Laurence Sterne is primarily concerned with individual perceptions of language and gestures. He creates characters who are constantly getting into difficulties with each other because of some misunderstanding of one another's ideas or emotions. Even Tristram as narrator resorts to different techniques in attempting to convey his impressions of the people. Yet the strength of these characters lies within their ability to retain meaningful human relationships beyond the confusion and complexities that language and physical expressions often produce. For Sterne, language and physical expressions are subject to misinterpretation, but human beings reveal a capacity to intuit natural emotions through empathy with their fellow beings. Nowadays, the relevance of the topic of communication to us as private individuals or public figures is obvious, for the failure of communication can be extremely costly to all involved and especially to those whose lives are adversely impacted. Therefore, one cannot emphasize enough the importance of successful communication in building enduring relations based on true understanding. Tristram Shandy offers an effective paradigm for human communication that is sadly absent nowadays and ought to be revived if we are to succeed in connecting with each other. Before discussing how the characters in Tristram Shandy succeed in communication by revealing a strong capacity for intuiting emotions and attitudes, I will attempt to show some examples of how language and physical gestures often fail as means of communication between the characters in the novel.

Keywords: Shandy, Sterne, Communication, Gestures, Physical expressions, Empathy, Stylized expression.