Summary: The Notebook

Verbal communication gains a large part of its meaningfulness from non-verbal cues (Knapp, Hall, Horgon,5). These non-verbal cues are prominent throughout the film The Notebook, between Allie and Noah’s stages of love. These concepts include their facial expressions toward each other , eye gestures and the interpersonal distance. Non-Verbal cues are an essential part of everyday life that help us to communicate effectively between one another.

Non-verbal communication refers to communication effected by means other than words(Knapp, Hall, Horgon,8). Non-verbal communication can be put in to two different categories, intersubjective and objective non-verbal concepts. Intersubjective concepts relate to body movement and includes facial expressions,
The human face represents the essence of being human both personally and socially. It is said to be the primary source of communication except for speech (Burgwin, October 2nd). Human interaction and facial expressions are used to, complement and qualify verbal and others non-verbal responses (Knapp, Hall, Horgon,258). For example, if someone was telling a story, a way of complementing them using facial expressions would be to smile and nod. This gives the talker the impression that you are listening and enjoying the story that is being told. Along with completing verbal or non-verbal cues, facial expressions are also used as regulators, meaning they open and close channels of communication (Knapp, Hall, Horgon,259). However facial expressions can often replace speech, this is called facial emblems(Knapp, Hall, Horgon,259). Throughout The Notebook, both Allie and Noah convey these non-verbal cues frequently. At the start of the film, Noah asked Allie to go out with him, she declined his offer verbally but her face said yes, so Noah wouldn’t take no for an answer. Within the topic facial expressions there is a sub category of the styles of facial expression, at this point I believe that Allie was using the “substitute” which means a facial expression shows an emotion other than the one the person thinks is being displayed (Burgwin, October 2nd). Another example of
Gestures are movements of the body used to communicate an idea an intention or a feeling(Burgwin, October 2nd). There are many types of gestures that help us communicate in our everyday life, such as speech independent gestures, interactive gestures, eye gazes, etc. Throughout the movie The Notebook, the gestures that are communicated by Allie and Noah consist of expressing their feelings through their eyes. The eyes can show happiness, sadness, hate, and disgust and love. These emotions are shown by the physical appearance of the eyes and the surrounding area(Burgwin, October 2nd). An example of when Noah and Allie expressed their love for each other using gestures is when they are lying in the new house that Noah had built for them. They were lying on the floor when they looked over at each other and held this stare for a long time; this is called a mutual gaze. When intimate or in love the mutual gaze is held longer than non-intimate situations. It is evident that the gazes produced by both of the characters shows a strong intimacy between