Nonverbal Observation Paper

For this paper, I chose to do my observations at the restaurant that I work at. I went into Giordano’s Restaurant around four o’clock on a Friday afternoon, which was about an hour before I had to be there for my shift. I asked my manager if I could sit in a booth and eat some food before my shift. After his consent, I took the entire hour to sit, eat, and observe. I watched many different people come and go through the doors, but I mainly focused on two tables and a waitress. The type of research I completed was qualitative, meaning that it focused more on the physical things I was observing. The level of analysis was micro, which means that it is an analysis dealing with small groups of people or one-on-one interactions. The method of data collection I used was observation, which is obvious for the fact that I sat back and watched the actions of others and observed their behavior.
People/Characters:
Like I previously mentioned,
The younger man held the door open for the girl, showing a type of an informal norm. An informal norm is “norm that is generally understood but not precisely recorded” (Schaefer, 63). As they approached their booth and sat down, they both showed forms of nonverbal communication. Nonverbal communication is “the sending of messages through the use of gestures, facial expression, and postures” (Schaefer, 16). The girl showed her nonverbal communication by smiling (showing how happy she was to be there) and the boy showed his nonverbal communication by rubbing his stomach (indicating how hungry he was). As they talked, I tried to listen to their conversation. Although they were speaking English, they sometimes threw in their own form of communication to each other as a type of slang. This “teenage communication” was a form of argot. Argot is a term used to describe “a specialized language used by members of a group or subculture” (Schaefer,