Abstract: This article examines body language in romanesque communication in Balzac, of the verbal as well as paraverbal and nonverbal varieties. The aim is to analyze this language from a multisemiotic perspective—body language can be in discordance or concordance with verbal language—, but also from a social perspective—the body, linked to hexis and the class of characters, is both an instrument and a social revealer. Whether controlled or signaling in spite of itself, the body speaks.
