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Body Language: Cultural or Universal? Body language and various other nonverbal cues have long been recognized as being of great importance to the facilitation of communication. There has been a long running debate as to whether body language signals and their meanings are culturally determined or whether such cues are innate and thus universal. The nature versus nurture dichotomy inherent in this debate is false; one does not preclude the other’s influence. Rather researchers …

…it is that we express with these cues. Most nonverbal signals obey the principles of semiotics. These principles are culturally universal and show that although the manifestation of nonverbal cues is different, cross-culturally the underlying tendency in the brain to pattern information in such a manner is the same. Nonverbal communication is neither wholly learned nor wholly innate. It is both; it is inherited impulse working within the restrictions and mores of any particular culture.