Head Nodding in Intercultural Conversation
Roger Nunn, University of Kochi, Kochi, Japan
Tamura Maya, University of Kochi, Kochi, Japan
This study is an exploration of non-verbal behavior in intercultural communication. Two Japanese and two native English-speaking students were asked to engage in role plays in which they were required to adopt face-threatening roles, either attempting to persuade their interlocutors to do something or to resist these attempts at persuasion. These role plays were videotaped and a dual approach to analyzing these examples of intercultural communication was proposed.
First, differing kinds of non-verbal behaviour were examined through a comparison of the frequencies of each type, and it was determined that head nodding was a salient type of nonverbal behaviour on the part of the Japanese students. Three critical incidents in which communication broke down temporarily in the course of the role plays were identified, and a detailed analysis of these incidents was made, offering a pragmatic interpretation of the function and effect of the Japanese students' nodding behavior and explaining its effect on the process of intercultural interaction. The incidents illustrate the difficulty of maintaining a face-threatening intercultural encounter with limited language ability. It was found that while frequent head nodding may assist in essential solidarity building by encouraging and supporting floor-holding interlocutors, it can also axacerbate the failure to achieve essential information exchange.
