The body language component of language learning

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schlaraffenland
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The body language component of language learning

Postby schlaraffenland » Thu May 18, 2017 10:26 pm

When you're learning a new language, how much emphasis do you put on acquiring the body language of the corresponding culture(s)? If you're not living in a country where L2 is spoken, what sources do you use to gain insight into typical L2 body language? How far along are you in L2 before you begin to feel that you're unconsciously accompanying the spoken language with pertinent gestures?
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Re: The body language component of language learning

Postby tastyonions » Thu May 18, 2017 11:08 pm

No effort at all so far. If the only thing giving me away as non-native is odd gestures, then I must be a freaking amazing speaker.
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Re: The body language component of language learning

Postby Speakeasy » Thu May 18, 2017 11:20 pm

An interesting question. Two quick comments:

I suspect that there are both “conscious” and “unconscious” levels of at which gestures and other aspects of body-language are adopted, either in one’s L2 culture or even with one’s L1 culture. Whereas some people enthusiastically adopt the latest trends in non-verbal communication, imitating others to the point of being accused of “cultural appropriation”, others are decidedly more reserved and are barely comfortable with standard, formal, non-idiomatic forms of verbal expression. Some people “slide into” the full L2 culture seamlessly, either consciously or not, whereas others “never get the hang of it” and, no matter how much they try, appear awkward and out-of-place.

I learned my major L2 in a full-immersion situation by simply copying, as best I could, the language of the people with whom I spoke in the workplace. As an Anglo-Canadian living and working in the interior of French-speaking Québec, I cannot recall making any specific effort to emulate the gestures and body-language of my French-Canadian counterparts. It might be that the differences were so minor as to be imperceptible. Then again, it could be that, as someone who has consistently scored in the upper ninety percentile range for Asperger’s Syndrome, although the differences were glaringly obvious to everyone around me, I did not notice them, and my interlocutors merely accepted me despite my failure to integrate at this level … it might also have served as additional grist for the mill for the minority who chose not to welcome me. Qui sait?
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Re: The body language component of language learning

Postby SophiaMerlin_II » Fri May 19, 2017 12:22 am

I think it depends on the language.

I only have my experience to go on here, but certain gestures and verbal habits come naturally. You're going to notice, for example in Japanese, that when people ask, "who, me?" they are going to point to their face and not their chest. Or that when they say certain words, they are going to bow (even when they are on the phone). This all can be seen from watching even cartoons.

Watching street interviews can show you how much people seek confirmation from their peers, or gestures they use to show surprise, accomplishment, frustration, etc. And for example, in Japanese, it will show you just how much head nodding really goes on while the other person is speaking.

More obvious ones can be picked up this way. I'm not sure about more subtle differences.
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Re: The body language component of language learning

Postby JonRocket » Fri May 19, 2017 4:08 pm

Hey schlaraffenland,

Speaking from my own personal experience, I can tell you that I have never put much “conscious” or intentional effort into learning the nuances of my L2’s (Spanish) body language.

In thinking about it, I can imitate a number of non-verbal cues and idiosyncrasies of my L2, but I do not use these as part of my regular speech - I can’t remember ever needing to “learn” them in a conscious way, as I have done with the verbal language. Instead, have experienced something similar to Speakeasy’s “unconscious” adoption of gestures and body language.

Interesting question!
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Re: The body language component of language learning

Postby reineke » Fri May 19, 2017 4:21 pm

Gesticolare all'italiana:

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Re: The body language component of language learning

Postby schlaraffenland » Sat May 20, 2017 12:03 am

Thank you to all; these are really interesting points/experiences you've mentioned. I began to think about this topic due to the confluence of a few events. Perhaps you've experienced something similar. What follows are my own musings over it all...

I lived in Germany for eighteen months while I was studying the language. I came over dressing and acting as I had always done since adolescence, in the uniform of a West Coast tech worker: oversized T-shirts and jeans with a hoodie and running shoes, draping myself unceremoniously in classroom chairs as though I were about to slide out of them onto the floor. All very casual and American. In my first three months in Germany, I distinctly remember that nobody ever asked me for directions in the street, and people in shops or restaurants frequently greeted me in English automatically without having heard me speak a word, to my chagrin! They knew instantly from the sight of me that I was American. I began to take note of people around me and try to place their origin, where possible. Why did I think they came from such-and-such place? What, specifically, were they doing or wearing that caused me to think this without hearing their language first?

When the Northern European Winter came, I was stunned to find that hoodies were not an adequate protection against subzero temperatures. I stocked up on clothes locally and ditched the tech geek garb for good, as it turned out. So I began to look more like the women around me than like my heretofore self. As I gained confidence in German, I also gained a personal confidence and attitude that I'd never had at home. I stood up more straight and occupied space more unapologetically. Concurrently, a strange thing began to happen: People began asking me regularly for directions in German, even when I was visiting a city away from my German home base for the weekend and looked perhaps as touristy and in awe as the next stranger did. Nobody addressed me preemptively in English ever again, that I recall. By the time I left Germany, I was getting asked for directions about once a week, I'd say. I assume I was presenting myself physically differently compared to the time when I arrived, and people unconsciously picked up on this and decided that I was a local and would be a reliable source for directions. Even when I'd make a day trip to France or Belgium, people would take me for German! Well, a Jack Wolfskin jacket helps. ;)

I think it's interesting to contemplate the gulf between a person's "base" personality and the personalities or body language conventions that they develop when they learn another language. Adapting to German body language did not come naturally to me at all. It was very uncomfortable to carry myself as assertively and naturally as the people around me, but it was really helpful for my own development as a person. I began to shed some of my more annoying and mousy Anglo-American habits, like apologizing for every little thing. Germany was like a safe incubator in this sense: People expected competence and efficiency and politeness. They didn't care if I had to fumble an extra moment for change, as long as I got it done. But it wouldn't help things if I cracked an awkward joke about it or acted all flustered or apologized in a panic, as would've been my instinct in English in order to pave over the awkward moment.

In contrast, adapting to Japanese body language was very easy -- too easy -- but not good for me as a person, since it encouraged the impulses that make me shove myself into a metaphorical box in social situations. I lived for some months in Japan, during which I took my cues from what I saw around me, making myself as inconspicuous as possible and prefixing most spoken statements with "sumimasen" (excuse me). There was something deliciously indulgent in apologizing a hundred times a day, but it wasn't good for me as a person to revert back to the feeling I'd had throughout my American upbringing, where I basically felt like a burden for the very fact I existed. (Peak Japan: Once, I apologized aloud to an automatic door that failed to detect my presence.) It was too easy to slip into this, and into unequivocally rejecting the slightest compliment or kind comment from a stranger. I watched how some classmates, on the other hand, struggled with this aspect substantially, since the gap between their habits and Japanese culture seemed to be too great for them to bridge. ("I'm supposed to say 'sumimasen' when the server puts down the food I've ordered? Why? I didn't do anything wrong!" Sweetie, that's not the point....)

When I have observed really compelling speakers of a foreign language, I realize now that part of what makes them compelling is that they have shed some of their native body language to the benefit of L2 when they are speaking that. The best Japanese speaker of German I ever met, for example, adapted a carefree bravado when speaking German which was largely absent when he switched back to speaking Japanese with Japanese peers. Even when I met speakers at C1/C2 level who had worked really hard at a good accent and who spoke with grammatical precision, they still came across as quite foreign when they bounded up with American puppy-dog gregariousness or folded quietly into themselves as they were otherwise wont to do while speaking Japanese, for example.

I suspect that formal studies of body language, and the distillation of these results into popularly digestible bites, are still in relative infancy. Obviously, a lot of research has been done in the last few decades, but it's nothing compared to what may come. What I mean is that you can find here and there a video for L2 that shows some of the more conspicuous gestures, like what reineke posted. Or you can find things here and there that are quite silly, like, "Learn How You Can Flip People Off in Ten European Countries!"
On the other end of the spectrum, there is the work of people like Professor Samy Molcho. I read some of his book Körpersprache, which is now about 30 years old, but I stopped about halfway through. The treatment of body language was simultaneously more detailed and too broad compared to what I was looking for. Here's a video (in German), "Samy Molcho teaches us how to flirt," which is more concrete in its tips, but isn't trying to convey the body language kit of a particular language, obviously.
And then there's Professor Amy Cuddy's TED talk, "Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are," but this is again focused on conveying quite specific information about oneself via body language, as opposed to being a toolkit for how to adopt the body language of a different culture.

In short (heh), I guess there's not yet a systematic set of materials that teaches one the set of gestures used by speakers of a given language. Maybe there will be more comprehensive and concrete information on this someday as part of the language-learning experience, e.g., "As you progress in French, try to accompany these words/phrases with these gestures, as you will notice the French themselves doing," much like how we learn table manners in our own cultures. For now, we simply have to observe, learn, and adapt, if we have interest in this realm of communication to begin with.

In that vein, it's no surprise to me that some of the popular material in circulation is produced by people with professional mime training, as with Professor Malcho. I'm sure that if you have a professional theater background, you're accustomed to noticing and adopting the body language of your characters. It would be interesting to know if committed language learners with theater/acting backgrounds conscientiously apply those techniques to language learning, and if they end up with a more native-sounding accent or body language as a result.
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Re: The body language component of language learning

Postby SophiaMerlin_II » Sat May 20, 2017 12:18 am

Wow, very cool! One thing I've never been able to adapt to is the Mexican concept of personal space. When I see two people talking, I immediately think the are intimates even when I know they are not. Or I feel as if people are being very forward or aggressive when they are talking with me, though I know it is not the case. The only way I've been able to compensate is to talk to people shoulder-to-shoulder. Perhaps with more exposure, eh?

schlaraffenland wrote:I suspect that formal studies of body language, and the distillation of these results into popularly digestible bites, are still in relative infancy. Obviously, a lot of research has been done in the last few decades, but it's nothing compared to what may come. What I mean is that you can find here and there a video for L2 that shows some of the more conspicuous gestures, like what reineke posted. Or you can find things here and there that are quite silly, like, "Learn How You Can Flip People Off in Ten European Countries!"
On the other end of the spectrum, there is the work of people like Professor Samy Molcho. I read some of his book Körpersprache, which is now about 30 years old, but I stopped about halfway through. The treatment of body language was simultaneously more detailed and too broad compared to what I was looking for. Here's a video (in German), "Samy Molcho teaches us how to flirt," which is more concrete in its tips, but isn't trying to convey the body language kit of a particular language, obviously.
And then there's Professor Amy Cuddy's TED talk, "Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are," but this is again focused on conveying quite specific information about oneself via body language, as opposed to being a toolkit for how to adopt the body language of a different culture.

In short (heh), I guess there's not yet a systematic set of materials that teaches one the set of gestures used by speakers of a given language. Maybe there will be more comprehensive and concrete information on this someday as part of the language-learning experience, e.g., "As you progress in French, try to accompany these words/phrases with these gestures, as you will notice the French themselves doing," much like how we learn table manners in our own cultures. For now, we simply have to observe, learn, and adapt, if we have interest in this realm of communication to begin with.

In that vein, it's no surprise to me that some of the popular material in circulation is produced by people with professional mime training, as with Professor Malcho. I'm sure that if you have a professional theater background, you're accustomed to noticing and adopting the body language of your characters. It would be interesting to know if committed language learners with theater/acting backgrounds conscientiously apply those techniques to language learning, and if they end up with a more native-sounding accent or body language as a result.


I wonder if books directed at native speakers would include these sorts of things. In English, anywhere, there is a genre of books aimed at socially-awkward people which teaches them to have the body language that their peers expect (sometimes including hand gestures as well). If this genre of books exists also in other languages, I wonder if it would be useful in this respect.

I can see the new genre being born in my mind's eye. One of the titles: "Sitting like a Frenchman in Germany, and other European anecdotes"
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Re: The body language component of language learning

Postby reineke » Sat May 20, 2017 12:32 am

Fun stuff

Italian hand gestures trump deaf sign language

"Prof Isabella Poggi at Roma Tre University recently formally categorised around 250 gestures in a detailed research paper that also explored the use of rhetoric, irony and context.
She told See Hear, the BBC's programme for the deaf community, that gestures may be more important in Italian culture than in any other. "We inherited the language of gestures from the Greeks," she says. "When the Greeks moved to southern Italy and colonised Naples, the Italians used gestures as a way to communicate without being overheard [but] the gestures continued to have a tradition as a way of communicating."
Sicilian film-maker Luca Vullo has documented Sicilian gesture - an even more free-spirited and expressive variant of that found on the Italian mainland - in a humorous documentary La Voce del Corpo, (The Voice of the Body)... "

http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-ouch-26737781

TOWARDS THE ALPHABET AND THE LEXICON OF GESTURE, GAZE AND TOUCH
Isabella Poggi
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source= ... 2XX3JctX-Q
Last edited by reineke on Sat May 20, 2017 12:37 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The body language component of language learning

Postby Tomás » Sat May 20, 2017 12:36 am

schlaraffenland wrote:And then there's Professor Amy Cuddy's TED talk, "Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are," but this is again focused on conveying quite specific information about oneself via body language, as opposed to being a toolkit for how to adopt the body language of a different culture.


Really great post, thanks. Take care with Amy Cuddy though. The research in her Ted talk does not replicate, and her own coauthor on that paper no longer stands by it:

http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/dana_carney/pdf_My%20position%20on%20power%20poses.pdf

And yet Amy continues to market it, which makes her extremely suspect in my view.
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