Word of the Day

: February 8, 2009

kinesics

noun kuh-NEE-siks

What It Means

: a systematic study of the relationship between nonlinguistic body motions (as blushes, shrugs, or eye movement) and communication

kinesics in Context

Marianne has enrolled in a class in kinesics this semester to fulfill a requirement for her theater major.

Did You Know?

Anthropologists began to take serious interest in nonverbal communication through gestures, postures, and facial expressions in the 1940s. It is believed, however, that the publication of Ray Birdwhistell’s 1952 book Introduction to Kinesics marked the beginning of formal research into what we know familiarly as "body language." Over 50 years later, the results of kinesics are deeply entrenched in our culture, giving us a whole new language with which to interpret everyday encounters and interaction.