An intercultural analysis of non-verbal communication in North American and Japanese business environments

Abstract

When examining humans, communication is of the utmost importance in their daily lives, given that as social animals, they inherently feel the need to communicate with others. At a first glance, one may think that it is verbal communication that plays a main role when communicating with one another, however in truth, non-verbal communication accounts for more than 90% of one’s message when communicating. This highlights the significance of understanding non-verbal communication and being conscious about these non-verbal forms of messages, even more so in a business environment. Through this piece of work, the importance of non-verbal communication will be identified in a business setting, specifically through an intercultural analysis of North America and Japan, which shall involve a comparison and contrasting exercise of the forms of non-verbal communication in both contexts. Communication in business is vital for any company to succeed, and following suit with the statement made above, non-verbal communication plays a primary role when conducting face to face business, which is even more important than verbal communication to a certain extent. All the forms of non-verbal communication will be analysed, with the extent of the significance of each being considered within the business context. These include: Paralanguage, Kinesics, Oculesics, Facial Communication, Artifactual Communication, Appearance, Space Communication, Haptics, Olfactics and Chronemics. The transitioning of the forms of non-verbal communication shall also be covered, following an analysis of their characteristics and how they can be applied within the context of North American and Japanese cultures.