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All Journal PERFORMANCE: JOURNAL OF ENGLSH EDUCATION AND LITERATURE
Auliyanti Sahril
Universitas Negeri Makassar
Education Languange, Linguistic, Communication & Media

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NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION AS NARRATIVE STRATEGY IN SALLY ROONEY’S NOVEL “NORMAL PEOPLE” Gabriana Budianto; Auliyanti Sahril
PERFORMANCE: JOURNAL OF ENGLISH EDUCATION AND LITERATURE Vol 5, No 3: August (2026) Performance: Journal of English Education and Literature
Publisher : State University of Makassar

Show Abstract | Download Original | Original Source | Check in Google Scholar | DOI: 10.26858/performance.v5i3.89088

Abstract

This study explores nonverbal communication as a narrative strategy in Sally Rooney’s Normal People and its role in representing emotional intimacy, social anxiety, and identity performance. The study is a qualitative textual analysis and investigates twenty selected passages with silence, body language, gaze, touch and other embodied behaviours, using Nonverbal Communication theories to identify cues, Alber’s (2017) for narrative functions, and Goffman’s (2021) framework to explain identity performance in a social context. Five thematic categories, such as silence as emotional repression, body language and social anxiety, gaze and emotional intimacy, touch and relationship transformation, and performance and social identity are utilised for categorising the data. The results indicate that Rooney’s portrayals of body behaviour allow readers to deduce emotional states that are not explicitly expressed in words. Nonverbal cues also show the conflict between the characters’ inner feelings and their socially constructed personas. Therefore, the analysis shows that embodied action is not just descriptive but contributes to characterisation, relationship development and the novel’s representation of class and social pressure.Keywords: nonverbal communication; narrative strategy; social performance; emotional intimacy; Normal People
Co-Authors Gabriana Budianto