FROM THE INTERCULTURAL PERSPECTIVE ”THE WORLD BEYOND WORDS”

In today’s world, mostly according to requirements of our professions, we encounter people from other societies, or cultures more often than ever. Sometimes even how hard we try to communicate effectively we face differences in language, values, norms, emotional expressions, rituals, rules, expectations, family background, life experiences, and nonverbal communication (the world beyond words) usages as intercultural barriers. Nonverbal communication includes all stimuli in a communicative setting generated by an individual and the individual’s use of environment. Some of the major categories in the study of nonverbal communication include: kinesics, oculesics, haptics, proxemics and chronemics. Nonverbal communication is a complex web of meaning that is highly culture-specific. In other words, different cultures have different meanings for the same nonverbal behaviors. The handicap of intercultural communication lies under this topic. Since most people are unaware of their own cultural patterns of nonverbal communication, they are unprepared to deal with the patterns of other cultures. So to overcome barriers when communicating in intercultural settings, one has to understand how is said, not just what is said. In this paper the main aim is to look at the nonverbal communication studies within the perspective of intercultural communication. This study will focus on the understanding intercultural communication, nonverbal communication, theoretical approaches on intercultural and nonverbal communication, and nonverbal- intercultural communication and focus on one theory. Also to explain the importance of nonverbal-intercultural communication an example on haptics with the help of research results will be observed. Another aim and hope of this paper is, since Turkish literature lacks this kind of information, the subjects discussed here will give clues and arise interest on nonverbal-intercultural communication studies