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Abstract
In the current economic context of globalization, people are more and more frequently involved in business negotiations, business negotiation is one of the most popular activities under market economy conditions.
Successful business negotiations require negotiators to not only be familiar with the relevant laws and business operations of the principle , and also to master negotiation skills. Negotiation is communication, but are not necessarily verbal. In fact, the facial expressions, eye contact, gesture or posture of negotiations can convey more information than words. All of these non-mouth language is referred as “body language”. In business negotiations, body language plays an important role of promoting the smooth progress of the negotiations. The paper analyzes the main manifestations of body language in business negotiation, focusing on stress the importance of using body language in business negotiations.
Key words: Business negotiation, Body language, Effect
Contents
1.Introduction 1
2.The definition and development of body language 1
2.1The definition of body language 1
2.2. The development of body language 2
2.3. The bases of application of body language in business negotiation situations 3
3.The application of the body language in negotiation 3
3.1 Eye contact 4
3.2 Facial expression 5
3.3 Hands movement 6
3.4 Posture 7
4.The effect of the body language in negotiation 8
4.1 Enhance the expression of sound language 8
4.2 Replace the sound language 8
4.3 Quickly deliver information ,increase interaction. 9
4.4 Regulation 10
5.The principle of the use of body language in negotiation 10
5.1 Understand with context 10
5.2 Principle of consistency 11
6.Conclusion 11
References 12
1.Introduction
With the rapid development of the global economy, a growing number of international business negotiation activities has been turned up. In the emerging knowledge society, communication is the most important constituent elements. Good
communication is fundamental to the success of international business negotiations. As a communication tool, language plays an important role in international negotiations, body language, however, as an complementary tool to help people complete transmission of information, and can break the language barrier. Body language as a pragmatic strategy in speech communication played an important significance in international business negotiations.
This article analyzes information expressed by body languages in business negotiation from eye contact, facial expressions, hand movements, posture and so on. it can improve the skills of the negotiators,to
narrow the distance of the negotiations the two sides and enhance negotiation persuasion, promoting the efficiency and success of the negotiations. In recent years, body language has been paid more and more attention and has become the new research object of winning business negotiation.
2.The definition and development of body language
2.1The definition of body language
Body language, refers to by the various movements of the body, thus instead of language in order to achieve the objective expression mean of communication. General words, body language, including the aforementioned facial; special words, body language just including expressions of the body and limbs. According to the Oxford Dictionary explains, means of non-verbal communication gestures, facial expressions, and so on.
United States linguist LarryA.Sam Ovar and co-author Richard E.Porter in their “Communication Between Culture” to define non-verbal communication: non-verbal communication includes nonverbal incentives in all exchanges, issued these factors by itself and he caused by the use of the environment, issued and accepted and has a potential value of information. Non-verbal communication also known as “High-Context Communication” High-context was first proposed by Edward Hall. In high-context communication, most of the information is not expressed by language, but by the communicator themselves and the effects of the external environment to express the feelings in his heart.
2.2. The development of body language
Early in the 19th century, Darwin had begun research on facial expression and body language.In the 1920 of the 20th century, Germany psychologists published the book the Physique and Character of the Kretscher marked the beginning of real to the study of non-verbal communication. In 1952, United States linguist Ray L.Birdw histell in his “introduction into Kinesics” first proposed a set of non-verbal communication symbol; Another United States anthropologist Edward Hall has published 4 books (The Silent hidden Dim Language,The ension,Beyond Culture and the Dance of Life), have a deeper level of study of non-verbal communication. In the 1950 of the 20th century, pioneer of research on body language AerboTemai Rabin find: influence in becoming a message generated by 7% from language (only text), 38% from the sound (including voice, tone, and other sounds), the rest of the 55% are all from the silent body language; Anthropologist Ray Birdwhistell found that in a face-to-face exchange, labguage transfer in the amount of the total amount of the share of less than 35%, leaving more than 65% of information is accomplished through non-verbal communication. People will always using series of action to cope with their own conversation, compared to the language consciousness, these action is unconscious , and can more reflect inside real idea of the talking people. so we must not only listen to his words, but also to observe each other's manners to capture the traces of their inside activities; also can look in the research its psychological changes from each others’s attitudes. Use all of these skills, not only can we judge changes in each other's thoughts, decide our side strategies, while also purposefully use suitable words to convey information, enable negotiations to contribute to our development.
2.3. The bases of application of body language in business negotiation situations
Negotiations is the talks of the vital interests of the parties involved for a full exchange of views on issues to be solved and repeated consultations, in order to seeek ways to solve the problems and finally reached a agreement of cooperation. Negotiating parties have their own needs, both sides are armed with this kind of both unity and contradiction of purpose and is required to participate in the negotiations. It should not be a party to suit your interests without limits, should not also be the compromise unconditionally. Negotiations need to compromise between the two sides, but also has its own bottom line. It can be said that for himself to achieve maximum benefits, the two sides have been probing each other's bottom line, and trying to cover up their bottom line. This will require negotiators to be able to accurately interpret the other person's body language, combine with language information to explore other psychological factors, mental changes, and finally to make right decisions. A study in the seventies of the 20th century, thousands of detailed observation and analysis of sales and negotiation process, its results show that 60%~80% of business decisions in the negotiating table in talks was made under the influence of body language. This fully indicates that the importance of body language in business negotiations.
3.The application of the body language in negotiation
In business negotiations, the expression of mastering a variety of language skills are the basic requirements of each negotiator to smoothly express their real needs, information needs to have a silent language of expression combined with the audio language. Silent language is a mute in the negotiating activities associated with audio language that can communicate information express feelings by eye contact, facial expressions, physical appearance and so no. Common body language in business negotiations including negotiation behavior, postures and facial expressions, it is an objective indictor of physical and mental state of the negotiators in the negotiation process. Business people how to completely integrate body language into negotiations and accurately understand it.
3.1 Eye contact
The eyes are the Windows of the soul, it is a kind of sincere, subtle silent language. To negotiators, eyes can be the most obvious, natural and accurate display of their psychological activities.
In the course of negotiations, right eye should be a frank, cordial, kind and sincere. Negotiators in the talks should look at each other's eyes, because gazing was earnest, serious, the other side will feel your sincerity. Sometimes, the negotiators are looking at each other's eyes to the triangular area of the lips. Staring by this way will make each other feel good manners and comfort. That rationality, equality, confidence, frank with the eyes of the face or head; expressed their tolerance, the love for each other with overlooking the eyes;; show respect, expectations with looking up the eyes. In the process of negotiation. the length of looking the other side is important. Mostly, listening party should look at said party, eye contact with each other should not account for more than one-third of the negotiation time. If both sides in the negotiation are females, views from time to time can show a sign of respect; If the negotiating parties are closely related, may be a long time looking at each other, to narrow the psychological distance. If the person is heterosexual, binocular Visual should not last more than 10 minutes, stare each other for a long time can only makes the other uncomfortable. In the negotiations, apathetic, arrogant, tired, or shesitant eyes should not appear. And we also need to be careful not to abuse the eyes. Because this will make the other person feel you are contrived and are likely to undermine the mutual exchange and communication, affect the negotiation results. Experienced business people are good at catcging a lot of valuable information from others eye. At the same time, they will use appropriate eyes from time to time to show respect and interest in order to better guarantee the success of business negotiations.
3.2 Facial expression
Facial expression refers to people in social communication and business negotiations, due to the dual function of the external environment and the inner mechanisms, causing changes in facial color, luster, shrinking and stretching of the muscles, in order to tranfer information of people’s innner world and to infect others. It shows others a variety of complex changes in innner world, such as happiness, sadness, pain, fear, anger, despair, anxiety, worry, doubt in the most sensitive way.
As the most expressive part of the body, the face is probably the single most important source of non-verbal communication. It is capable of conveying several emotions simultaneously. The face not only can communicate a great deal, but also seemed to be the type of non-verbal behavior that people are beat able to control. However, facial expressions should be interpreted in cultural context and with caution. Take for example smiles and laughter. Smiles and laughter usually convey friendliness, approval, satisfaction, pleasure, joy and merriment. This is generally true in China as well as the English-speaking countries. However, there are situations when some Chinese will laugh that will cause negative reactions by westerners. Here is a example, laughter and a smile leads to misunderstanding in the Sino-US negotiations. If you do not pay attention, this misunderstanding will continue to develop into a disaster. David Johnson, a United States company general manager. Zhang Hai, the general manager of a company in China, are talking about the investment in China. Everything went smoothly, until the United found China's apparent error of data. After careful investigation, the result is error is caused by Chinese employees. China Manager apologized and with a big smile on his face. David Johnson, suspect the sincerity apology. He rather doubted whether managers are really deal with this error seriously. It is hard for Americans believe that the Chinese people smiling or laughing means not only happy but also shows modesty or embarrassment. For Zhang, the smile displaced sincerity in apology and an important part of the responsibility. In Johnson's eyes, smiling is a sign of disrespect. In this case, the error understanding on smile makes an awkward situation got worse. Chinese companies may lose the trust of the US company.
Other facial expressions also vary from culture to culture. For instance in some US businesses, it is considered acceptable to frown, swear, and yell, but not to cry. But for the Japanese, in situations of strong emotion it is considered acceptable to smile or laugh, but not to frown or cry.
3.3 Hands movement
Negotiation process is the process of continuously wondering each other's bottom line, hide their own bottom line. Buyers will seek to reduce the price, seller will list all the data to illustrate how high is the sellers’ cost, how small is the profit. In the process of the psychological battles, one can carefully worded, but not consciously control body movements fully. Once the statement could follow our heart, there will be inconsistent with the language of the body movements. For example, the lie will make the nerve tissue your neck feel sensitive itchy, so people have to eliminate this discomfort by the action of rubbing or scratching. This would not only explain why people scratch our neck when wondering, it can also explain why liars worry about the lies would be detected, they will pull the collar frequently. When a person is angry or suffer defeat, he or she will also pull the collar away from their necks, so that cool air could flow into clothes, to cool the anger in heart. During the process of business negotiation, we should pay attention to some small movements of your opponent, to watch if they would subconsciously to took water Cup drink, with hand cover mouth, or to disguised themselves by cover mouths with cough, or touch nose, or pulled collar when refering to key problems. these small of action, most precisely reflect people in a lie, tension or anxiety psychological state.
3.4 Posture
The way people carry themselves communicates volumes. People from different cultures learn to sit, to walk and tostand differently. The impact of culture on non-verbal communication is so strong that even people with great experience in cross-culture communication might be unaware of how meaning of a non-verbal act varies from culture to culture. The wife of a former president of the United States was said to have shocked her Arab hosts bycrossing her legs during a public meeting, which is an indecent posture in Arab culture.
Posture offers insight into a culture’s deep structure. For instance, in the United States where being casual andfriendly is valued; people often fall into chairs and slouch when they stand. In many European countries, such asGermany, where lifestyle tends to be more formal, a slouching posture is considered a sign of rudeness and poormanners. Similarly, in Japan, the formality is important and the Japanese value the ability to sit quietly. They mightsee the Americans fidget and shift as an indication of lack of mental or spiritual balance.
But there are similarities. For instance, even in North America, swinging a foot in interview makes negativeimpression. Also, people respond unfavorably to standing with weight back on heels and hands in pockets at workplace or sitting with feet up on the desk in office. And slouching or leaning on the lectern in business presentationmay make the audience feel that the speaker’s ideas area as careless as his or her posture.
Generally, standing erect, shoulders back, head held high display confidence, energy, andself-assurance, whichgains more attention from the audience. And a relaxed posture, a comfortable seating position, uncrossed arms, andlack of stiffness indicate openness with no communication obstacles. On the other hand, abrupt movements, shiftingseating positions, crossed arms or legs may signal defiance, disinterest or an unwillingness to listen.
Women in many settings will often hold their arms closer to their bodies than men. They will also keep their legsclose together and seldom cross them in mixed company.
Good negotiators know how to use body language to their advantage. They also know how to read other people’sbody language to gain the upper hand. Crossed arms, raised eyebrows, wandering eyes - they all mean something.Pay attention and you’ll be surprised what you might learn about what is really going on in the negotiationregardless of what is being said with words.
4.The effect of the body language in negotiation
4.1 Enhance the expression of sound language
People use language to communicate ideas, express emotion, but oftenly the words can not convey the accurate meaning of feelings.Therefore,we need use non-verbal behaviors to help, or to compensate for the limitations of language, or to emphasize the content expressed by words , so that your intentions are more fully expressed, more esaily understood. For example, when someone walking in the street ask you way, you point the road direction with your finger, to help each other to achieve effective communication. Focus on a narrow face-to-face communication with a variety of specific actions and facial expressions to convey the potential information, so as to achieve the sense of higher level. Meanwhile, the body language is a semantic multi-functional system of signs. As the core and main contents of non-language communication system, body language can convey a rich, subtle information and emotion at the negotiating table. Body language combined with sound language can be more powerful for expression.
4.2 Replace the sound language
Under certain conditions, body language also has the ability to replace sound language, and its unique role cannot be replaced by natural language. In the prcess of negotiation, when sound language is inconveniences or can not express the real intention of the negotiators, or the other could not easily understand, using body language can achieve remarkable results.In”The Three Kingdoms”, the success of “empty trap” fully show body language has the unique role that sound language can not be replaced. Another important aspect of body language is eye contact. There are many provisions in this regard: when to look and how long to look, what people can see what people can not see. When a salesman talking to prices foreign trader, to express exact figures, such as "8", they often like making the thumb and index finger extended, which is popular in china,but it really puzzle foreginers. because, in the views of foreigners, this does not mean that any meaning. The gesture is a very difficult thing. When the gesture is slightly different, there would be a distinction of the original intent; When the gesture are understood uncorrectly, it can also cause unexpected reactions. During the second world war, the United Kingdom Prime Minister Winston Churchill made a gesture of war, caused a sensation at that time. He attended the assembly of a important scenes.when he appeared, the crowd people clapped and cheered for him. Churchill had a "victory" of the "v" shape constitutes gestures – use your index finger and middle finger "v" shape.It shows victory and hope.But in British,when you want to use this gesture,you must remember to hand out. Because the back of hand outside people on a V-shaped gesture would be regard as very rude and very provocative
4.3 Quickly deliver information ,increase interaction.
In the communication, nonverbal behavior can maintain and regulate the conduct of communication. Such as nodding to each other's affirmation;brow lift in doubt;when the eye are not watching each other,that means the end of the conversation. In short, the regulating body language could help talkers to control communication. Therefore, non-verbal hints, such as nodding, frowning, reducing sound, changing the distance, all of these can convey information. In different countries or regions,
The way to use body language is different. Negotiators in non-language always use more subtle way to convey or accept a large number of information and all of these signals are always unconscious. Therefore, when the negotiators issue a variety of non-verbal singal. The negotiating partners with different cultural backgrounds can easily misunderstand these signals, and they even doesn't realize the error that occurred.If these unknow friction in different cultures are not be corrected,it will affect the normal commercial relationship. For example, when communicate with a American, if you don’t look at his eyes,or your eyes make people feel hesitant, he would worry if you are not honest enough, or be fraud with the business.But when negotiating with a Japanese, if you stare at him, he may think that you don't respect him.
4.4 Regulation
In business negotiations,because the environment ,objects and other external conditions change, and may encounter the deadlock in the beginning or in the end. parties often produce discomfort psychological changes. At this time,we can adjust by using body language, the two sides involved in the negotiations can quickly return to normal. For example, a smile will be effective to break the deadlock.
5.The principle of the use of body language in negotiation
5.1 Understand with context
Body language occur in a great environment, so the speaker should combine the body language with the whole language environment, each emotion or action cannot be separated, or one- sided understanding. For example, if in a cold winter, a person sitting in a bus terminal, with his arms tightly surrounded by chests, legs clamped together. Then he had been put in this position, most likely because he was cold, not because he wanted to protect himself. But if both sides in the negotiations sit across the table, trying to clarify some of his views to each other, put his arms around the other party position, that shows his will, or opinion was very different from the other side
5.2 Principle of consistency
Observe body language need to pay attention to the consistency of body language and voice. For example, when a salesman of customers to state the reasons for the refusal, they usually like to make their palms exposed to others as teacher told him in the training course. In addition to the statement of reasons, he would also make some hand motions to show his will..
6.Conclusion
The study of body language should be complementary to the study of language in communications. The understanding of one should be helpful in the further understanding of the other. Some authorities feel that the two are dependent on each other. This is certainly true in most situations. But it is also true that in certain situations body action contradicts what is being said, just as the spoken words may mean something quite different from what body language communicates. When this occurs, one must try to get further information, or guess the meaning from the context of the situation. In a sense, all body language should be interpreted within a given context; to ignore the overall situation could be misleading.
A word of general advice: when one negotiate in a certain language, it is generally advisable to use the nonverbal behavior that goes with that particular language. Observation shows that a truly bilingual person switches his body language at the same time he switches languages. This makes negotiation easier and better.
A powerful piece of body language which you can have control over is the closeness between you and the buyer. To conclude a negotiation there needs to be a feeling of connection. If the buyer is well away from his desk or leaning back, place some brochures on the table but sufficiently far away that he has to come closer to you. You should then mirror his action and move closer as well. The end result is that you will be in a better position to strike a deal.
Trying to spot the body language, listen to what is being said and deciding what your next action takes practice and patience.
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