Folklore: Automatic Gestures

Subject: RE: Folklore: Automatic Gestures
From: Senoufou
Date: 01 Dec 16 - 05:33 PM

When shaking hands, Africans grasp their wrist with their other hand.It's rude to offer one's hand on its own. Same for accepting something offered. You use both hands.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Automatic Gestures
From: Marje
Date: 01 Dec 16 - 05:25 PM

I remember reading or hearing some of Desmond Morris's theories about this. He reckoned that there were some aspects of body language that were quite universal. One was showing an open hand to some one you meet, as a wave, a handshake, etc. It's the opposite of a fist; it indicates that you have no weapon and mean no harm.

Another one is bowing the head, or even lowering the body by bending the knee, in humility, or to show respect or subservience. The opposite of this is doing all you can to gain height - standing on a platform, raising your head high, wearing a tall hat or headgear, using high hand gestures - which are ways of asserting superiority or dominance.

Putting your hand near your mouth or your nose as you speak can often indicate that you are not being honest - you are subconsciously using your hand to interrupt the untruth.

These might all sound a bit obvious, but you can see little echoes of them in casual, everday conversations all the time.

Fascinating stuff.

Marje

Subject: RE: Folklore: Automatic Gestures
From: GUEST,Pete from seven stars link
Date: 01 Dec 16 - 09:14 AM

Preachers sometimes and dramatic orators of course use gesturing . When I used to preach or do poetry I deliberately tried to incorporate it . And even now as a singer I might gesture when playing allows

Subject: RE: Folklore: Automatic Gestures
From: GUEST,Senoufou
Date: 01 Dec 16 - 08:21 AM

I think curling the lip is very threatening, and dogs do it too.
Africans often put both hands on their heads when shocked or very distressed. I've seen that elsewhere of course, but it's much more common in Africa, accompanied by a shrill wail.
I also love to see/hear African ladies 'sucking their teeth' in disapproval. It can be very loud, but in spite of many lessons from my in-laws, I've never managed to do it like them. Men there don't do this.
There seem to be quite a few gestures reserved for one sex or the other.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Automatic Gestures
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 01 Dec 16 - 08:05 AM

It seems that pretty well all gestures we make can mean different things in different cultures, even the ones that seem instinctive. Nodding for yes and shaking the head for no can mean the opposite in some cultures. Even smiling showing the teeth can be seen as hostile. (That actually applies in our culture too - it's easy to smile in a threatening way.)

Waving come here is one which might be hard to misinterpret. And the infant gesture of holding up hands asking to be picked up is one we appear to share with chimpanzees and bonobos.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Automatic Gestures
From: Senoufou
Date: 01 Dec 16 - 07:20 AM

I have an elderly friend who's lived in Norfolk all her life. She has a curious way of what I call 'upside-down pointing' to indicate great displeasure and anger. It's quite threatening, according to her. You hook your index finger and turn it upwards, shaking it at the person you want to intimidate. I've seen ordinary pointing of course, 'wagging the finger' at someone. But her upside-down pointing is quite effective. I use it myself sometimes!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Automatic Gestures
From: GUEST,ST
Date: 01 Dec 16 - 04:45 AM

I read "Man Watching " by Desmond Morris when I was young. It was a follow up to his more famous "The Naked Ape". He was a zoologist and presented a TV programme: I think it was called Zootime.    His premise was that, if we observe human behaviour in the same way that we can study animal behaviour, we can find the "body language" that is universal to the human condition. He came up with lots of examples of innate and universal gestures and also explored their origins and significance. (His books are probably an easier read than Darwin's book as well.)

Subject: RE: Folklore: Automatic Gestures
From: Thompson
Date: 01 Dec 16 - 01:39 AM

I make that hand-on-heart gesture for shock. I've often seen it (in women I think, but maybe in men too) in Ireland.
The hand-over-mouth gesture is an interesting one. In the photo of Obama and all his senior staff watching the murder of Osama bin Laden live on video, Hillary Clinton is unconsciously covering her mouth in that way, and it made me respect her more than the others.
For years I didn't understand this run of dialogue in Romeo and Juliet - I knew it was the start of a row, but all that thumb-biting?

SAMPSON
Nay, as they dare. I will bite my thumb at them; which is a disgrace to them, if they bear it.
Enter ABRAHAM and BALTHASAR
ABRAHAM
Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?
SAMPSON
I do bite my thumb, sir.
ABRAHAM
Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?
SAMPSON
[Aside to GREGORY] Is the law of our side, if I say ay?
GREGORY
No.
SAMPSON
No, sir, I do not bite my thumb at you, sir, but I bite my thumb, sir.
GREGORY
Do you quarrel, sir?
ABRAHAM
Quarrel sir! no, sir.
SAMPSON
If you do, sir, I am for you: I serve as good a man as you.

Then I saw a Cockney do it in a film - now I understood it fully! The gesture was to put the thumb in the mouth, nail facing in, and whip it out of the biting teeth, glaring with hate as he did it. It was incredibly offensive!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Automatic Gestures
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 01 Dec 16 - 12:41 AM

I used to work at a university that had lots of international students. One thing that puzzled me when I first encountered it was the way Indian students wobbled their heads while they talked to me. Here's a video. The one I'm talking about occurs at 1:27. I can't even do it the way they do it! But it's a common gesture that means, "yes, I understand." You can find several other videos at YouTube about this.

Did you know different cultures have different ways of handling money when they count it? Another video.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Automatic Gestures
From: meself
Date: 01 Dec 16 - 12:35 AM

Well, I don't know about that. To my understanding, acting is when you're "putting on an act", a gesture in that case being contrived and deliberate, to some degree - not 'automatic'.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Automatic Gestures
From: Rapparee
Date: 30 Nov 16 - 09:56 PM

I think that, technically, it's called "acting." Gestures have been part of acting and oratory for many centuries (it's called "chironomia") and reinforce the actor's response in the scene. We all do it, it's part of our culture; actors do it because acting is, after all, exaggerated reality. (If you doubt that, sit in when a disc jockey is broadcasting on the radio and then listen to how the person sounds when not on the air.)

Subject: RE: Folklore: Automatic Gestures
From: CupOfTea
Date: 30 Nov 16 - 07:27 PM

I find myself absorbing gestures from folks I'm close to emotionally, when I spend lots of time around them, but like adapting to a regional accent through intense exposure, most of it tends to trickle away with time.

In my 20s, there was the hooked together index fingers when one was in a thoughtful discussion, seldom do it now. After my beat friend retired and I did lots of driving with him, I found myself using his same two handed, fingers splayed out and palms facing inward shaking motion when irked by drivers who wouldn't move. ( backhanded "jazz hands" perhaps?)

One I've done all my life is to raise both hands, palm out, elbows tucked at the side, shoulders shrugging as a "leave me out of this" gesture meaning or I'm fed up, done, with a situation. Had a weird situation when an obstructive UPS clerk's reaction with my attitude of frustration had him holler "don't you raise your hand to me!" I don't know if this was an actual cultural misread, or a willful ploy to try to make me out to be violent.

Joanne in Cleveland, whose personal gesture is a nose wiggle: just because I can

Subject: RE: Folklore: Automatic Gestures
From: meself
Date: 30 Nov 16 - 06:45 PM

Well ... that does raise an interesting question: at what point does a deliberate gesture become an automatic gesture? And will the 'automatic' defence stand up in court? I think most of us can recall having made a 'learned' gesture without thinking, before we even knew we were doing it ...

Subject: RE: Folklore: Automatic Gestures
From: Joe Offer
Date: 30 Nov 16 - 06:01 PM

I make an automatic gesture when somebody cuts me off on the freeway - does that one count?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Automatic Gestures
From: meself
Date: 30 Nov 16 - 06:01 PM

Isn't he the guy that wrote that knee-slapper (speaking of gestures) Origin of Species?

**********************

I know I've seen women do that single pleasant-surprise clap; I just can't put a face to a time. It could well have been women of African background ....

Subject: RE: Folklore: Automatic Gestures
From: Joe_F
Date: 30 Nov 16 - 05:52 PM

There is an amusing book, _The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals_, by Charles Darwin.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Automatic Gestures
From: GUEST,Senoufou
Date: 30 Nov 16 - 05:28 PM

Yes, two little girls definitely use that hand-on-chest gesture in the Seven-Up! clip. Isn't that fascinating?
I learned British (deaf) sign language to Stage 1, and one is encouraged to gesture in addition to the recognised signs, to aid communication. So rather exaggerated facial expressions and body posturing are used to emphasise meaning.
African women often clap once to express pleasant surprise, but men never do that.
Greeks lift their chin to express 'no', but it can look as if they're nodding in agreement.
And Indians wobble their heads to show agreement or thanks.
I'm just wondering if there are natural universal gestures, or all of them are learned and cultural. If one watched babies, one couldn't be sure they weren't copying their own parents' gestures.
I believe the Italians have a myriad gestures for various situations. Didn't the 'cuckold' two-finger pointing (index and little finger) originate there? And the elbow-flex with clenched fist (a sexual reference).
This is all very, very fascinating!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Automatic Gestures
From: meself
Date: 30 Nov 16 - 04:29 PM

Here it is in Seven Up! - watch from 0:47.

Undoubtedly there are gestures that are innate and universal - certain facial expressions (horror, fear, anger), jerking away from a surprise - but a vast array of others that are cultural, and that we probably learn as infants and toddlers, observing adults and older children. Example: Raised eyebrows, which to us indicate interest, disbelief, or suprise, to the Inuit mean 'yes'. A crinkled nose, while it can signal disgust, more commonly just means 'no'.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Automatic Gestures
From: GUEST,Senoufou
Date: 30 Nov 16 - 03:40 PM

This is very interesting. I've just watched your clip at 20:24, and I don't think I've ever seen that 'startle gesture' or ever used it myself (I'm in UK). I'm really old, but no-one in my life has ever used it. One puts one's hands to one's mouth if startled, or covers one's mouth perhaps. One hand on the chest is most odd. I could imagine doing that if flattered or complimented. (A sort of, "What me?" reaction)

Do you think unconscious gestures are learned and cultural? I reckon it's probably so.
In my travels I've noticed very different human gestures for various situations to those used in UK.

Subject: Folklore: Automatic Gestures
From: meself
Date: 30 Nov 16 - 03:19 PM

Meaning gestures people unconsciously learn to make - unconsciously.

Case in point. About a year ago, I was watching the 'Seven Up' series (highly recommended!). The first episode was filmed in 1963; the children were seven years old. At one point, there are three or four girls together, when they are startled by something - I forget what; probably some boy doing something stupidly dangerous - in fact, now that I think of it, they might have been at the zoo; you'll see the relevance in a second - anyway, the girls, almost as one, gasp, and each thrusts her right hand flat against her chest. I was reminded of this a few minutes ago, watching Brendan Behan's Dublin (1966): at 20:24, a girl at the zoo is startled by a chimpanzee, and makes the identical gesture - gasp!, hand to chest.

I can't remember if the girls of my 1960s' childhood in southern Ontario automatically made that gesture, and I'm wondering if girls in Britain and Ireland, and beyond, still do. Observations?

And I wonder about other such gestures - gone by the wayside or still with us ....