Page 124 - Essentials of Human Communication

The Channels of Nonverbal Communication 103

TAble 5.5 relationships and proxemic Distances
Note that the four proxemic distances can be further divided into close and far phases, and that the far phase of one level
(say, the personal level) blends into the close phase of the next level (social). Do your relationships also blend into one
another, or are your personal relationships totally separate from your social relationships?

relationship Distance relationship Distance

Intimate Distance Social Distance
0 18 inches 4 12 feet
Intimate Relationship Close phase Far phase Social Relationship Close phase Far phase

DEVI.1464.215.eps Personal Distance Public Distance
unFig. 5.6 1½ 4 feet 12 25 feet
Public Relationship
Personal Relationship Close phase Far phase Close phase Far phase

keep at least this distance from a menacing or intoxicated fellow passenger. Although you
lose fine details of the face and eyes at this distance, you are still close enough to see what is
DEVI.1464.216.eps
happening. These four distances are summarized in Table 5.5.
unFig. 5.7
territoriality Another type of communication having to do with space is territoriality,
a possessive reaction to an area or to particular objects. You interact basically in three types
of territory (Altman, 1975):

● Primary territories: Areas that you might call your own; these areas are your exclusive pre-
serve. Primary territories might include your room, your desk, or your office.
● Secondary territories: Areas that don’t belong to you but that you have occupied and with
which you’re associated. They might include your usual table in the cafeteria, your
regular seat in the classroom, or your neighborhood turf.
● Public territories: Areas that are open to all people; they may be owned by some person or
organization, but they are used by everyone. They are places such as movie theaters,
restaurants, and shopping malls.
When you operate in your own primary territory, you have an advantage, often Communication
called the home field advantage. In their own home or office, people take on a kind Choice Point
of leadership role: They initiate conversations, fill in silences, assume relaxed and Inviting and Discour-
comfortable postures, and maintain their positions with greater conviction. Because aging conversation
the territorial owner is dominant, you stand a better chance of getting your raise Sometimes you want to
approved, your point accepted, or a contract resolved in your favor if you’re in your encourage people to come into your office
own territory (e.g., your office or your home) rather than in someone else’s (e.g., and chat, and at other times you want to be
your supervisor’s office) (Marsh, 1988). left alone. What might you do nonverbally to
Like many animals, humans mark both their primary and secondary territories achieve each goal?
to signal ownership. Humans use three types of markers: central, boundary, and
earmarkers (Goffman, 1971). Central markers are items you place in a territory to
reserve it for you—for example, a drink at the bar, books on your desk, or a sweater over a
library chair. Some people, perhaps because they can’t own territories, might use markers to
indicate a kind of pseudo-ownership or to appropriate someone else’s turf or a public terri-
tory for their own use (Childress, 2004). Examples include graffiti and the markings of gang
boundaries.
Boundary markers serve to divide your territory from that of others. In the supermarket
checkout line, the bar placed between your groceries and those of the person behind you is a
boundary marker, as are fences, armrests that separate your seat from those on either side,
and the contours of the molded plastic seats on a bus.