Abstract
‘The human body is a primary source of meaning-making, with the body conveying over two-thirds of our messages. But how can we understand these physical communicative cues? How are they being expressed and exploited in new media and multimodal online and mobile interaction?’ (blurb). These are the key questions Marcel Danesi's book explores because nonverbal communication is a very important aspect of people's lives, and as Marcel Danesi argues, it is ‘integral for understanding the origins and functions of signs sit is intrinsically linked to signs’ (p. 12). His motivation for writing this textbook on the subject was driven by his own struggle to find suitable texts for his teaching as a professor of semiotics and linguistic anthropology. The book is ‘an introduction to nonverbal communication from a semiotic perspective, aiming to delineate its relation to verbal language, culture, mind, and representation generally’ (p. 12). The book is split into nine chapters. The first two chapters provide an overview of the study of nonverbal communication with chapter 2 focusing on kinesics – the study of body language. Chapters 3 to 7 cover eye contact, facial expression, tactile communication, gesture, and proxemic behavior – the zones people maintain between each other while speaking. Chapter 8 is devoted to extended nonverbal communication in clothing, architecture, and cyberspace. The final chapter then explores human-machine communication – communication between humans, computers, and robots.