Verbal and Nonverbal Coding Worksheet

PART A: NON-VERBAL

Instructions: Respond to each question below in complete sentences with at least 150 words. Include at least one example from the reading materials that supports your position in your response.

1. Is a smile a universal nonverbal form of communication? Why or why not? Provide specific examples in your answer.

2. What are some of the ways that you, as an American or an international student, have been taught, or unconsciously learned, to synchronize your nonverbal behaviors?

PART B: VERBAL
Instructions: There are five different, but interrelated, sets of rules that combine to create a verbal code or language. In the middle column, define the five verbal rules that create the verbal code in a minimum of two sentences for each rule. In the last column, provide an example from both American culture and an international culture for each of the five rules of verbal codes. Then, answer the questions on the following page.
5 Rules of Verbal Codes Matrix

Define
(Two or more sentences) Examples
(one American culture example and one international culture example)
(1) Phonology
(rules for word sounds)
(2) Morphology
(units of meaning in a word)
(3) Semantics
(distinct meaning of words)
(4) Syntactics
(relationship of words to each other)
(5) Pragmatics
(effect on human perception)

1. What is one possible drawback of phonology if a non-native speaker has poor accuracy? What might be done to master a new phonology?
2. What happens in the course of conversation when semantics causes confusion between you and the receiver? Provide a recent example.
3. Based on the examples in your text, what do you think Ludwig Wittgenstein meant when he said that the limits of my language are the limits of my world?