The 5 Functions of Non-Verbal Communication

There are five functions of non-verbal communication: reinforcement, contradiction, substitution, accentuation, and regulation. All of these functions help the person sending a message and the person receiving the message my making the substance of the communication more understandable.

Reinforcement- “the amount of redundancy nonverbal communication adds to the verbal message” for example if you say “Hi” or “Bye” you will probably wave your hand also, and if you say you’re hungry you might rub your stomach. If something tastes bad you would express your dislike accompanied with a disgusted look on your face.

Substitution- “using a nonverbal action or cue instead of speaking” for example instead of actually saying “hi” or “bye” you might just wave a hand at someone. When we are not able to speak to a person we use a nonverbal cue.


Contradiction- “the use of a nonverbal message to negate the verbal message” for example if you ask how someone is and they say “good” but they roll their eyes or look down at the floor and shrug their shoulders, you know they are actually not good and they have just negated the verbal message they were sending.


Accentuation- “the use of nonverbal cues to intensify the verbal message” for example if you speak louder and quickly you are adding intensity to the verbal message. We can tell when a person is excited because they usually speak loud and their eyes widen, making the message more clear.

Regulation- “the turn taking cues of conversational order” for example we use hand signals to indicate that we are done talking and it is someone else’s turn to talk. We also use nonverbal signals like looking at the other person as if to say “what do you think about that” without actually speaking the words.

**information taken from "The Modern Communicator" by Daniel Oneil and Adam Earnhardt