Exercises:

1. Find Russian equivalents for:

in either case, exchange of messages, use of gestures, distinct gestures, facial expression, inner tension, unit of behavior, verbal communication, nonverbal communication, sign behavior, conventional sign, imaginary objects, intangible ideas, racial superiority, a thing apart, possession of language, in conjunction with.

2. Find English equivalents for:

приближаться друг к другу, общее употребление, обмен сообщениями, телодвижение, в случаях, когда…, выражение лица, непосредственное взаимодействие, в результате (чего-то), в некоторой степени, символы, обозначающие…, с точки зрения, владение языком, средства общения, полностью полагаться на…, знак и то, что он обозначает, отдельное явление, общение посредством знаков, словесная угроза, четкое различие, внутреннее напряжение, воображаемый объект, расовое превосходство, уровень сознания, столь же сложный.

3. Answer the questions:

1. What is the simplest instance of social communication?

2. What is meant by “exchange of messages”?

3. What is the subject-matter of ethology?

4. What parts of human body can be involved in nonverbal communication?

5. Why is nonverbal communication observed more easily in young children?

6. What are the situations in which grown-ups use nonverbal signs more often? Give examples.

7. Can a single movement or facial expression always have a definite meaning?

8. Under what conditions must complete reliance be placed upon nonverbal communication?

9. What makes people refuse to tell something by phone and prefer a face-to-face meeting instead?

10. What are signs?

11. What are the main types of signs? How do they differ from one another?

12. What makes conventional signs mean what they mean?

13. What synonym can be used for “conventional signs”?

14. What are man’s most important signs? Why?

4. Translate the following sentences into Russian:

1. All social organisms communicate with one another to some degree. It may be very rudimentary communication, but survival depends upon some exchange of messages.

2. The study of human communication through gestures and expressions is the province of a relatively new academic discipline called ethology.

3. As among other species, this means of human communication apparently expresses feelings and emotions that operate at a lower level of consciousness than those which involve the use of speech.

4. Young children, who obviously have limited vocabularies, express their feelings of pleasure, dislike, contempt, and so forth, by hand movements, positioning of the body, and facial expressions.

5. Usually, two or more gestures or bodily movements occur as a single unit of behavior.

6. There are instances, as in cases of accident or when a person is psychotic, where verbal communication is impossible and complete reliance must be placed upon nonverbal communication.

7. And it is the use of a type of conventional signs – verbal signs – which makes human communication different from the communication systems of insects and of primates.

8. This is possible because the sign and what the sign signifies occur in the same time-space framework.

9. The use of words distinguishes his communication from that of all others species, enriching it so greatly that human communication seems almost a thing apart.