Factors determining cross-cultural variations of gestures: Language, cognition, and culture-specific values

Sotaro Kita
University of Bristol

Gestures are an essential part of our everyday communicative practice. As far as we know, gestures are used in communication in all cultures. It has also been noted that gestural practice varies considerably across cultures. For example, it is well known that the convention for form-function mapping in so called emblematic gestures (such as an OK sign) vary cross-culturally. In this presentation, I will present the results from three studies that investigated additional factors that determine cross-cultural variation of gestures. The first study demonstrates that the way information is oraganized in gesture is shaped by the way the information is expressed in language. Speakers of Japanese, Turkish and English gestrually expressed motion events in ways parallel to how their respective languages express motion events in different ways. Thus, linguistic variation is a source of gestural variation. The second study demonstrated that the way gesture use space as a representational medium is influenced by culture-specific spatial cognition. Two Mayan cultures (Yucatec and Mopan), which code spatial information differently in memory and linguistic tasks, showed different uses of space in gestural representation in the way parallel to their cognitive differences. Thus, cognitive variation is another source of gestural variation. The third study demonstrated that the way people gesture is shaped by what they consider to be good or bad communicative practice. In Ghana , like many other regions in West Africa , pointing with the left hand is considered to be disrespectful, and this shapes their deployment of gestures in communication in specific ways. Thus, values concerning communication are also a source of gestural variation.