Gender Differences In Nonverbal Communication In The College Foreign Language Classroom

Since the early 1960s, because of the upsurge of women's rights movement, many scholars in the field of sociology, linguistics, communication, and anthropology have begun to concentrate more on the investigation of relationship between gender differences and nonverbal communication. Researchers point out that, communicators of different genders use different ways of nonverbal communication, and gradually there are some formed regulations for the use of these communication means. However, valuable communication analysis must be carried out in certain context. Therefore, this paper mainly investigates gender differences in nonverbal communication in the foreign language classroom. Because the study subjects will be influenced by the power and status stereotypes between teachers and students, power and status factors are also taken into consideration.Based on some related theories (such as difference theory) and stereotypes generated from the studies of power and status, the author carries out a small-scale classroom observation. The participants of this study include two teachers from the English department of Changchun University of Technology and two classes of undergraduate students at their first and second year of college. With the help of the two teachers, the whole lesson is divided into three sections as morning speech, teacher's lecturing, and in-class discussion. To make the data more reliable, the students are not informed of the purpose of video-recording. Each student will receive a score for their participation.Limited by the classroom environment, the observed nonverbal communication data are divided into four categories: proxemics, kinesics, haptics, and oculesics. The influencing factors in this study are both gender and power, so the observed results will be discussed separately. Comparisons are made between results and general stereotypes. Results of the observation have confirmed the different gender patterns in nonverbal communication, and shown the special features of gendered nonverbal communication affected by power and status in the classroom: the teachers'nonverbal behavior is mainly under the influence of power and status factors, with only a few cues exhibiting the different gendered uses of nonverbal behavior; the students'nonverbal communication within the superior-subordinate relationship is mainly affected by the gender factor. However, discrepancies also exist due to the social, cultural, and psychological influences, for example, female students in this study are found to have the tendency of intruding other's personal space among the same gender group rather than males do; and students in the relatively lower status, regardless of gender, employ gaze as the communicating tool when listening to the teacher's lecturing.People in the whole society should be aware of these stereotypes, and eliminate misunderstandings caused by gendered uses of nonverbal communication; teachers are advised to pay more attention to the use of nonverbal behavior to increase immediacy between teachers and students, so as to achieve better teaching effects; meanwhile, future studies on the new trend of nonverbal communication are also suggested, especially in China.