9 ms·

Blind speakers gesture like their sighted counterparts: study (2016)

58 points by rhyzomatic 6y ago

jrockway 6y ago
I went to high school in Japan for a year. Something that tripped me up for a while is the gesture for "come here". It's equivalent to the English gesture for "go away". (Try gesturing "go away" like you're shooing a bug away and "come here" like you want to tell someone a secret. Your hand flips 180 degrees, but it's basically the same gesture.)
- saalweachter 6y ago
  Does the atom of the movement change as well, or just the orientation of the hand/arm? (I would make the "come here" gesture with my hand starting closer to the person and moving towards me, and the "go away" gesture in reverse, although it might be difficult to tell because the motion would be repeated and confounded with moving my hand/arm into place in either case.)
- keanebean86 6y ago
  My Indian coworkers shake their head side to side for yes and no. When I first starting working with them I was always a little mad that they never agreed with me until I realized what was going on. You can tell if it's yes or no depending on speed but thanks to covid WFH for months I've forgotten which is which. Going back to the office is going to be an adjustment.
  - advisedwang 6y ago
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uj56IPJOqWE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uj56IPJOqWE
  - taneq 6y ago
    There are something like four distinct head-waggle motions with different meanings.
  - ChrisRR 6y ago
    It may also be a bit confusing to many people as Indians tend to gently wobble their head when someone is talking to show that they're listening. I believe it's a sign of respect.
- JoshTko 6y ago
  The gestures are similar but are different. The Japanese version is typically performed with the arm in an upraised angle and is a quick repeated wave. For a go away gesture the arm is parallel to the ground
- kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
  As further warning, the Western fingers up "come here" gesture has an offensive connotation to the Japanese.
- totetsu 6y ago
  I've had a few confusing moments with train conductors shooing me off a train, but actually telling me to hurry up and get on.
- frequentnapper 6y ago
  Not exactly sure what tripped you up. The palm is facing downwards, but the hand motion is opposite and easy to tell even if you're a foreigner. Source: am foreigner living in Japan
- monoideism 6y ago
  Sounds similar to the gesture for "come here" in Turkey and other Turkic countries. Which is interesting, given the putative shared origin of Japanese and Turkic languages (although the hypothesized membership of Japanese in an Altaic language superfamily is still very controversial). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altaic_languages#Korean_and_Japanese_languages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altaic_languages#Korean_and_Ja...
- rhn_mk1 6y ago
  What do they actually look like? I'm struggling to understand what two gestures are 180 degrees to each other.
ardit33 6y ago
1. We are born with the ability to gesture, and not something that is learned directly. So it is a in-born trait. You get the ability of speech, and gesturing tags along. (but most likely, evolutionary speaking, gesturing came first). 2. Gesturing is linked to speech/language. Different languages will have different gestures, not because they learned them, but by the grammatical structure/intonation of the language. It will have been interesting to see multi-lingual people, and see if the level of gesturing changes when they switch language. "The results showed that blind Turkish speakers gesture like their sighted counterparts, and the same for English speakers. All Turkish speakers gestured significantly differently from all English speakers, regardless of sightedness. This means that these particular gestural patterns are something that’s deeply linked to the grammatical properties of a language, and not something that we learn from looking at other speakers."
- NoodleIncident 6y ago
  I wonder what it is about Italian that leads to the stereotype, then?
  - edmundsauto 6y ago
    Could be frequency, could be magnitude of the gestures, could be the gestures are more prominent/memorable/not subtle. Probably a combo, or, it's possible that the stereotype was centered around a few prominent individuals and is not actually a trait of that languages speakers.
  - ardit33 6y ago
    It is not just Italians, but latin based languages (Spanish, French) are also known to use more gestures, while Germanic ones, a lot less... eg. German, Swedish folks almost come out as 'robotic' compared to Mediterranean countries.
    - irrational 6y ago
      I speak English and Spanish and I have almost no hand gestures. But I see other English speakers that are mono-lingual and they have extensive hand gestures. I wonder what is up with that?
dang 6y ago
Url changed from https://allthingslinguistic.com/post/150001033323/blind-people-gesture-and-why-thats-kind-of-a-big https://allthingslinguistic.com/post/150001033323/blind-peop..., which points to this. A related article is https://www.thecut.com/2016/09/blind-people-gesture-like-sighted-people.html https://www.thecut.com/2016/09/blind-people-gesture-like-sig...
- rhyzomatic 6y ago
  Thank you dang, I originally read the first link on my phone and didn't notice that it was quoting another blog.
BurningFrog 6y ago
I'd love a study comparing Chimpanzee gestures to humans. I'd expect similarities!
totetsu 6y ago
One think I noted is that as eye contact, and therefore line of sight is not so important for blind speakers, They tend to be more expressive with their head movements.
bryanrasmussen 6y ago
It would be interesting to know if there is any difference in the types of gestures employed https://2012books.lardbucket.org/books/a-primer-on-communication-studies/s04-02-types-of-nonverbal-communicati.html https://2012books.lardbucket.org/books/a-primer-on-communica... http://changingminds.org/explanations/behaviors/body_language/gesture_type.htm http://changingminds.org/explanations/behaviors/body_languag... I tend to use metaphoric gestures a lot by splitting complicated subjects up into groups, and then using gestures to illustrate the group I am discussing at the moment.
- 082349872349872 6y ago
  I've read that in ASL, one may establish a "pronoun" by signing in a location, and then using that location as an endpoint for further signs. Is this true?
  - coryrc 6y ago
    Yes
  - bryanrasmussen 6y ago
    yes https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0024384113002167 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S002438411...
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

58 points by rhyzomatic 6y ago

I went to high school in Japan for a year. Something that tripped me up for a while is the gesture for "come here". It's equivalent to the English gesture for "go away". (Try gesturing "go away" like you're shooing a bug away and "come here" like you want to tell someone a secret. Your hand flips 180 degrees, but it's basically the same gesture.)

saalweachter 6y ago
Does the atom of the movement change as well, or just the orientation of the hand/arm? (I would make the "come here" gesture with my hand starting closer to the person and moving towards me, and the "go away" gesture in reverse, although it might be difficult to tell because the motion would be repeated and confounded with moving my hand/arm into place in either case.)
keanebean86 6y ago
My Indian coworkers shake their head side to side for yes and no. When I first starting working with them I was always a little mad that they never agreed with me until I realized what was going on. You can tell if it's yes or no depending on speed but thanks to covid WFH for months I've forgotten which is which. Going back to the office is going to be an adjustment.
- advisedwang 6y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uj56IPJOqWE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uj56IPJOqWE
- taneq 6y ago
  There are something like four distinct head-waggle motions with different meanings.
- ChrisRR 6y ago
  It may also be a bit confusing to many people as Indians tend to gently wobble their head when someone is talking to show that they're listening. I believe it's a sign of respect.
JoshTko 6y ago
The gestures are similar but are different. The Japanese version is typically performed with the arm in an upraised angle and is a quick repeated wave. For a go away gesture the arm is parallel to the ground
kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
As further warning, the Western fingers up "come here" gesture has an offensive connotation to the Japanese.
totetsu 6y ago
I've had a few confusing moments with train conductors shooing me off a train, but actually telling me to hurry up and get on.
frequentnapper 6y ago
Not exactly sure what tripped you up. The palm is facing downwards, but the hand motion is opposite and easy to tell even if you're a foreigner. Source: am foreigner living in Japan
monoideism 6y ago
Sounds similar to the gesture for "come here" in Turkey and other Turkic countries. Which is interesting, given the putative shared origin of Japanese and Turkic languages (although the hypothesized membership of Japanese in an Altaic language superfamily is still very controversial). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altaic_languages#Korean_and_Japanese_languages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altaic_languages#Korean_and_Ja...
rhn_mk1 6y ago
What do they actually look like? I'm struggling to understand what two gestures are 180 degrees to each other.

ardit33 6y ago

1. We are born with the ability to gesture, and not something that is learned directly. So it is a in-born trait. You get the ability of speech, and gesturing tags along. (but most likely, evolutionary speaking, gesturing came first). 2. Gesturing is linked to speech/language. Different languages will have different gestures, not because they learned them, but by the grammatical structure/intonation of the language. It will have been interesting to see multi-lingual people, and see if the level of gesturing changes when they switch language. "The results showed that blind Turkish speakers gesture like their sighted counterparts, and the same for English speakers. All Turkish speakers gestured significantly differently from all English speakers, regardless of sightedness. This means that these particular gestural patterns are something that’s deeply linked to the grammatical properties of a language, and not something that we learn from looking at other speakers."

NoodleIncident 6y ago
I wonder what it is about Italian that leads to the stereotype, then?
- edmundsauto 6y ago
  Could be frequency, could be magnitude of the gestures, could be the gestures are more prominent/memorable/not subtle. Probably a combo, or, it's possible that the stereotype was centered around a few prominent individuals and is not actually a trait of that languages speakers.
- ardit33 6y ago
  It is not just Italians, but latin based languages (Spanish, French) are also known to use more gestures, while Germanic ones, a lot less... eg. German, Swedish folks almost come out as 'robotic' compared to Mediterranean countries.
  - irrational 6y ago
    I speak English and Spanish and I have almost no hand gestures. But I see other English speakers that are mono-lingual and they have extensive hand gestures. I wonder what is up with that?

dang 6y ago

Url changed from https://allthingslinguistic.com/post/150001033323/blind-people-gesture-and-why-thats-kind-of-a-big https://allthingslinguistic.com/post/150001033323/blind-peop..., which points to this. A related article is https://www.thecut.com/2016/09/blind-people-gesture-like-sighted-people.html https://www.thecut.com/2016/09/blind-people-gesture-like-sig...

rhyzomatic 6y ago
Thank you dang, I originally read the first link on my phone and didn't notice that it was quoting another blog.

BurningFrog 6y ago

I'd love a study comparing Chimpanzee gestures to humans. I'd expect similarities!

totetsu 6y ago

One think I noted is that as eye contact, and therefore line of sight is not so important for blind speakers, They tend to be more expressive with their head movements.

bryanrasmussen 6y ago

It would be interesting to know if there is any difference in the types of gestures employed https://2012books.lardbucket.org/books/a-primer-on-communication-studies/s04-02-types-of-nonverbal-communicati.html https://2012books.lardbucket.org/books/a-primer-on-communica... http://changingminds.org/explanations/behaviors/body_language/gesture_type.htm http://changingminds.org/explanations/behaviors/body_languag... I tend to use metaphoric gestures a lot by splitting complicated subjects up into groups, and then using gestures to illustrate the group I am discussing at the moment.

082349872349872 6y ago
I've read that in ASL, one may establish a "pronoun" by signing in a location, and then using that location as an endpoint for further signs. Is this true?
- coryrc 6y ago
  Yes
- bryanrasmussen 6y ago
  yes https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0024384113002167 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S002438411...

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]