What do hands say

Lecture



For thousands of years, the position of a person in society determined how many people were to silently listen to his speech. The higher the status of a person, the more people should have been completely silent during his speech. In ancient Rome, a person of low descent could be executed if he inadvertently interrupted Caesar’s speech. Today we live in a society dominated by freedom of speech. Anyone who wants to express their opinion can do it at any time. In the UK, Australia and the USA, it is permissible to interrupt the president or prime minister. In 2003, when Tony Blair took part in a televised discussion about the Iraqi crisis, the audience mercilessly slammed the Prime Minister, expressing their disagreement. In many countries, the movement of the hands plays the role of a kind of “punctuation marks” in oral speech. Hand raising is peculiar mainly to Italians and French. In England, you rarely find such a gesture, except that you will say something that the true Englishman cannot agree with.
In Italy, the order of speeches is very simple: a man raises his hand, gets his word and speaks. Listeners keep their arms down or behind their backs. If you want to insert a word, you have to raise your hand. This can be done either by looking around and making sure that there are no other people willing, or by touching the person who was also going to raise his hand and take the floor. It seems to many that the Italians, who are talking to each other, are always in a close relationship, as they constantly touch each other. In fact, they simply interrupt each other and take the word.
In this section we will talk about the most common gestures of hands and thumbs, which we have to face almost constantly.

Tie the Italian hands behind his back, and he will lose his voice.

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Body language

Terms: Body language