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The Manager's Handbook of Cross-Cultural Communication

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5  Nonverbal communication

Naturally we focus on the aspect of communication at  which western cultures are least qualified:  nonverbal communication or as it is commonly known body language. Since there a said to be over 7,000 body language signals transmitted by most human beings during an average day it is hardly feasible that we can cover even a small percentage of them.

However the chapter on nonverbal communication attempts to raise the level of awareness of how to look for and read these signals in key situations and to examine how high context cultures use this mode of communication much more spontaneously and purposefully than do low-context cultures.