexity of human communication. Furthermore, the nonverbal element i s much more v i t a l than has h i ther to been acknowledged and i t i s made even more e lus ive and complex because i t i s molded and modified in various ways by the c u l t u r a l d ic ta tes of a group or sub-group. Taking c u l t u r a l l y created nonverbal communication into a classroom containing many cul tures only compounds the complexit ies of communication. As yet , l i t t l e research deals with a l l ' t h e s e elements as the in te rac t ive factors they are, while none has attempted to do a c ro s s - cu l t u r a l study in the classroom that involves non-English-speakers. The next chapter out l ines the design and implementation of just such an attempt. 45 CHAPTER THREE METHODS \"Every educational system i s i r revocably l inked to i t s soc i e ty ' s c lass s t ructure , s o c i a l mob i l i t y , basic values, s o c i a l norms, and even the s t ruc tur ing of rewards and punishments.\" Fieg & Yaffee, 1977,p.38. As the l as t chapter ind ica tes , there i s a rap id ly expanding body of knowledge in the f i e l d of nonverbal communication. Equally p r o l i f i c i s research into nonverbal communication in the classroom se t t i ng . A great deal i s now known about teacher/student in te rac t ion on the nonverbal l e v e l , and there i s an increasing awareness of how teachers inf luence, whether consciously or not, the a t t i tude and performance of the i r students. The research also confirms the c u l t u r a l l y based nature of nonverbal communication, point ing to miscommunication problems in r a c i a l l y and c u l t u r a l l y mixed se t t ings , that seem to be rooted so le ly in d i f f e r i n g c u l t u r a l norms and behaviour expectations. To date l i t t l e has been done beyond point ing out that d i f ferent c u l t u r a l groups do indeed react and interact d i f f e r e n t l y on the nonverbal l e v e l . Part of the reason for t h i s lack i s the d i f f i c u l t y inherent in studying body movement. I t i s extremely d i f f i c u l t to analyze movement, even i f one had the sophis t ica ted equipment required and were to use the micro-46 analysis system invented by B i r d w h i s t e l l (1970). The more concrete and definable subgroups of gesture known as emblems and i l l u s t r a t o r s , however, have been successful ly employed in research with a l l age groups, inc luding young c h i l d r e n . The study, of common North American emblems done by Kumin & Lazar (1974) i s only one example. On th i s promising basis the present research has been founded. A. Design In essence th i s study i s of an ex post facto design ( th i s term i s more p rec i se ly defined l a t e r ) , where the e t h n i c i t y , age and sex of the subjects are the independent va r i ab l e s . Under scrut iny i s the i r a b i l i t y to decode a spec i f i c group of gestures from the subgroups known as emblems and i l l u s t r a t o r s . These were chosen because the i r in te rpre ta t ion i s r e l a t i v e l y invar iable and they are t y p i c a l of the gestures commonly used in an ESL classroom s e t t i n g . Kumin & Lazar (1974), on whose study the present work i s p a r t i a l l y based, grouped Caucasian, middle c lass ch i ld ren by age and sex, then asked them to decode and encode gestures under f a i r l y standardized condi t ions . The gestures the i r study used had been va l ida ted by col lege students of the same c u l t u r a l background as the c h i l d r e n . The present study, began with the emblem l i s t of Kumin and Lazar. This l i s t was taken to several p rac t i c ing Engl ish as a second langauge (ESL) teachers, who discarded some items due to 47 lack of popular usage, while adding others which they d id use cons is tent ly in the classroom. The new l i s t was then taken to ten ESL teachers in the Vancouver area. Each teacher separately was asked to act out the emblems and i l l u s t r a t o r s given the verbal cues. Again some minor changes proved necessary when there was no consensus of in te rp re ta t ion . The f i n a l l i s t of t h i r t y - s i x emblems and i l l u s t r a t o r s became the master for the next stage - the videotape. A s ingle ESL teacher agreed to perform the emblems and i l l u s t r a t o r s while the researcher recorded them on videotape. This f i n a l l i s t appears below with the i l l u s t r a t o r s marked by ( I ) . Table I Emblems and I l l u s t r a t o r s - Master L i s t YES QUIET IT SMELLS BAD NO LET'S THINK ABOUT IT LOUDER (CAN'T HEAR YOU) O.K. LISTEN HELLO YOU GET UP I DON'T BELIEVE IT(SURPRISE) GOODBYE ME SIT DOWN WHAT TIME IS IT? EVERYBODY (I) BIG AND ROUND(I) OVER THERE PAST TENSE(I) THAT'S GOOD (WELL DONE) STOP GO AWAY I 'M SAD I 'M AFRAID COME HERE I 'M ANGRY DON'T DO THAT I 'M HAPPY I DON'T KNOW I 'M COLD WELL—SORT OF I 'M HOT IT'S TOO LOUD I 'M TIRED TASTES GOOD(YUMMY) Next, a mul t ip le choice test (see Appendix A) was created to accompany the 36 \"actions\" on the videotape. The test included a f i f t h \" f i l l in .your own answer\" option for those who might disagree with the given wording for the other four choices.. 48 To va l ida te i t , t h e test and the accompanying videotape were administered to classes of ESL teacher trainees at the Univers i ty of B r i t i s h Columbia. A t o t a l of 62 adults took the t es t . The r e su l t s , expressed as a percentage, are l i s t e d in Table I I . Table II Percent Scores of Adults on Emblem and I l l u s t r a t o r Test ITEM %CORRECT YES 97 QUIET 97 IT SMELLS BAD 97 NO 98 LET'S THINK ABOUT IT 82 LOUDER(CAN'T HEAR YOU) ' 90 O.K. 76 LISTEN 79 HELLO 35 YOU 92 GET UP 89 I DON'T BELIEVE IT(SURPRISE) 84 GOODBYE 73 ME 100 SIT DOWN 98 WHAT TIME IS IT? 87 EVERYBODY 66 BIG AND ROUND 93 OVER THERE 98 PAST TENSE 8 THAT'S GOOD(WELL DONE) 97 STOP 95 GO AWAY 95 I 'M SAD 97 I 'M AFRAID 98 COME HERE 98 I 'M ANGRY 85 DON'T DO THAT 100 I 'M HAPPY 93 I DON'T KNOW 100 I 'M COLD 100 WELL--SORT OF 97 I 'M HOT 100 IT'S TOO LOUD 90 I 'M TIRED 100 TASTES GOOD(YUMMY) 97 As expected,the scores were quite h igh. There were, however, a few notable exceptions. Much confusion was expressed concerning the in terpre ta t ion of HELLO and GOODBYE. What was enacted on the videotape as HELLO was judged to be GOODBYE by 53 percent of adults tested, while only 35 percent thought i t was indeed HELLO. On the other hand, there was 73 percent agreement 50 that what was enacted as GOODBYE was what most people would judge to mean GOODBYE. Thus, although emblems are considered highly conventional ized, there are s t i l l p o s s i b i l i t i e s of misunderstanding even wi th in a c u l t u r a l group when two emblems are very close in v i s u a l appearance as i s the case here. What would have given the f i n a l clue for correct in te rp re ta t ion , the s i t u a t i o n a l context and/or accompanying words, was absent. The three i l l u s t r a t o r s included are: EVERYBODY, BIG AND ROUND and PAST TENSE. As noted e a r l i e r , i l l u s t r a t o r s can be quite var iable in the i r enactment. They were included nevertheless because the ten teachers who aided in the creat ion of the master l i s t agreed that they were frequently used, and agreed on a common enactment. There was, however, great variance in responses given on the t es t . For instance, while 93 percent were in accord concerning BIG AND ROUND,only 66 percent co r rec t ly interpreted EVERYBODY, while only 8 percent interpreted PAST TENSE as ind ica t ing the past tense. One a l t e rna t ive answer for th i s las t was \"behind me\", which received 85 percent of responses. During the debrief ing discussion with the adul ts , t h i s test item was queried in a l l groups. I t became apparent that those who had taught ESL knew th i s i l l u s t r a t o r to be a tense marker, while those who had not taught had no idea at a l l what the gesture might mean and therefore took to be correct the l i t e r a l in te rpre ta t ion suggested by the back over the shoulders hand gesture — i . e . \"behind me\". Though there were momentary blackouts between ac t ions , i t was not possible to adminster the test to the above groups without stopping the tape several times. This would have to be 51 taken into consideration when tes t ing the c h i l d r e n . I t also appeared that the mult iple choices were adequately representat ive, as very few opted for the i r own wording as allowed by option f i v e . B. The se lec t ion of subjects In fol lowing the Kumin and Lazar model, i t was decided to use ch i ldren of preschool ages. This was further considered a useful age group to study for several reasons. F i r s t , the i r chances of having l i t t l e exposure to North American cul ture would be s i g n i f i c a n t l y greater than for school age c h i l d r e n . This was desirable to enhance the p o s s i b i l i t i e s of differences being d isc losed based on c u l t u r a l upbringing, between these ch i ld ren and the i r native English-speaking equivalents . Second, these classes had been organized s p e c i f i c a l l y to meet a perceived need,, namely the c u l t u r a l and l i n g u i s t i c disadvantages apparent when these chi ldren entered the school system at age f i v e . F i n a l l y , since i t i s a lso generally agreed that the early years of schooling are of primary importance in shaping c h i l d r e n ' s a t t i tudes toward schooling i t s e l f , i t seemed p a r t i c u l a r l y important to f a c i l i t a t e the i r adjustment at t h i s juncture, should the present study bring to l i g h t some s i g n i f i c a n t data. 52 The twenty ESL subjects,10 male and 10 female, were selected from several preschool programs in the Vancouver area. Their ages ranged from 43 months to 61 months; 7 were East Indian, Hindi or Punjabi speakers and 13 were Chinese, Cantonese speakers. I t i s a r e f l ec t ion of the schools ' locat ions wi th in the Vancouver area that a l l twenty ESL chi ldren were members of only these two ethnic groups. The spec i f i c contr ibutors of subjects were enrol led in ESL preschool programs at the Immigrant Resources Project preschools or the Sexsmith Demonstration Preschool. The se lec t ion of subjects involved the preschool teacher 's evaluation of each c h i l d based on the fol lowing c r i t e r i a : a. the c h i l d ' s exposure to Engl i sh language and cul ture i s minimal b. the c h i l d ' s s o c i a l development i s advanced to the point where s/he feels confident enough to go w i l l i n g l y with the researcher and t rans la tor to the t es t ing room ( i . e . away from the fami l ia r environ of the preschool classroom) c . the c h i l d i s w i l l i n g to pa r t i c ipa te in the task d. the c h i l d ' s parents consent to having the c h i l d p a r t i c i p a t e . I t had been decided to attempt to test equal numbers of boys and g i r l s . This proved eas i ly achievable because of the large number of ch i ldren a v a i l a b l e . The twenty native Engl ish speakers were a l l students at the C h i l d Study Centre in Vancouver. They were of mixed heritage but a l l spoke Engl i sh as the i r mother tongue. They were selected from the four classes at the Centre using the same c r i t e r i a as 53 for the ESL chi ldren (except that there was no need of a t r a n s l a t o r ) . They were further matched to the already tested ESL ch i ld ren by age and sex. When a c h i l d proved unwi l l ing to attempt the task, or h is /her parents were not w i l l i n g to l e t the c h i l d pa r t i c i pa t e , another c h i l d was chosen u n t i l twenty ch i ld ren had been tested. Each of the forty ch i ld ren was tested by the same researcher, with the help of a t rans la tor where the ESL chi ldren were concerned. C. Data Co l l ec t i on The adults had been t o l d with what the study concerned i t s e l f and what the task involved. This was of course not possible nor p a r t i c u l a r i l y desirable with such young c h i l d r e n . Instead a standardized patter was created by the researcher. The task was set up as a guessing game. After introductions and s e t t l i n g in the tes t ing room the. c h i l d was t o l d the fo l lowing: I'm going to show you a teacher on t h i s T .V. Her name i s Suzie . She's a teacher just l i k e ( name of c h i l d ' s teacher) . She's playing a game with her c l a s s . Do you l i k e playing games? (allow c h i l d to elaborate b r i e f l y ) This game i s a guessing game. In th i s game, she i s pretending she cannot t a lk but wants to t e l l her c lass something. She uses only ac t ions , no words. Now, l e t ' s you and me t ry t h i s game and see i f you can guess what I'm t ry ing to say with my ac t ions . I f I go l i k e t h i s (shaking head side to side) what do you think I mean? ( e l i c i t answer \"No\"; i f c h i l d seems unsure, give a second example) That 's r i g h t . I can see that you know how to play t h i s game. Now 54 l e t ' s turn on the T.V. and play the game with Suzie and her c l a s s . Are you ready? (make sure c h i l d i s a t tending, looking at T .V. ) Here's the f i r s t one. (Stop the videotape after each gesture to ask for an answer i f i t has not already been c a l l e d out. Encourage the c h i l d to make a guess. When the c h i l d does not know the answer be supportive saying that some are t r i c k y even for grownups .) (Record the answer given.) O .K . , now l e t ' s t ry the next one. (Conclude the test with encouragement, thanks for playing the game and emphasize how wel l they d i d , what good guessers they are. ) A p i l o t study of two English-speaking ch i ld ren was conducted. Several minor issues came to l i g h t . I t had never been intended that the ch i ldren should have to e i ther read the test or choose one of the mul t ip le choice options when presented with them o r a l l y . However, the researcher intended to record each c h i l d ' s answer using the mul t ip le choice format. As i t turned ou t , t h i s proved too time consuming even for the researcher who had created the t es t . I t seemed easier to simply wri te down the exact words of each c h i l d and l a te r compare these with the agreed upon answers. This was because the ch i l d r en , unl ike the adul ts , d id not tend to respond with a word or two. Rather, they would explain quite imaginat ively , and at some length, what they f e l t was occurr ing . Attempting to sum th i s up on the spot to see i f i t would f i t one of the categories of the mul t ip le choice test was perceived as leading to hasty and possibly wrong \" re t rans la t ion\" on the part of the researcher. The very young age of the subjects precluded lengthy time in te rva l s between 55 \"actions\" as they simply stopped attending to the task i f too much time elapsed. Even without pauses for lengthier t ranscr ip t ions of answers, the videotape took s ix minutes, including the momentary blackout between ac t ions . As with the adul ts , the tape nontheless had to be stopped several times to give time for responses and the recording of same. Therefore, as back-up, and to f a c i l i t a t e the smooth flow of t e s t ing , the ch i l d r en ' s answers were also recorded on cassette. The p i l o t study c l e a r l y demonstrated that the ch i ldren did indeed recognize a large number of the gestures and could interpret them. In fact , they often shouted out the answer before the act ion was ac tua l ly concluded on the videotape'. Thus a l l was in readiness for the actual t es t ing of the subjects. D. Scoring Technique and R e l i a b i l i t y The t e s t ing proceeded using the format out l ined e a r l i e r . Once each c h i l d had been sucessful ly tested, s/he was regis tered on the response sheet only by sex, age in months and ethnic o r i g i n . The t e s t s , when completed, were numbered from 1 to 40, then photocopied. One set was scored by the researcher, the other by an independent adult who had seen the videotape and taken the test himself.. He was provided with the agreed upon correct answers for those items with which he was not f a m i l i a r . Semantic equivalences were accepted. For example, for the emblem of head nodding \"Yes\", a, c h i l d ' s answer of \"She's saying i t ' s O.K. to do 56 that .\" was considered cor rec t . When the tests had been scored, they were rema.tched by number and any disagreements in scoring were examined. Indiv idual items were checked for any dif ferences . In the rare instance where no agreement between the two scorers could be reached, the conservative route was taken and the item was marked wrong. E. Presentation of Data The data co l l ec t ed were grouped by age, sex and e t h n i c i t y . E thn i c i t y was defined in two ways: the d i v i s i o n of subjects into ESL and native speaker groups and the further d i v i s i o n of the ESL group into Chinese and East Indian. The t h i r t y - s i x emblems and i l l u s t r a t o r s used in the study were considered as a whole, as i nd iv idua l items and in terms of the subset of nineteen emblems th i s study has in common with the Kumin & Lazar study. Under considerat ion was the a b i l i t y of the ch i ldren (based on age, sex and/or e thn ic i ty ) to decode these gestures. A l s o , both the group of t h i r t y - s i x and the group of nineteen were evaluated in terms of rank c o r r e l a t i o n . The presentation of the resu l t s of these analyses i s the topic of the next chapter. CHAPTER FOUR RESULTS To refresh the reader's memory, the o r i g i n a l research questions are restated below. 1. Are there s ign i f i can t differences of in te rpre ta t ion of gestures between non-English speakers and native speakers of English? 2. Is there a consistent pattern of acqu i s i t i on of gestures for e i ther group of chi ldren? 3. Which of these gestures are interpreted s i m i l a r l y or d i f f e r en t l y by the two groups of chi ldren? The forty subjects d iv ide into two equal groups, native speakers (NS) of Engl ish and non-English speakers (ESL). Subjects were also divided into age groups. The forty subjects ranged in age from 43-61 months and divided conveniently into equal groups at 53 months. Thus the younger group included a range from 41-53 months while the older group contained those aged 54-61 months. Since by far the majority of the ch i l d r en ' s ages f e l l in to the middle of the i r respective age ranges i t was considered less cumbersome to l abe l the i r age groups as age 4 and age 5 respec t ive ly . With a view to s t a t i s t i c a l ana lys i s , the f i r s t two research 58 questions were reformulated as n u l l hypotheses. For the purpose of presenting the f indings , each such hypothesis w i l l be stated below in conjunction with the resu l t s that pertain to i t . Signif icance l e v e l for the hypotheses i s set at p=.05. Hypothesis 1 The f i r s t question as a n u l l hypothesis reads as fol lows: No s ign i f i can t \"differences in score w i l l be found with respect to age, sex or e t h n i c i t y . E thn ic i ty in t h i s case refers to the c u l t u r a l / l i n g u i s t i c membership to which the two groups of t h i s study loosely belong, i . e . native speaker (NS) or non-English speaker (ESL). Using the raw scores of a l l forty subjects a simple l i n e graph was constructed as shown in Figure 1. Figure 1. F r e q u e n c y 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Graph of Total Scores 8 - 1 0 1 1 - 1 3 14 -Score 60 Scores ranged from ten correct out of th i r ty - . s ix to a high score of twenty-seven. As.the graph c l e a r l y shows the ESL group received the bulk of the lower scores while the native speakers scored considerably higher. To explore the differences further an analys is of variance was performed. To allow for a f a c t o r i a l design with a l l factors crossed, the forty subjects were divided into equal groups based on sex, age and e thn i c i t y (ESL vs NS). The resul t s of the analys is of variance are l i s t e d in Table I I I . Table I I I Analys is of variance for Emblem/Illustrator Task Performance SOURCE SS df MS F P A (age) 58.2015 1 58.2015 4. 25 .0474* B (sex) 3.3811 1 3.3811 0. 25 .6226 C (e thn ic i ty ) 439.1920 1 439.1920 32. 08 .0000* AB 46.5185 1 46.5185 3. 40 .0.746 AC 11.0587 1 11.0587 0. 81 .3755 BC 16.2383 1 16.2383 1 . 19 .2843 ABC 5.0900 1 5.0900 0. 37 .5463 Error 438.1167 32 13.6911 Total 1017.7968 KEY a = = age B = sex = s igni f icance at C = P=-ethnic i t y 05 or better 61 Table III shows that age i s a s i gn i f i c an t factor but sex i s not. As the graph above demonstrated, e thn ic i ty in t h i s analys is was a s i gn i f i c an t factor ( in fact , at far above p=.0l). Therefore the f i r s t hypothesis, that there i s no s i gn i f i c an t difference in score based on age, sex or e thn i c i t y i s upheld with respect to sex, but should be rejected with respect to age and e t h n i c i t y . r Hypothesis 2 The second question wri t ten as a hypothesis postulates: There w i l l be no s ign i f i can t co r re l a t ion between the rank orders of in te rpre ta t ion scores for the native speaker and non-English speaker groups. F i r s t , a l l t o t a l scores were converted to rank scores with respect to age and e thn ic i t y as Table IV shows. The sex factor , having proven i n s i g n i f i c a n t in the analys is of variance, was not considered here. 62 Table IV Rank scores of groups based on age and e thn ic i t y Emblem or I l l u s t r a t o r NS ESL I JS E< IL 4 y r . 5 y r . 4 y r . 5 y r . Yes 2.5 5.5 4.0 4.5 5.5 7.0 I don't know 2.5 8.5 4.0 4.5 12.0 2.5 No 2.5 2.5 4.0 4.5 5.5 2.5 I'm cold 2.5 1 .0 4.0 4.5 1 .0 7.0 I'm a f ra id 6.0 5.5 4.0 10.5 8.5 2.5 Quiet 6.0 5.5 9.5 4.5 5.5 7.0 I'm t i r e d 6.0 2.5 4.0 10.5 2.5 7.0 Don't do that 10.5 11.0 4.0 14.5 8.5 11.0 I'm sad 10.5 8.5 9.5 10.5 12.0 2.5 Me 10.5 12.5 13.5 4.5 12.0 11.0 Come here 10.5 5.5 13.5 4.5 5.5 7.0 I'm happy 10.5 15.0 13.5 4.5 12.0 18.5 Goodbye I t ' s too loud 10.5 16.0 9.5 10.5 .15.5 18.5 14.5 12.5 9.5 14.5 12.0 11.0 Stop 14.5 17.5 16.5 4.5 19.0 16.0 Tastes good (yummy) 16.0 22.0 13.5 14.5 19.0 27.0 S i t down 17.0 19.5 16.5 14.5 19.0 22.0 I'm hot 18.0 10.0 18.5 18.0 2.5 13.0 Go away 19.0 24.5 18.5 21 .5 26.5 22.0 You 21 .0 31 .0 20.5 21.5 26.5 33.5 That 's good(well done) 21.0 19.5 22.5 18.0 23.0 18.5 Get up 21 .0 22.0 20.5 21 .5 19.0 27.0 Over there 23.0 24.5 22.5 21 .5 32.5 18.5 I t smells bad 24.0 14.0 25.5 18.0 15.5 14.5 I'm angry 25.0 31.0 25.5 24.0 32.5 27.0 What time i s i t ? 26.0 17.5 25.5 26.5 23.0 14.5 O.K. 27.5 31.0 29.0 26.5 32.5 27.0 Big and round 27.5 27.5 25.5 29.5 23.0 33.5 Louder(can't hear you) 30.0 27.5 33.5 26.5 26.5 27.0 Hel lo 30.0 27.5 33.5 26.5 26.5 27.0 L i s ten 30.0 22.0 29.0 29.5 19.0 27.0 Everybody I don't bel ieve i t 32.0 27.5 29.0 32.5 32.5 22.0 (surprise) 34.0 34.5 33.5 32.5 32.5 33.5 L e t ' s think about i t 34.0 34.5 33.5 32.5 32.5 33.5 Well—sort of 34.0 34.0 33.5 32.5 32.5 33.5 Past tense 36.0 34.5 33.5 36.0 32.5 33.5 63 Second, a Spearman's rho rank cor re la t ion coef f i c ien t was computed for pai r combinations with the fol lowing r e su l t s . Table V Spearman's rho rank cor re la t ion of rank scores for selected groups GROUPS rho P NS + ESL o.843 .01 NS (4yr) + NS (5yr) 0.928 .01 ESL(4yr) + ESL (5yr) 0.872 .01 NS (4yr) + ESL (4yr) 0.834 .01 NS (5yr) + ESL (5yr) 0.767 .01 KEY: NS ESL = native speaker = non-English speaker What the table indicates i s a high rank co r r e l a t i on for a l l groupings both within-groups and between-groups, regardless of which of the two c r i t e r a for group membership used(age or e t h n i c i t y ) . For i n t e r e s t ' s sake the ESL group was further d ivided into i t s two ethnic groups, Chinese and East Indian. Though these groups are smal l , th i r teen and seven respec t ive ly , and the findings must therefore be treated with appropriate caut ion, i t i s noteworthy that a l l pai r combinations here y ie lded the same 64 high co r re la t ion in rank order as was found with the larger groups. F i n a l l y , i t was decided to further test these findings by comparing the native speaker group of t h i s study with another native speaker study group, the Kumin & Lazar (1974) study. This could thus serve as a model of the decoding a b i l i t y of North American, Caucasian, middle c lass Engl ish speakers. Nineteen of the t h i r t y - s i x gestures used in th i s study matched those used by Kumin & Lazar. These nineteen ges tures (a l l emblems) and the i r rank scores are l i s t e d in Table VI below. For further comparison, the ESL group of th i s study was also ranked with the native speaker groups of both s tudies . 65 Table VI Rank scores for emblems common to both studies Emblem K & L NS ESL Quiet 1 .0 5.5 5.0 No 2.0 2.5 2.5 Hel lo 3.0 18.5 17.5 Yes 4.5 2.5 5.0 Come here 6.0 8.0 5.0 Naughty(don't do that) 9.5 8.0 9.0 Goodbye 4.5 8.0 12.0 I'm t i r e d 7.0 5.5 2.5 Stop 8.0 10.5 13.5 Get up 9.5 14.0 15.5 I'm cold 12.0 2.5 1.0 Tastes good(yummy) 13.0 12.0 15.5 Too loud 11.0 10.5 10.0 It smells bad 14.0 15.0 11.0 Louder(can't hear you) 15.0 18.5 17.5 I don't know 17.5 2.5 7.0 I'm hot 17.5 13.0 8.0 O.K. 16.0 17.0 19.0 What time i s i t ? 19.0 16.0 13.5 KEY: K & L = Kumin & Lazar group NS = native speakers ( th is study) ESL = non-English speakers(this study) A Spearman's rho rank co r re l a t ion coe f f i c i en t computed for the two native speaker groups proved s ign i f i c an t at p=.05 with a rho of 0.405. The co r re l a t ion between the Kumin & Lazar study group and the ESL speakers of the present study was also s ign i f i can t at p=.05 with a rho of 0.683. The continued high co r re l a t ion even across studies indicates c l e a r l y that the hypothesis that there i s no s i gn i f i c an t co r r e l a t i on between the rank orders of in te rpre ta t ion scores for native speaker and ESL groups should be rejected. 66 Further Findings Noting that the age groups of the Kumin & Lazar study overlapped and extended the age groups of the present study, i t was considered of relevant in teres t to compare the age related resu l t s of the decoding a b i l i t y of the Kumin & Lazar study group with the native speaker group in the present study. For th i s purpose the percent scores are tabulated in Table V I I . 67 Table VII Percent scores for emblems common to both studies Emblem Kumin & Lazar Helmer • (NS) age 3 age 4 age 4 age 5 No 93 100 100 100 Quiet 100 100 90 100 Hel lo 93 93 0 30 Yes 79 100 100 100 Come here 79 93 80 1 00 Naughty(don't do that) 79 71 100 80 Goodbye I'm t i red 79 100 90 90 71 93 100 90 Stop I'm cold 64 93 70 100 50 86 100 100 Get up 57 93 50 60 Tastes good(yummy) 43 64 80 80 Too l o u d u won't l i s t e n ) 43 100 90 80 I t smells bad 36 57 20 70 Louder(can't hear you) 29 57 0 30 I don't know 1 4 43 1 00 1 00 I*m hot 1 4 43 60 70 O.K. 7 57 10 30 What time i s i t ? 0 0 20 30 Mean Score (%) 55 76 66 76 KEY: NS = native speaker As expected the percent scores again demonstrate the s i m i l a r i t y in scores for both studies as wel l as the trend for the older ch i ld ren to score higher than the younger ones. The t h i r d research question, concerning s i m i l a r i t i e s and differences of in te rpre ta t ion of gestures between the two larger groups of the present study, can best be discussed by simply s c r u t i n i z i n g the scores obtained. Table VIII summarizes the i n i t i a l t e s t ing resu l t s converted to percent scores. 68 Table VIII Percent scores for a l l t h i r t y - s i x Emblems and I l l u s t r a t o r s Emblem or I l l u s t r a t o r Native £ Speaker ESL Sp« jaker age 4 age 5 age 4 age 5 Yes 1 00 100 80 90 Quiet 90 100 80 90 It smells bad c 20 70 50 50 No . 100 100 80 100 L e t ' s think about i t 0 1 0 0 0 Louder(can't hear you) 0 30 10 10 O.K. 10 30 0 10 Lis ten 10 20 30 1 0 Hel lo 0 30 10 10 You 50 60 10 0 Get up 50 60 30 1 0 I don't bel ieve i t 0 10 0 0 (surprise) Goodbye 90 90 50 30 Me 80 100 60 70 S i t down 70 80 30 20 What time i s i t ? 20 30 20 50 Everybody 10 1 0 0 20 Big and round 20 20 20 0 Over there 40 60 0 30 Past tense 0 0 0 0 That 's good(well done) 40 70 20 30 Stop 70 100 30 40 Go away 60 60 10 20 I'm sad 90 90 60 100 I'm a f ra id 100 . 90 70 100 Come here 80 100 80 90 I ' in angry Don't do that 20 50 0 1 0 100 80 70 70 I'm happy I don't know 80 100 60 30 100 100 60 100 I'm cold 100 100 100 90 Well—sort of 0 10 0 0 I'm hot 60 70 90 60 I t ' s too loud 90 80 60 70 I'm t i r e d 100 90 90 90 Tastes good(yummy) 80 80 30 10 69 These data indicate a number of trends as out l ined below: 1. There are several gestures that are interpreted equally wel l by both groups, that i s , 75% accuracy or greater. These are: QUIET I 'M TIRED COME HERE I 'M SAD I DON'T KNOW I 'M AFRAID I 'M COLD 2. There are a lso a number of gestures that neither group interpreted w e l l , that i s , 25% accuracy or l e s s . These are: LET'S THINK ABOUT IT HELLO LOUDER(CAN'T HEAR YOU) EVERYBODY O.K. BIG AND ROUND LISTEN PAST TENSE I DON'T BELIEVE IT (SURPRISE) 3. The gestures that seemed to discr iminate wel l between the two groups are: YOU GO AWAY GET UP I 'M ANGRY GOODBYE I 'M HAPPY SIT DOWN I 'M HOT OVER THERE TASTES GOOD (YUMMY) STOP Therefore in terms of the t h i r d research question we can d e f i n i t e l y state that there are d i s t i n c t differences between the two groups (ESL vs NS) in terms of the i r a b i l i t y to decode the 70 gestures of t h i s study. In conclusion, the general parameters of the findings of th i s study can be summarized as fo l lows: 1. There are s ign i f i can t differences of in terpre ta t ion of gestures (emblems and i l l u s t r a t o r s ) between ESL speakers and native speakers of Eng l i sh . Age also i s a s i gn i f i c an t fac tor . 2. There seems to be a de f in i t e ordering, a rank co r re l a t ion of the gestures known with respect to age and e t h n i c i t y . 3. While there are some gestures that both groups decoded in a s imi l a r way, there are also a number of gestures which d e f i n i t e l y discr iminate between the two groups with respect to e t h n i c i t y . Further comment and discussion of these data follow in the next and las t chapter of t h i s presentat ion. 71 CHAPTER FIVE DISCUSSION, CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS I Comparison with the Kumin & Lazar study In part due to the sca rc i ty of relevant s tudies , i t was decided to model the present study as far as possible on the Kumin & Lazar study. Since the resul ts have proven to be s imi l a r i t increases confidence in the further findings of th i s study. The analys is of variance shown in Table III (see Chapter Four ) indicates s imi l a r resul ts to that of the Kumin & Lazar study: age i s a s i gn i f i c an t factor in a b i l i t y to decode, while sex i s not. For convenience in the rest of th i s d iscuss ion , the Kumin & Lazar study w i l l be referred to as the o ld study while the present study w i l l be c a l l e d the new study. From t h i s general iza t ion the new study departs from the o l d . Instead of channel (encode and decode), the new study divided the subjects as native speakers of Engl i sh and ESL speakers. A very strong main effect was found to re la te to t h i s ethnic d i v i s i o n ( p=.0l) leading to the possible conclusion that native speakers are acquainted with more gestures common to the i r cul ture than are the i r non-English-speaking counterparts. Such a conclusion i s c e r t a in ly borne out by the l i t e r a t u r e c i t e d e a r l i e r which assures us that nonverbal communication i s cul ture s p e c i f i c . Considering that the age groups in both studies exhibi ted s ign i f i c an t differences in decoding a b i l i t y , i t was decided to proceed one step further by doing a Spearman's rho rank 72 co r re l a t ion c o e f f i c i e n t . For t h i s purpose only the 19 emblems both studies had in common were used. These emblems and the i r corresponding percent i le scores were out l ined in Table V I I . The s i m i l a r i t y in scores as wel l as the almost universa l trend for the \"older\" group to do better than the \"younger\" i s p l a i n even at t h i s l e v e l of computation. This brings up the in te res t ing p o s s i b i l i t y that what we are looking at i s part of a developmental a cqu i s i t i on pattern s imi l a r to that found in the verbal domain. The mean scores (%) of the four groups of Table V I I , however do not present evidence towards th i s \"developmental acqu i s i t i on theory\". Both studies show that the older ch i ldren do s i g n i f i c a n t l y better than the younger ones. One could surmise from th i s that , since the younger group of the new study i s older than the younger group of the o ld study, the i r mean score should be higher, which indeed i t i s (compare 55% to 66%). Thus the difference could be a t t r ibu ted to development. However, based on th i s log ic the older group of the new study should score higher than the older group of the Kumin & Lazar study;they are on average one year older than the Kumin & Lazar group. This i s not the case. Why the older group of the new study has a mean score i d e n t i c a l to that of the older Kumin & Lazar group remains a matter for further explora t ion . I t i s , however, not too farfetched to suppose there i s less of a difference in acqu i s i t i on between age 4 and 5 than there i s between age 3 and 4. Weeks (1979) hints at t h i s p o s s i b i l i t y and p r a c t i c a l experience with ch i ldren in t h i s age group points out the verbal 73 p a r a l l e l . There i s a tremendous difference in verbal a b i l i t y between a three year o ld and a f ive year o l d , while the difference i s not nearly so dramatic between ages 4 and 5. Also of note are the three g la r ing discrepancies in score between the o ld study and the new. The emblems HELLO, LOUDER and I DON'T KNOW were decoded with r a d i c a l l y d i f ferent success by these two study groups. The enactment of HELLO in the new study might be in question because the adults who va l ida ted the gestures also had a great deal of d i f f i c u l t y with t h i s emblem. There i s no easy explanation for the other two, however. The rank scores (Table VI) bear out these discrepancies but nontheless show a s ign i f i can t o v e r a l l c o r r e l a t i o n . II The Present Study Before discussing the impl ica t ions , both theo re t i ca l and p r a c t i c a l , of the findings of t h i s study, the resu l t s and possible conclusions implied are b r i e f l y reviewed here. F i r s t , the resu l t s of the analys is of variance (Table I I I ) indicated a moderate effect for age (p=.05) and a very strong effect with respect to e thn i c i t y (p=.0l) . As the reader w i l l r e c a l l , t h i s l a t t e r refers to the c u l t u r a l / l i n g u i s t i c difference between the two major study groups (ESL and NS). The stage i s thus set for concluding that both e thn ic i t y and age are factors in the in terpre ta t ion of gestures of a given c u l t u r a l group. Second, the Spearman's rho rank co r re l a t ion c o e f f i c i e n t , un ive r sa l ly high for a l l groupings (p=.0l) , seems to indicate 74 that a developmental acqu i s i t i on pattern in the decoding of gestures i s a de f in i t e p o s s i b i l i t y . Th i rd , there are some de f in i t e s i m i l a r i t i e s and differences in in te rpre ta t ion between the two groups based on e t h n i c i t y . As may be reca l l ed there were nine gestures, a l l emblems, which both groups interpreted w e l l : YES, QUIET, NO, COME HERE, I DON'T KNOW, I 'M SAD, I 'M AFRAID, I 'M COLD and I 'M TIRED. According to Ekman (1983) these f i t into the categories of emblems found to ex i s t in a l l cul tures studied, though not necessar i ly performed in the same way. I t can be supposed then, that the performance of these nine items must be s imi l a r enough for the subjects of t h i s study to guess at the i r intended meanings. Furthermore, research bears out the c ro s s - cu l t u r a l s i m i l a r i t i e s of expression of emotion, into which category the l a s t four emblems l i s t e d f i t . The other side of the coin i s items on which neither group did w e l l . I t i s consistent with the research that a l l three i l l u s t r a t o r s included in the study (EVERYBODY, BIG AND ROUND, PAST TENSE) f a l l into t h i s category. I l l u s t r a t o r s , the reader w i l l r e c a l l , generally accompany speech, are not p a r t i c u l a r i l y conventionalized and therefore are free to vary from one performance to the next. If performance i s so va r i ab le , i t stands to reason that no given performance can be guaranteed to t r igger a spec i f i c in te rp re ta t ion . The biggest discrepancies in in terpre ta t ion between the two groups occurred with eleven gestures. Of these GOODBYE and STOP are of pa r t i cu l a r interest in t h i s context because the former i s known to be very cu l tu re - spec i f i c while the l a t t e r , considered 75 an almost universa l t r a f f i c s ignal in large c i t i e s , i s not common in other settings—except in schools. One could surmise that the school s o c i a l i z a t i o n of preschoolers may wel l not have extended to t h i s emblem yet . The tangent ia l question that a r i ses here concerns which study subjects were l i k e l y to guess co r rec t ly the more d i f f i c u l t questions. A perusal of the raw scores for i nd iv idua l gestures points out that the high scorers, almost exc lus ive ly the native speaker group, were the ones who co r rec t ly decoded the more d i f f i c u l t items, while the low scorers co r rec t ly decoded almost none of them. The f i n a l sect ion of th i s thes is seeks to c o l l a t e the findings of t h i s study with previous research and theory in an effor t to re la te i t to both further theore t i ca l work and p r a c t i c a l , r e a l i s t i c use, e spec ia l ly in the classroom. I l l Drawing Conclusions and What They Imply Hesl in and Patterson (1982) state that cul ture i s one of the three key subject var iables (along with sex and personal i ty) that i s d i f f i c u l t to manipulate in research, so much so that \"even though we might f ind differences in terms of one of these dimensions, we cannot a t t r ibu te the cause for those differences to that dimension.\" (p. 116) The reason simply i s that ind iv idua l s selected for that pa r t i cu l a r var iab le are very l i k e l y to be d i f ferent in terms of a host of other var iables as w e l l , any of which could contribute to the true reason for the 76 demonstrated dif ference. So for instance, with the cul ture (ethnic) var iable of th i s study, the difference that analysis (or even raw scores) c l e a r l y shows could be due to differences in educational opportuni t ies , exposure to t e l e v i s i o n , soc io-economic status, in terac t ion experience, c r o s s - c u l t u r a l experience or innumerable other factors . In fact the same could be said of the other factors considered here, age and sex. Nontheless th i s study has proceeded because i t can provide valuable opportunit ies and information, in short , progress in the understanding of i nd iv idua l and group di f ferences . Therefore, with the above cautions in mind, the possible conclusions and impl icat ions generated from t h i s undertaking are set out here in terms of the i r po ten t ia l in guiding teacher/student in t e rac t ion , teacher t r a in ing and future research in t h i s area. A. Theoret ical Implications This study i s c l a s s i f i e d as ex post facto research and as such, by d e f i n i t i o n has not introduced the \"treatment\" that makes one group dif ferent from another (Borg & Gal l ,1979) . That i s , t h i s design, a lso known as the causal-comparative method, does not allow i t s user to declare that condi t ion X, in t h i s case the differences in in te rpre ta t ion between native speakers and ESL speakers, i s due to factor Y, in t h i s instance, cu l tu re . Since cul ture was e a r l i e r defined as everything man has learned to do, t h i s var iable was con t ro l led as far as was 77 feasible in terms of what the subjects had not learned to do, namely speak and interact in Eng l i sh . The l i t e r a t u r e review amply c l a r i f i e d the intimacy of the l i n k between the verbal and nonverbal components of communication, leading to the l o g i c a l leap on which th i s study i s based: Non-English speaking chi ldren w i l l not know the \"Engl ish\" nonverbal behaviours i f they do not know the ve rba l . On the other hand, the studies c i t e d e a r l i e r that deal with young c h i l d r e n , c l e a r l y demonstrate that such youngsters do have a repertoire of nonverbal behaviours, can decode and encode them, and re ly on them more heavi ly than do adul ts , to interpret messages. I t takes only another small i n t u i t i v e leap to see that these young ch i ldren who do not speak Engl ish verba l ly or nonverbally, must have a functioning nonverbal reper toire to go with the language they do speak. There was ce r t a in ly no hes i ta t ion on the part of the ESL subjects in t h i s study to volunteer in te rpre ta t ions . Despite some shyness because of the a l i e n s i t u a t i o n , they seemed to take the tes t ing s i tua t ion as a learning task, often spontaneously copying the act ion just witnessed even i f they d idn ' t appear to know i t s North American in te rp re ta t ion . In fact , at times the i r mimicry of subtle nuances was so accurate that i t led the researcher to wonder i f perhaps they d id know the correct in te rpre ta t ion but for some reason could not or would not transmit i t verba l ly v i a the t r ans la to r . The fact that a t rans la tor had to be used, of course, could also have served to skew the f indings somewhat. Therefore, in 78 theory, l i t t l e can be assumed but much food for thought with the prospect of further inves t iga t ion has been generated with these f indings. The resul t of the ana lys i s , a highly s ign i f i can t difference of in te rpre ta t ion by the two groups, must be treated with appropriate caution though both research and p r a c t i c a l experience give every reason to believe that cul ture does indeed make a great deal of difference in nonverbal communication behaviour. Further, the fact that both groups were fami l ia r with gestures per se and that the ch i ldren were quite aware that these gestures \"mean \" things, f i t s with the research done by Kumin & Lazar as wel l as many others, for example Michael & W i l l i s (1968), A i e l l o & Jones (1971) and Evans & Rubin (1979). Such s imi l a r f indings a lso allow for the very cautious genera l iza t ion that the same may be true of a l l young c h i l d r e n . F i n a l l y , the further manipulation of the data to obtain rank co r re l a t ion coe f f i c i en t s y ie lded very promising r e s u l t s . I t has been establ ished that a l l ch i ld ren go through d e f i n i t i v e stages in acquir ing language, from babbling, through holophrast ic and two-word sentences to telegraphic and f i n a l l y a d u l t - l i k e speech (Fromkin & Rodman,1978). Considering that ch i ldren acquire nonverbal communication s t ra tegies even before the verba l , i t i s reasonable to conjecture that there may be a s imi l a r acqu i s i t i on pat tern, as yet undocumented, in the nonverbal domain. L i t t l e research has been done in pursuit of such acqu i s i t i on patterns but the high co r re l a t ion coe f f i c i en t s of th i s study point out the i n t r i gu ing 79 p o s s i b i l i t i e s in th i s area. B. P r a c t i c a l Implications Argyle (1975) considers one reason that there are r a c i a l problems in countries where there are minority cu l tu res , i s the fact that the minor i t ies are d i s l i k e d \"because members of the majority cul tures cannot understand the minori ty group's non-verbal behaviour.\" (p.96) Why pick on th i s pa r t i cu l a r aspect of c u l t u r a l difference? The reason i s that so much of nonverbal communication occurs below the l e v e l of conscious awareness. This resu l t s in fee l ing i l l at ease or d i s l i k i n g someone without r e a l l y knowing why because not only do people speak in d i f ferent languages but they \"converse\" with di f ferent bodies. The present study has sought to point t h i s out, the impl ica t ion being that teachers of minori ty ch i ld ren and espec ia l ly ESL chi ldren need to know th i s difference ex i s t s before they can endeavour to act upon that information. And how can they act? They can proceed in three ways. F i r s t , knowing there are differences , teachers can make a conscious effor t to not jump to conclusions about the i r students' behaviour. 'He just ignored me when I motioned him to s i t down. He's rude and uncooperative. ' Further, they can save themselves and the i r students a l o t of pain by not t ry ing to force the learners into a \"normal\" behaviour mode, l i k e a coat that doesn't f i t , which i s in 80 r e a l i t y only one cu l tu r e ' s (the teacher 's) version of what i s \"normal\". This i s not to deny the fact that the teacher as part of teaching communicative competence should s p e c i f i c a l l y teach appropriate nonverbal behaviours, but rather to point out that these behaviours are appropriate with th i s language in th i s context. No c u l t u r a l behaviour i s inherently wrong but i t may be contraindicated in a given se t t ing in a given language. Second, teachers can u t i l i z e the b i t s of p r a c t i c a l information gleaned from studies such as th i s to modify the i r classroom behaviour. Knowing that cer ta in gestures t y p i c a l l y used in the classroom are eas i ly understood even by ESL speakers, teachers can set out to use them more de l ibe ra te ly than before. By the same token, knowledge of gestures that are not understood c r o s s - c u l t u r a l l y should serve to curb the i r classroom use to avoid confusion, mistrust and other forms of misunderstanding. Unfortunately, what sounds good in theory i s not always re la ted to p rac t i ce . Take, for example, the back over the shoulders hand gesture that i s used by many ESL teachers to exemplify the past tense. Granted, i t i s d i f f i c u l t to convey th i s concept with only words, e spec ia l ly when those words are not yet understood too w e l l , but the prevalent use of t h i s gesture in ESL classrooms i s not an accurate indica tor of i t s universa l unders tandabi l i ty . On the contrary, i t i s we l l known that many cul tures do not consider the past as being behind them, rather i t i s the future that i s located there because, as they see i t , we know our past and therefore can metaphorically see i t before us, but we cannot 81 see our future. Yet th i s gesture (an i l l u s t r a t o r ) was included in t h i s study prec i se ly because the ESL teachers surveyed in s i s t ed on i t s frequent use. Not a s ingle subject in the study, ESL and native speaker a l i k e , had any idea of i t s intended meaning. Thi rd , knowing that even young ch i ld ren have acquired quite a large reper toire of gestures and are adept at decoding them, teachers can use th i s f a c i l i t y of the ch i ld ren to have them act r -as peer tu tors , e spec ia l ly for the newcomers from the minori ty groups. Studies c i t e d e a r l i e r show that not only w i l l t h i s help make the new students feel more at ease with the i r s i tua t ion but a lso that ch i ld ren are better in terpreters of nonverbal behaviour than are adul t s . This a b i l i t y implies that a peer tutor w i l l be more l i k e l y to \"see\" incomprehension and confusion on the part of the newcomer than w i l l the teacher. In terms of teacher t r a i n i n g , studies such as t h i s should reinforce the ever growing need for teachers to have more awareness and t r a in ing in c ro s s - cu l t u r a l communication. Pennycock (1985) puts i t w e l l , being ce r ta in that teachers so t ra ined w i l l be better teachers because \"they w i l l increase the i r s k i l l s as d i rec tors of classroom behaviour; they w i l l be better equipped to interpret student messages, which i s e spec ia l ly s i gn i f i c an t when those students come from dif ferent c u l t u r a l backgrounds; they w i l l help the i r students become more c u l t u r a l l y aware; and they w i l l be more able to f a c i l i t a t e the acqu i s i t i on of C2 (second cul ture) in the i r students.\" (p. 277) In short , the common denominator with respect to the teaching of students of other cul tures i s that the teacher can 82 misread the nonverbal communication of the students with r e su l t ing incorrect inferences being drawn about the students in terms of the i r a t t i tudes and a b i l i t i e s . This can be a cos t ly mistake, cos t ly for the student because, as the research makes c l ea r , students w i l l l i v e up to or , in th i s case, down to the i r teachers' expectations. To avoid such a v ic ious cycle the onus i s on the teacher to be more aware and seek t r a in ing in cross-c u l t u r a l differences where necessary. The reward i s that both the teaching and learning processes w i l l be enhanced. C. Suggestions for further research This study has, as mentioned e a r l i e r , generated as many questions as answers. In such a new and l i t t l e explored f i e l d a l l avenues lead to new f indings . I t i s in te res t ing to observe that , based on the resu l t s of th i s study, some gestures of North American cul ture are s i m i l a r l y decoded by other cu l tu res . This would need r e p l i c a t i n g to assure i t s r e l i a b i l i t y . On the other hand, past studies seem to c l e a r l y indicate that the primary emotions of happiness, sadness, fear, surpr ise , anger and disgust are pancul tural un iversa l s . Yet , two of these (anger, happiness) were not wel l decoded by a l l the subjects. Of course the faul t may simply l i e with the encoder. Those two gestures were, in fac t , part of the group of gestures that discr iminated best between the two groups, native speaker and ESL speaker. Therefore i t seems in order that they a l l be invest igated further to determine which 83 t r u l y are d iscr iminators between the groups or i f one or several of the l i m i t a t i o n s of t h i s study has confouded the r e su l t s . Methodological considerations complicate th i s issue further . I t may be, for instance, that simply g iv ing more contextual information would f a c i l i t a t e decoding. Furthermore, whether these gestures in p a r t i c u l a r , or any others of th i s study, are associated with spec i f i c set t ings (school, home, playground, t e l e v i s i o n , e tc . ) i s not c l e a r . One avenue for research in t h i s regard would be to attempt to create a l i s t of gestures which seeks to l i n k the acqu i s i t i on of gestures with spec i f i c contexts. What must also be remembered i s that th i s study i s based so le ly on the North American in te rpre ta t ion of the gestures employed. No attempt has been made to assess the how and what of a l ternate in te rpre ta t ions . Here again several po ten t ia l studies come to mind: 1. Are ESL students as p ro f ic ien t at encoding these gestures as native speakers? 2. Would the resu l t s of t h i s study be dif ferent i f an ESL learner had been the encoder on the videotape? 3. Would c u l t u r a l l y d i f ferent groups of ch i ldren be better able to decode these t h i r t y - s i x gestures i f the encoder were a c h i l d , whether native speaker or ESL? In reviewing t h i s study in terms of r e p l i c a t i n g or improving, the fol lowing areas deserve considerat ion: 1. Some attempt should be made to cont ro l the s o c i a l i z a t i o n of the c h i l d r e n . The more re t icent ones may know as much but be less able to deal with the a l i e n in te rac t ion s i t u a t i o n . 84 2. Attent ion span may influence the r e su l t s . Despite keeping the tes t ing time down to a minimum, some youngsters stopped attending at i n t e r v a l s . Furthermore, the constant reminding to attend may influence the r e su l t s . Therefore an attempt to cont ro l these factors could resul t in a d i f ferent outcome. 3. The socio-economic backgrounds of the ch i ldren may affect r e s u l t s . The native speakers of t h i s study were a l l from middle c lass or above backgrounds while the ESL speakers ha i led for the most part from working c lass neighbourhoods. An attempt to cont ro l t h i s type of c u l t u r a l background in study subjects should be made. 4. There i s no explanation as to why the f ive year olds of th i s study did not do better than the four year olds of the Kumin & Lazar study. A study with mul t ip le age groups could attempt to elucidate th i s matter. Extending th i s study ei ther l ong i tud ina l l y or c ross - sec t iona l ly could a lso prove of benefit in determining i f developmental a cqu i s i t i on patterns do e x i s t . 5. The spec i f i c var iables of the tes t ing s i t ua t ion in th i s study also deserve further sc ru t iny . As queried in the recommendations above, how would the resul ts d i f f e r i f a l i v e performance were used instead of a videotape, a c h i l d was the encoder instead of an adul t , an encoder of a minority group were used instead of one of a North American background, the t o t a l context of the s i t ua t ion were ava i lab le instead of the l i m i t e d version used here? In reference to point four above, i t must be remembered that very l i t t l e i s known about nonverbal a cqu i s i t i on outside of North America. The few s tud ie s . c i t ed here demonstrate an ear ly 85 acqu i s i t i on of nonverbal behaviours for North American ch i ld r en . This study has suggested the p o s s i b i l i t y of an acqu i s i t i on pattern for both native speakers of Engl ish and non-English speakers, but we cannot assume that young ch i ldren in other cul tures acquire s imi la r nonverbal knowledge or acquire i t in s imi l a r pat terns. I t would require much further inves t iga t ion to e s t ab l i sh the p o s s i b i l i t y of a d e f i n i t i v e repertoire of behaviours l inked to development in th i s cu l tu re , l e t alone in other cul ture groups. And what of other cul ture groups? It i s necessary f i r s t to i n i t i a t e studies that look s p e c i f i c a l l y at the acqu i s i t i on of gestures of other c u l t u r a l groups: how, when and in what context they are acquired and how they are decoded and encoded. Only then can research go forward to compare and contrast the in terpre ta t ion of gestures across cu l tu res . F i n a l l y , the underlying theme of th i s study has been the promotion of communication as a whole within the classroom se t t i ng . Studies should be conducted to determine whether the use of gestures does in fact enhace comprehension and communication. Despite the methodological d i f f i c u l t i e s ou t l ined , much of value to both student and teacher s t i l l waits to be d i sc losed . D. Clos ing Remarks Both teacher and student bring the i r s o c i a l values, norms and expectations to the teaching/ learning s i t u a t i o n . These are 86 to a s i gn i f i c an t extent conveyed v i a nonverbal communication. I t i s unfortunate, but true, that by far the majority of teachers in the publ ic school system s t i l l h a i l from the dominant middle c l a s s , Caucasian, English-speaking cul ture of Canada, while more and more of the i r students come from a m u l t i p l i c i t y of c u l t u r a l and ethnic backgrounds. The days of typ i fy ing \"the problem kids\" as those from the proverbia l wrong side of the t racks , while not e n t i r e l y gone, are g iv ing way to a more enlightened approach to the \"disadvantaged\" backgrounds of these students. S t i l l , the term disadvantaged i t s e l f implies that what the learners of the dominant s o c i a l group have i s somehow better or \"normal\". This s i m p l i s t i c summation of a highly complex problem i s one that a l l teachers should quest ion. The nonverbal i s not only a systematic part of the t o t a l act of communication but also a learned, culture-based set of behaviours. Therefore we are r e a l l y dealing with that somewhat nebulous and a l l encompassing concept \" cu l t u r a l d i f ferences .\" This study has sought to shed some small i l l umina t ion on one aspect of \" c u l t u r a l differences\" , the in terpre ta t ion of emblems and i l l u s t r a t o r s . I t has long been assumed that nonverbal communication i s \"natural\" and that one does not have to learn how to communicate fee l ings , use gestures to i l l u s t r a t e conversation and the l i k e . Yet i t i s now abundantly c lear that we know these things and have learned them in a spec i f i c c u l t u r a l framework. Furthermore, cu l t u r e - spec i f i c behaviour can lead to serious misunderstanding when members of two di f ferent cu l tu res , even though they speak the same language, t ry to i n t e rac t . 87 Since the f i r s t glimmer of in teres t in the value of nonverbal communication in education some twenty years ago, a great deal of useful information has been generated. However, the ethnic composition of classrooms has changed dramatical ly in that time and the research has not accurately ref lec ted that di f ference, rather i t has been la rge ly ignored. With a m u l t i c u l t u r a l po l i cy in place, the presently burgeoning interest in the c ros s - cu l tu ra l aspect of communication i s hardly su rp r i s ing . I t i s known that s o c i a l c l a s s , sex, race and/or ethnic difference serve as d i sc r imina t ing factors in schools because of the differences in c u l t u r a l expectations wi thin a school system that has been set up by the dominant c u l t u r a l group (Galloway,1984). Not nearly enough i s known to enable teachers and students to avoid misleading each other to the i r own detriment as ind iv idua l s and as teachers/ learners . This study has made a small cont r ibut ion in terms of knowledge, the sort of knowledge that w i l l hopefully help f a c i l i t a t e in te rac t ion and communication among c u l t u r a l groups in the classroom, espec ia l ly the teacher-student.dyad. For i f there i s not good communication, there i s , at best, haphazard l ea rn ing . P a r t i c i p a t i o n i s not excluded, learning does take place, but at what cost to the learner? 88 BIBLIOGRAPHY Adams,R.S. & B i d d l e , B . 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Gordon (Ed. ) , Washington,D.C.:American Education Research Assoc ia t ion , 1983. Woodall,W.G. & Burgoon,J .K. , \"The Effects of Nonverbal Synchrony on Message Comprehension and Persuasiveness\", Journal of Nonverbal Behaviour ,1981:5:4:207-221. Wyckoff,W.L., \"The Effect of Stimulus Var ia t ion on Learning from Lecture\", Journal of Experimental Education , 1973:41:3:85-90. l a a B e s s a B a S B a B B B B t i B i i D a i i H K i i B B a a a i no e) Hold your nose e) d) e). Close your c) coma on I l i k e I t . Louder 1 e)_ around, o) up c) Is e) I don my t hand, APPENDIX A - MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONNAIRE FOR EMBLEM/ILLUSTRATOR TEST nc no m 1) 2 ) 3 ) 4 ) 5 ) 6 ) 7 ) a) 9 ) 1 0 ) II) 1 2 ) 1 3 ) 1 4 ) 1 5 ) 1 6 ) 1 7 ) 1 0 ) 1 9 ) 2 0 ) 2 1 ) 22 ) 2 3 ) 2 4 ) 2 5 ) 2 6 ) 2 7 ) 2 f l ) 2 9 ) 3 0 ) 3 1 ) 3 2 ) 3 3 ) 34 ) 3 5 ) 3 6 ) a)y a) a) a) a) a) a) a) a) a) a) a) a) a) a) a) a) a) a) a) a) a) a) a) a) a) a) a) a) a) a) a) a) a) a) a) eyes. d) I d) a l l say e) bel leva e) es b) no c) . I agree d) H e l l o e) mouth b) I'm thinking c) Quletl d) a sneeze b) smells bad c) Hold your breath I That's a no-nol b) smells bad c) Nol d) Yosl Let's think about It. b) I have'a headache, c) That hurts my ears, b) louder (can't hear you) O.K. b) the l e t t e r \"0\" c) You're wonderful I d) Can you hear ma? b) I'm t a l k i n g , c) Listen) d) How are you? b) Ha l l o , c) Goodbye, d) Sea you a l l of you b) they c) you d) wo e) • • S i t down. b) Gat up. c) a l l together d) t h i s way If you say so b) I don't bel i e v e It I (.surprise) Goodbye. b) Hello, c) Can you come here? d) Tills me/I b) you c) we d) us e) • . Get up I b) S i t down I c) Come here I d) Quieten down I my wrist b) my arm c) r i g h t here d) What time Is It? everybody b) you c) bring together d) Come here. e), t a l l b) b i g and round c) a c i r c l e d) a sc|uare e) It ' s r i g h t here, b) It's close by. c) It's over there behind me b) past tense c) I'm hot. d) future tense That's not good, b) That's good, (well done) c) so-so Get going. b) Stop, c) Quiet, d) I'm In charge. e) What Is It? b) Shake your w r i s t . c) Go away. d) Come here I'm sad. b) I'm sorry to hear that! c) I'm angry, d) I was wrong I'm a f r a i d , b) I'm sorry, c) I'm sad. d) I ' l l come, too. e) Go there. b) Coma here. c) a l l together d) we e) I'm sad. b) I'm happy, c) I'm angry. Don't do that I b) The clock t i c k s l i k e I'm sad. b) I'm a f r a i d . c) I'm t i r e d . I ' l l t e l l you. b) maybe c) That's O.K. I'm sleepy, b) I'm t i r e d . c) I'm cold. b) No. c) I don't know. I'm hot. c) This is how b) My ears are cold, c) wonder? It e) e) It l (you're lying) d) III I e)_ e) d) d) I t ' s gone. e)_ poor work o)_ e) e)_ well sort of What a dayl b) It's too loud I I'm c o l d . b) Stretch your arms, c) I'm tastes good b) tastes awful c) Rub your d) I'm hurt, e) . t h i s . c) This Is my f i n g e r . d) Hold up your f i n g e r . e)_ d) I'm happy, e) d) I don't know . e) d) I'm hot. e) d) Yes, It Is. ~BT you do It. d) O.K. My head hurts. d) L i s t e n . e) t i r e d . d) I'm hot. e) tummy (stomach), d) Lick your l i p s . e)_ e) "@en ; edm:hasType "Thesis/Dissertation"@en ; edm:isShownAt "10.14288/1.0078296"@en ; dcterms:language "eng"@en ; ns0:degreeDiscipline "Language and Literacy Education"@en ; edm:provider "Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library"@en ; dcterms:publisher "University of British Columbia"@en ; dcterms:rights "For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use."@en ; ns0:scholarLevel "Graduate"@en ; dcterms:title "ESL preschoolers' interpretation of nonverbal communication"@en ; dcterms:type "Text"@en ; ns0:identifierURI "http://hdl.handle.net/2429/26487"@en .