Nonverbal Messages in Thai Short Stories

Abstract

       This paper aims to investigate how nonverbal codes like body movement, facial expressions, eye behavior, physical characteristics, artifacts and physical environments convey meanings and play an active role in Thai, based on principles in communication and linguistics. The data were collected from SEAWRITE awarded short stories during 2006-2015, with a basic assumption that short stories primarily represent  real  life where nonverbal messages are described in written forms as the same as in face-to-face conversational interaction. It was found that body movement, paralanguage, physical characteristics and physical environment generally occur in short stories. The main functions of these nonverbal messages are informative and expressive.