Ethnocultural dominants of non-verbal communication and its role in the system of interpersonal communication in multilingual education

Abstract

The aim of the study was to identify which non-verbal elements are most significant for participants in a multilingual educational environment and how these elements are interpreted by representatives of different ethnocultural groups. The study used an online survey and focus group interviews with 300 respondents aged 17–60 in South Kazakhstan Pedagogical University named after U. Zhanibekov, including 210 students, 30 undergraduates and 60 professors representing Kazakh, Russian, Uzbek and other ethnocultural backgrounds. The results showed that 69% of respondents considered non-verbal communication important in interpersonal communication, while 229 respondents stated that professors’ paralinguistic means facilitate perception of information. The most frequently noticed elements were eye contact, facial expressions, gestures and posture. Focus group interviews showed that these signals may be interpreted differently across ethnocultural groups. The findings indicate that knowledge of non-verbal codes supports intercultural communicative competence and helps reduce language barriers in multilingual education.