I am a self-confessed lover of words, languages and wordless communications with all beings, either human or non-human. By the latter I mean the language of the passing clouds, the raindrops typing rapid watery messages on my window panes or the sonorous recitals of the Zephyr Quartet which can play on leaves, gutters, scaffoldings, chimneys and any other instruments it can find when the mood takes it. Being human (as far as I can ascertain) I am using body language which is a dialect of the animal language. We smile, they snarl; we make faces, they grimace; we dance, they frolic, we scratch, they groom etc.
Human to human body language is still under the beady eye of researchers, whose intentions are not always as pure as we may think.
For instance, they devise ways which benefit certain classes of people. If I go for a job interview and am told to sit in an armchair designed for a very small person, I am in a body-language trap. My prospective employer has a desire to dominate others, because he has been told by his scientific advisers that all power is determined by the relative positions of our rumps in a sitting position. They are right, of course. Observe how well-trained politicians arrange their meetings with people, like voters, journalists and local officials. They try to tower above them physically, making them look up to them as if they were ancient gods or kings raised on their thrones. Do animals laugh? I am not sure, though horses neigh, a some people can produce a horse laugh, or create an illusion that some animal temporarily walked-in for a brief visit, when they cackle and snort. Australian kookaburra is probably the only bird producing a very human-like guffawing. One human body jargon seems to have no animal connections: when we cross our legs in a sitting position and when we fold our arms defensively or because we have no idea what to do with them when standing in a room full of people. Psychologists say that we must not do it when interacting with our neighbours, because it is like slamming the door in their faces. It means that we are closed for business. I think that when I cross my legs it is because my left leg lumbago is asking my right thigh if it is all right to come for a short visit. So much for an amateur’s view of the body language.
Tags: Change Molecules apoptosis, Inter-species communications Body language
