Page 50 - Effective Communication Soft Skills Strategies For Success by Nitin Bhatnagar, Mamta Bhatnagar

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Object Language
If words fail in communication nonverbal languages become important.
Photographs, paintings, material samples, or three dimensional models are
indispensable, for instance, to an appreciation of the distinctions between
temple architectures of different periods of the Indian history. Object
language, because of its time-enduring qualities, plays an enormous role
in archaeology, anthropology, and history. Tools and weapons were known
as early as the Stone Age, and the fact that material articles almost always
carry either implicit or explicit instructions with them makes it possible to
reconstruct events of prehistoric times, even though we lack knowledge of
the verbal language of a particular period.
Object language comprises the international and non-intentional
displays of tangible things; for instance, art objects, the arrangement of
flowers, architectural structures, and finally the human body and what
clothes it. The choice of code will depend on the nature of communication.
The use of object language may be preferred because of its direct and
immediate nature; for example, the presentation of flowers, or a person tying
a knot on the handkerchief to remind himself of something. The arrange-
ment of the physical environment also conveys information. The furniture
may be so arranged in a library so as to say to the reader ‘make yourself at
home’ or ‘come in if you must, but keep quiet’. Three dimensional models
are useful in the appreciation of architectural structures. Object language,
because of its enduring qualities, plays an important part in the transmission
of documents of our cultural heritage and deforms the subject matter of the
branches of knowledge such as archeology. Until the discovery of the first
written document, the only clues we had to the remote past were those that
survived in the form of objects (artifacts) and buildings.

Action Language
Action language is transitory, and the most universal king of language.
Among animals auditory and visual perception of movements tend to set in
motion other actions on the part of the perceiving animal. These actions may
in turn influence the animal which initiated the first signal. This is true of
human behaviour as well; for example, the deaf depend upon this phenom-
enon in the interpretation of lip-reading. Action language is the principal
way in which emotions are expressed; for example, a person slamming his
fist upon the table, friends hugging each other when meeting after a long
time, a person avoiding eye contact while lying, etc. Closely related to action
language are sign language and gestures. Every social group has developed
definite systems of communication in which particular words, signs, and
gestures have been assigned communicative significance so that it cuts across
verbal language barriers.

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