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Think about TV ads. Analyze. Ask questions. |
Consider these ideas for your own compositions. |
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| WHAT
NONVERBALS ARE USED?
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WHAT
NONVERBALS DO YOU USE?
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Nonverbals include all of the information and feelings which can be conveyed by means of visual images, sounds (music, tone of voice), body language (gestures, facial expressions), smells, backgrounds and contexts. Nonverbals imply. They suggest, without explicitly saying anything. By being wordless, they prompt us, as receivers, to co-create. We mentally supply the words. Not only do we "name" the things we see, but we are also set up to add our own evaluative modifiers: "pretty," "friendly," "ugly." Certain nonverbals have
special symbolic meanings and can trigger a cluster of intense emotional
feelings. Products develop standard association scenes because they have been effective with target audiences: for example, beer ads (male bonding, the "guys" having fun, sports); soft drinks ("good times": youth, high energy activity, perky girls); wine (lovers, soft music); car ads (fast cars, open highways, scenic curves); food ads (glistening, mouth-watering close-ups). Nonverbals are important. Yet, until recently, so little attention has been given to them by scholars, we don't even have a commonly accepted system of names for the various concepts, as we do for the verbal "figures of speech." One result is that even FTC regulators (basically, word-oriented lawyers) have problems in defining nonverbal deception. In practice, it's done on a case-by-case response to specific ads: for example, actors in white-coats may no longer be used in TV ads to give the impression that they are doctors. Any message, explicit or implicit, can be untrue or deceptive. But, explicit lies are easier to identify and to disprove than deceptive implications which lure the audience to insert, erroneously, the untrue part.
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Other than graphics (charts, diagrams, maps) used to illustrate or explain, nonverbals are less relevant in most expository writing with its emphasis on information transfer by means of verbal presentation, precision, and denotative words. Expository writing, with its need for clarity and coherence, differs from everyday conversation. In speaking, we use nonverbals naturally and spontaneously, often suggesting information and feelings by gestures and facial expressions, tone of voice, pauses and silences. We can clarify ourselves if we get negative feedback ("huh? "wadja mean?"). Yet, misunderstandings still happen, even among close friends. In business, to avoid such misunderstandings (to record, to establish responsibility), we are often asked to "put it in writing." Writing clarifies. Ambiguity and multiplicity of meanings are common in nonverbals. For example, a smile could be a nonverbal sign of approval, affection, or friendship: an invitation to intimacy, love, or a come-on, a social pleasantry, an expected formality, a mask, a guise; any or all of the above. Incongruity occurs (a "double message") when the nonverbal message contradicts the verbal. Usually, we see this kind of irony (people smiling while they say or do nasty things) more in real life than in ads because ads usually want to send simple clear messages, not complex confusing ones. Relatively speaking, we get less school training in analyzing nonverbal messages and indirect verbal messages even though they are so common in persuasion and expressive language. Poetry study is usually the only training students get in how to analyze indirect language techniques. Yet, often the links are not made between "traditional" poetry and the "everyday" poetry of our common speech, or of ads: "the poetry of the corporation."
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| | Welcome | Purpose | Audience | Limits | Structure | Attention | Confidence | Explicit | Implicit | Response| Omission | |
