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Telling fact
When greeting each other, Scandanavians tend to use a single kiss, the French a double kiss. Source: The Book of Tells by Peter Collett |
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So how do we know that our observations on body language are correct? What studies have been done and for how long that let us draw these kinds of conclusions about something which is, after all, a secret language?  As long ago as the Roman civilisation, the statesman and philosopher Cicero (c.106-43 BC) noted that the 'action of the body' expressed 'the sentiments and passions of the soul'. He recognised that body language wasn't individual or random, but was a behaviour common to everyone: Nature has assigned to every emotion a particular look and tone of voice and bearing of its own; and the whole of a person's frame and every look on his face and utterance of his voice are like the strings of a harp and wound according as they are struck by each successive emotion. It is over 2000 years since Cicero lived, but science has been slow to follow up his observations. An English idea In England, it was not until the scientist John Bulwer chanced upon Francis Bacon's remark that, 'as the tongue speaketh to the ear, so the gesture speaketh to the eye' (The Advancement of Learning, 1605) that the idea of body language as an area for scientific study was born. Bulwer went on to publish the first English works on the subject, Chirologia: or the naturall language of the hand (1644) and Pathomyotamia: or a dissection of the significative muscles of the affections of the minde (1649).  But it was 200 years later, when Charles Darwin published the seminal work The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872), that the idea of body language was finally brought to the public's attention. Darwin inspired people across disciplines ranging from archaeology and linguistics to psychiatry and zoology to investigate nonverbal communication, giving rise to a significant body of research. Page | 1 | 2 | |
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