Fieldwork Observation

For my fieldwork project, I visited a local park to observe the people there and how they communicated. At the park, there was a large, grassy field, a playground, and a few picnic tables. During my time at the park, I made many detailed notes on what kinds of non-verbal communication took place. It was a nice, breezy day, and many families were having picnics. This was the perfect opportunity to watch some interesting interactions, so I sat on a bench and observed. One family was having a picnic, and appeared to have just finished their sandwiches, lemonade, and potato chips. They were beginning to have dessert when I arrived. The mom pulled out a box of chocolate-chip cookies. She opened it, set it in the middle of the picnic blanket, …show more content…
She got up and left the picnic blanket, which was another regulator. Then, she began running around her brother and mom in a circle as fast as she could, shouting at them to get their attention. The mom turned to her, put up her index finger to signal “wait” and returned to listening to her son. This is an example of an emblem. Emblems are signals that represent words and are often used without speaking. Later, when the mom finished listening to her son, she watched her daughter run and gave her a thumbs-up sign, another emblem.
The most common nonverbal communication gestures I noticed were various affect displays. Because everyone does these automatically, most people don’t realize when they are doing them. Another type of gesture that was easy to identify were illustrators. This type of nonverbal communication technique varies in use depending on a person’s culture. Like affect displays, most people are not aware that they use their hands to “speak.”
Overall this was a very interesting assignment that helped me to identify the various nonverbal gestures. It was interesting to “people-watch” and take note of these things, and to identify patterns within