The body language component of language learning

General discussion about learning languages
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reineke
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Re: The body language component of language learning

Postby reineke » Sat May 20, 2017 1:50 am

"Gesture publishes articles reporting original research, as well as survey and review articles, on all aspects of gesture. The journal aims to stimulate and facilitate scholarly communication between the different disciplines within which work on gesture is conducted.

Topics may include, but are by no means limited to: the relationship between gesture and speech; the role gesture may play in communication in all the circumstances of social interaction, including conversations, the work-place or instructional settings; gesture and cognition; the development of gesture in children; the place of gesture in first and second language acquisition; the processes by which spontaneously created gestures may become transformed into codified forms; the documentation and discussion of vocabularies of ’quotable’ or ’emblematic’ gestures;"

https://benjamins.com/catalog/gest
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blaurebell
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Re: The body language component of language learning

Postby blaurebell » Sat May 20, 2017 12:09 pm

There are places where it's fairly easy for me to fit in just with body language and a similar clothing style, but in other places it's simply impossible, because I immediately stand out no matter what I do. I can sort of get away with it all in England with my mostly German way of being as long as I add an additional layer of politeness and shyness to everything. When someone accidentally steps on someone's foot or collides with someone on the street it's usually the injured party who starts to apologise first, it's a little insane! I have done my fair share of apologising to inanimate objects over the years just like any English person :lol: Body contact is avoided at all cost in England, there is a certain awkwardness about any topic that goes beyond polite small talk and basically a parody of a shy awkward person will get you very close to English body language.

In France I would have to dress differently and exaggerate gender stereotypes and French is very much in the mouth and the pout, also the melody of speaking. I could possibly imitate that with a bit of practice, already because I've been taken for a French person many many times in my life. For example someone in England started speaking French to me after dancing with me for the first time. Also in Spain people often ask me whether I'm French. In Spain I have no chance of imitating the local way of being at all though. Their body language is not only awkward but almost hostile from my cultural perspective. Basically their behaviour is precisely what I was told off for as a child. In Germany you don't take up a lot of space or block the entire pavement with a group of people, you don't speak very loudly or shout across the street. When I'm confronted with a forceful Spanish in-your-face personality, I sort of shrink into myself and don't feel like I can hold my own. I also often feel like people are having half an argument or treat each other like they are stupid, simply because they speak so loudly and repeat everything three times. On top of things I also don't look Spanish at all, there is no point in even trying, and as a photographer I always have a camera on me - whatever I do or whatever my body language is like I will seem like a tourist anyway. In Germany I'm not a shy person at all, and I'm more forceful than most English people by far, but in Spain it's like I'm almost disappearing, it's really strange. And on top of things I simply *don't want to* adopt that sort of loudness just to be able to hold my own, it would feel like I'm turning into a rude inconsiderate loud person. So, around here I have just accepted the fact that I seem like a shy tourist and only try to compensate with taking very old cameras rather than a regular touristy looking one.

What's really interesting is however, that I have subconsciously adopted many Argentinian body language / personality traits after dancing Argentinian tango for a few years, even before I learned Spanish. Argentinian culture is sort of weird because it lives on globally in the tango world and if you get into that world you end up with a body projection and personal space comfort zone that are almost the same as those of Argentinians. You also end up with the same machismo / defence strategies of Argentinian women against machismo. It's basically all embodied in the dance and the little rituals that surround it. It really felt like tango changed my personality into something much more Argentinian to the extent that when I arrived in Argentina for the first time I felt like I was coming home! It was much more pronounced than when coming back to Germany after months in England.

That change in my whole way of being was very strong by the way: I used to be very particular about my personal space even for a person who grew up in Germany - a handshake was way too much for me when I was younger, I dreaded them. After many years of dancing tango I'm actually much more comfortable with the whole personal space issue though and have no problem with friendly gestures like a tap on the shoulder or someone touching my arm for emphasis while talking, I don't even notice anymore. Even kissing people on the cheek after just meeting them for the first time is completely normal for me now and you might think this is nuts, but handshakes have become awkward in the opposite direction, they are too formal for me now! In Argentina you even kiss your dentist goodbye, so a handshake is a sort of stand-offish gesture that can almost be an insult in some situations. And after being surrounded by Argentinians a lot I even gesticulate the Argentinian way. The gestures are Italian in origin, but after a century they are not quite as extreme anymore as the pure Italian use of gestures.

By the way I didn't learn any of it consciously, neither the English exaggerated shyness, nor the Argentinian way of carrying myself and gesticulating, it just slowly turned into the natural thing to do. It required me to be in it for real though, live in the country, live a bit of the bodily expression of the culture in the case of Argentina. Most of these things would probably be hard to pick up from TV shows, it's a 2D medium after all. It also feels like a sort of mocking imitation - a rude thing to do - but I'm pretty sure that something like body posture mirroring could be turned into a form of shadowing if you can overcome that initial awkward feeling of doing something that is considered not very polite. I've considered doing this for French at least with the facial expressions, since those are also really helpful for actually getting the right sounds out. However, whenever I tried I ended up feeling very self-conscious though and couldn't keep it up for more than a minute or two. It felt really wrong to try and pick this up by force. Like a salesman trying to fool people into buying stuff they don't need by employing body language tricks. Weird!
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reineke
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Re: The body language component of language learning

Postby reineke » Sun May 28, 2017 3:26 pm

Italian hand gestures everyone should know

http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/29/travel/ex ... index.html
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