the.com/body language
the conversation you're having even when your mouth shuts up
means The nonverbal signals — posture, gestures, facial expressions, eye contact — through which people communicate feelings and intentions without words.
from A compound of two plain English words: "body" (from Old English "bodig," the physical frame) and "language" (via Old French "langage" from Latin "lingua," tongue). The phrase itself is a 20th-century coinage, born as psychologists and anthropologists began studying nonverbal communication systematically; it took off in popular culture in the 1970s, when books on "reading" people made the term a household phrase.
- share
- Most communication impact comes from tone and gestures, not words
- micro tells
- Real expressions flash for under a fifth of a second
- mirror effect
- We unconsciously copy postures of people we like
- universal
- Blind athletes raise arms in victory without ever seeing it
- liar myth
- Avoiding eye contact rarely actually signals lying