Star Wars: The Four Types Of Nonverbal Communication

The phrase “actions speak louder than words” is heard everywhere, but what does this phrase actually mean? It’s meaning refers to how strong the aspect of nonverbal communication is. Nonverbal communication is “communication and interpretation of information by any means other than language”(Nalini Ambady and Robert Rosenthal 1). This type of communicating is used in everyday life and can be found everywhere. There are 4 types of nonverbal communication. They include kinesthetics(body language), proxemics(perceiving space), paralanguage(variation in speech), and chronemics(use of time) (Fred C. Lunenburg 1). These 4 characteristics of nonverbal communication are all seen in the movie Star Wars: Episode VI Return of the Jedi. In the opening
The Sith Emperor is trying to turn him to the dark side by making Luke battle his father. Before the fight commences Luke is heard saying that he still knows that his father isn’t completely evil and can be turned back. This observation by Luke becomes true when his father, Darth Vader actually saves him from the Sith Emperor. When the Sith Emperor realizes Luke can’t be turned to the dark side he starts zapping Luke with Force lightening while DarthVader watches. In this exchange Vader can be seen looking at his son then looking at the Emperor in a uncertain way. Even though Vader wears a mask the viewer can still feel the tension while he decides whether to saves his son’s life. After Vader contemplates what he’s going to do he lets out a roar and throws the emperor into the Death Star’s reactor shaft. The defiant roar Vader lets out is a example of the paralanguage aspect of nonverbal communication. “Aspects of speech such as pitch, volume, voice quality, and speech rate may communicate confidence, nervousness, anger..”(Fred C. Lunenburg 4). In this scene the defiant roar was a mix of emotions which contained sadness and anger. But for the most part, this exchange was nonverbal and the viewer could still speculate what was going to happen. The power of nonverbal cues show the probable outcome of a scene without any kind of verbal