Nowadays, cross-cultural communication belongs to the number of the most popular fields of research. It is relevant for our society as nations have to communicate on a daily basis. In their article, Hwang and Matsumoto (2013) focus their attention on such an aspect of cross-cultural communication as nonverbal behavior. The latter can be conveyed through different channels such as voice, touch, and mimics. The authors claim that nonverbal behaviour should be paid more attention to, especially if one has to communicate with people of a different culture. In general, it is quite informative and interesting to read.
Overall, this article seems to be very interesting as authors start from reviewing earlier studies on nonverbal behaviour, and then give their own conclusions on its role in cross-cultural communication. Authors claim that many people tend to retrieve a little information from nonverbal messages. In fact, as they see it, such messages often tell many things about the cultural background and personal attitudes of the participant of communication. As for the positive points of the article, it contains a lot of useful information that can be applied during everyday communication. Therefore, it possesses certain practical significance. To continue, the article is very informative, and it has a good structure that makes it easy to read. Thus, it reveals three main components of nonverbal communication (voice, face, and gesture) and all of them are explained abundantly. As for the negative points, there are a few cases of unnecessary repetition, but they do not affect understanding. Anyway, some parts of the text could be improved.
In general, I see the article as quite a valuable source of information that can be relevant for those who study cross-cultural communication. It is of interest for this field as the authors reveal peculiarities of nonverbal behavior during the communication between people of different cultures.
Reference
Hwang, H. C., & Matsumoto, D. (2013). Nonverbal behaviors and cross-cultural communication in the new era. Language and Intercultural Communication in the New Era, 116(1), 145-189.