Body language studies expressive or communicative meanings of body movements and not oral, visual, auditory, or tactile perception alone. It is also known by the name of kinetic behavior.

The movements of the face and body provide data on the personality and emotional state of individuals: the face, for example, can express joy, fear, astonishment, sadness, etc. The body posture conveys the attitude in interaction with others: voltage, interest, boredom, etc.

It can also be defined as the broad term used for forms of communication involving body movements and gestures, rather than - or in addition to - sounds, verbal language, or other forms of communication.

Fernando Poyatos defines kinesics as: "[B]ody movements and resulting or alternating positions of psychomuscular basis, conscious or unconscious, somatogenic or learned, of visual, auditory, tactile or kinesthetic perception (individually or jointly ), which, isolated or combined with verbal and paralinguistic structures and with other somatic and objective systems, have an intentional or not communicative value."

Together with kinesics, proxemics and paralinguistics are part of the three most outstanding aspects of nonverbal communication.

Body movements that provide special meanings to the word oral, during a communicative event, may sometimes have an intention or not have it. These movements are studied by kinesic or kinetic.

Sometimes we use a text instead of a word or a sentence, or we draw something with our hands to complement what we say orally.