Nonverbal Communication In The Hospitality Workplace

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If you have ever been to a restaurant for dinner, you played a part in a communitive service encounter. Nonverbal communication is essential for pleasant service encounters to take place and ensure the growth of popularity for a corporation. This assignment will look at four different points of nonverbal communication; kinesics, paralanguage, proxemics and physical appearance in that respective order. Further below, each of these will be explored in depth and explained why they are needed in the hospitality workplace.

First up is kinesics. Kinesics is the movements and posture of a person; orientation, maintaining eye contact, nodding during speech and smiling are all very good examples of kinesics (Sundaram & Webster, 2000). Though these are usually linked and expressed together as one fluid movement instead of separately. Sundaram and Webster found that light laugher, casual smiling, open body posture, a forward body lean mixed with constant eye contact are a group of kinetic movements that can be associated with sharing intimacy, interest and non-aggressiveness (2000). …show more content…

Proxemics can be described as the distance between two or more interacting people, it includes the space held during communication (Sundaram & Webster, 2000). Further, touch can also be associated with proxemics, usually when someone is within arm length. Touch can be categorised as task touch or voluntary touch, each used in similar situations but under different context. To elaborate, task touch is used when touch is mandatory in order for the interaction to commence. Voluntary touch is when a person willingly touches you in order to provide comfort and promote understanding, safety (Sundaram & Webster, 2000). The norms regarding personal distance and touching are breached in certain services encounters that require that high level of personal touch; professions such as hairdressing or medical care require a great deal of task touch (Gabbott & Hogg,

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