Touch or Bodily Contact :
Bodily Contact or Touch is one of the symbol systems that are heavily influenced by culture. A culture determines who may touch whom, which part of the body, when, and for how long. Touching is guided by some rules which conveys certain meanings and violating them deliberately or unwittingly also conveys some. The possibility of a mismatch between the communicator's intentions and the communicator's interpretation is very high when they belong to different cultures.
In India, it is quite normal for young men to walk hand in hand with their male friends; in Europe, this is taken to mean that they are homosexual. In Thailand, no one may not pat anyone on their head; it causes offence. Touching an older person's feet is a perfectly normal way of showing them respect in India; it can appear to be slavish and embarrass an American. This makes bodily contact an important non-verbal symbol of communication.
Touch is one of the very first non-verbal symbols a new-born baby is lovingly exposed to. It continues to be a major means of communication for a long time because the range of symbols a baby can display or process is severely limited. Touch and tone of voice (as opposed to the actual words used) are arguably the most crucial symbols mothers use when they communicate their love and care to their new-born babies who cannot process visual inputs well and for whom words mean nothing. It is several months before it can process verbal symbols its parents and others employ. Even after a baby's range of symbols grows, touch continues to be a powerful means to communicate emotions.
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