Space Communication

Your use of space to communicate—an area of study known technically as proxemics—speaks as surely and as loudly as words and sentences. Speakers who stand close to their listener, with their hands on the listener’s shoulders and their eyes focused directly on those of the listener, communicate something very different from speakers who stand in a corner with arms folded and eyes downcast.

Spatial Distances
Edward Hall (1959, 1963, 1976) distinguishes four proxemic distances: types of spatial distances that define the types of relationships between people and the types of communication in which they’re likely to engage.

In intimate distance, ranging from actual touching to 18 inches,the presence of the other individual is unmistakable. Each person experiences the sound, smell, and feel of the other’s breath. You use intimate distance for lovemaking, comforting, and protecting. This distance is so short that most people don’t consider it proper in public.

Personal distance refers to the protective “bubble” that defines your personal space, ranging from 18 inches to 4 feet. This imaginary bubble keeps you protected and untouched by others. You can still hold or grasp another person at this distance, but only by extending your arms; this allows you to take certain individuals such as loved ones into your protective bubble. At the outer limit of personal distance, you can touch another person only if both of you extend your arms. This is the distance at which you conduct most of your interpersonal interactions; for example, talking with friends and family.

(The other ones are social distance and public distance but I don't think they are important for us.)

Members of different cultures treat space differently. For example, people from northern European cultures and many Americans stand fairly far apart when conversing; those from southern European and Middle Eastern cultures stand much closer. It’s easy to see how people who normally stand far apart may interpret the close distances of others as pushy and overly intimate. It’s equally easy to appreciate how those who normally stand close may interpret the far distances of others as cold and unfriendly.
Your gender also influences your spatial relationships. Women generally stand closer to each other than men do. Similarly, when someone approaches another person, he or she will come closer to a woman than to a man. With increasing age there’s a tendency for the spaces to become larger.

The Meaning of Touch
Touch communicates a wide variety of messages (Jones & Yarbrough, 1985). Here are five major ones that will illustrate this great variety.
• Touch communicates positive feelings; for example, support, appreciation, inclusion, sexual interest or intent, composure, immediacy, affection, trust, similarity and quality, and informality (Jones & Yarbrough, 1985; Burgoon, 1991). Touch also stimulates self-disclosure (Rabinowitz, 1991).

• Touch often communicates your intention to
play, either affectionately or aggressively.

• Touch may control the behaviors, attitudes, or feelings of the other person. To obtain compliance, for example, you touch the other person to communicate “move over,” “hurry,” “stay here,” or “do it.” You might also touch a person to gain his or her attention, as if to say “look at me” or “look over here.” In some situations touching can even amount to a kind of nonverbal dominace behavior.

• Ritualistic touching centers on greetings and departures; examples are shaking hands to say “hello” or “good-bye,” hugging, kissing, or putting your arm around another’s shoulder when greeting or saying farewell.

• Task-related touching is associated with the performance of some function, as when you remove a speck of dust from another person’s coat, help someone out of a car, or check someone’s forehead for fever.

This was the second part of PC's communication studies class XD