Adeola Abdulateef Elega

2.5 Non-verbal Communication 
Nonverbal communication is as ancient as man, it started way back even before man 
developed verbal communication, the five senses were active part of nonverbal 
communication. The most commonly used sense is touch. The coming of verbalized 
use of communication led to the lesser use of the sense of smell and other senses. 
Nonverbal communication needs better involvement of the brain than verbal 
communication which makes inborn pattern of behavior which responds to stimulus 
more 
processed 
with 
gestures 
than 
verbal 
communication 
(Nonverbal 
communication, 2012). Nonverbal communication is the sharing of information 
without spoken words. It is everything that is beyond communication with speech. It 
ranges from hand gestures, eye contact, personal space, clothing, and silence etc. 
Nonverbal communication remains a very important area of communication and to a 
very great extent gestural communication is as important as verbal communication 

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although many might degrade its importance. Jandt (1995) asserts that “nonverbal 
communication can be narrowly used to refer to intentional use as in using a 
nonspoken symbol to communicate a specific message” (Jandt, 1995 p.74). 
Nonverbal communication occurs consciously and unconsciously, even when we 
sleep we tend to send unaware messages. We move our hands; we wink, and make 
all sorts of nonverbal cues. Verily, we humans are hardly static, we move our body. 
In the case we submit that we communicate even when we are not talking from the 
womb of our mother till the day we kick the bucket. Nonverbal communication is 
also a vast concept and it has not been understudied. It cuts across almost everything 
which is sharing of information but not mouthed communication. Clothing for 
instance is a nonverbal kind of communication and obviously we cannot 
underestimate the power of messages sent from clothing.