现代大学英语精读第二版（第三册）学习笔记（原文及全文翻译）——9B - The International Language of Gestures（国际手势语）-CSDN博客

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Unit 9B - The International Language of Gestures

The International Language of Gestures

Paul Ekman, Wallace V. Friesen, and John Bear

On his first trip to Naples, a well-meaning American tourist thanks his waiter for a good meal well-served by making the "A-Okay" gesture with his thumb and forefinger. The waiter pales and heads for the manager. They seriously discuss calling the police and having the hapless tourist arrested for obscene and offensive public behavior.

What happened?

Most travelers wouldn't think of leaving home without a phrase book of some kind, enough of a guide to help them say and understand "Ja," "Nein," "Gmzie" and Uù se trouvent les toilettes?" And yet, while most people are aware that gestures are the most common form of cross-cultural communication, they don't realize that the language of gestures can be just as different, just as regional and just as likely to cause misunderstanding as the spoken word.

Consider our puzzled tourist. The thumb-and-forefinger-in-a-circle gesture, a friendly one in America, has an insulting meaning in France and Belgium: "You're worth zero," while in Greece and Turkey it is an insulting or vulgar sexual invitation.

There are, in fact, dozens of gestures that take on totally different meanings as you move from one country or region to another. Is "thumbs up" always a positive gesture? Absolutely not. Does nodding the head up and down always mean "Yes"? No!

To make matters even more confusing, many hand movements have no meaning at all, in any country.

If you watch television with the sound turned off, or observe a conversation at a distance, you become aware of almost constant motion, especially with the hands and arms. People wave their arms, they shrug, they waggle their fingers, they point, they scratch their chests, and they pick their noses.

These various activities can be divided into three major categories: manipulators, emblems, and illustrators.

In a manipulator, one part of the body, usually the hands, rubs, picks, squeezes, cleans or otherwise grooms some other part. These movements have no specific meaning. Manipulators generally increase when people become uncomfortable or occasionally when they are totally relaxed.

An emblem is a physical act that can fully take the place of words. Nodding the head up and down in many cultures is a substitute for saying "Yes." Raising the shoulders and turning the palms upward clearly means "I don't know," or "I'm not sure."

Illustrators are physical acts that help explain what is being said but have no meaning on their own. Waving the arms, raising or lowering the eyebrows, snapping the fingers and pounding the table may enhance or explain the words that accompany them, but they cannot stand alone. People sometimes use illustrators as a pantomime or charade, especially when they can't think of the right words, or when it's simply easier to illustrate, as in defining "zigzag" or explaining how to tie a shoe.

Thus the same illustrator might accompany a positive statement one moment and a negative one the next. This is not the case with emblems, which have the same precise meaning on all occasions for all members of a group, class, culture or subculture.

Emblems are used consciously. The user knows what they mean, unless, of course, he uses them inadvertently. When Nelson Rockefeller raised his middle finger to a heckler, he knew exactly what the gesture meant, and he believed that the person he was communicating with knew as well.

The three of us are working on a dictionary of emblems. ...In looking for emblems, we found that it isn't productive simply to observe people communicating with each other, because emblems are used only occasionally. And asking people to describe or identify emblems that are important in their culture is even less productive. Even when we explain the concept clearly, most people find it difficult to recognize and analyze their own communication behavior this way.

Instead, we developed a research procedure that has enabled us to identify emblems in cultures as diverse as those of urban Japanese, white, middle-class Americans, the preliterate South Fore people of Papua, natives of New Guinea, Iranians, Israelis and the inhabitants of London, Madrid, Paris, Frankfurt and Rome. The procedure involves three steps.

Give a group of people from the same cultural background a series of phrases and ask if they have a gesture or facial expression for each phrase: "What time is it?" "He's a homosexual." "That's good." "Yes." And so on.

We find that normally, after 10 to 15 people have provided responses, we have catalogued the great majority of the emblems of their culture.

Analyze the results. If most of the people cannot supply a "performance" for a verbal message, we discard it.

Study the remaining performances further to eliminate inventions and illustrators. Many people are so eager to please that they will invent a gesture on the spot. Americans asked for a gesture for "sawing wood" could certainly oblige, even if they had never considered the request before, but the arm motion they would provide would not be an emblem.

To weed out these "false emblems," we show other people from the same culture videotapes of the performances by the first group. We ask which are inventions, which are pantomimes and which are symbolic gestures that they have seen before or used themselves. We also ask the people to give us their own meanings for each performance.

The gestures remaining after this second round of interpretations are likely to be the emblems of that particular culture. Using this procedure, we have found three types of emblems:

First, popular emblems have the same or similar meanings in several cultures. The side-to-side head motion meaning "No" is a good example.

Next, unique emblems have a specific meaning in one culture but none elsewhere. Surprisingly, there seem to be no uniquely American emblems, although other countries provide many examples. For instance, the French gesture of putting one's fist around the tip of the nose and twisting it to signify "He's drunk" is not used elsewhere.

The German "good luck" emblem, making two fists with the thumbs inside and pounding an imaginary table, is unique to that culture.

Finally, multi-meaning emblems have one meaning in one culture and a totally different meaning in another. The thumb inserted between the index and third fingers is an invitation to have sex in Germany, Holland and Denmark, but in Portugal and Brazil it is a wish for good luck or protection.

The number of emblems in use varies considerably among cultures, from fewer than 60 in the United States to more than 250 in Israel. The difference is understandable, since Israel is composed of recent immigrants from many countries, most of which have their own large emblem vocabularies.

In addition, since emblems are helpful in military operations where silence is essential, and all Israelis serve in the armed forces, military service provides both the opportunity and the need to learn new emblems.

The kind of emblems used, as well as the number, varies considerably from culture to culture. Some are especially heavy on insults, for instance, while others have a large number of emblems for hunger or sex.

Finally, as Desmond Morris documented in his book, Gestures, there are significant regional variations in modern cultures. The findings we describe in this article apply to people in the major urban areas of each country: London, not England as a whole; Paris, not France. Because of the pervasiveness of travel and television, however, an emblem is often known in the countryside even if it is not used there.

参考译文——国际手势语

国际手势语

保罗·埃克曼，华莱士·V.弗里森，约翰.贝尔

一位美国游客第一次去那不勒斯时，善意的他用大拇指和食指做出了一个“OK”（很好）的手势，感谢服务生周到的服务和可口的饭菜。这位侍者顿时脸色变白，立刻去找经理。他们严肃地讨论是否要报警，以在公共场所做出淫秽下流、令人作呕动作的罪名拘捕这位倒霉的游客。

这到底是怎么回事？

大多数游客临出门时都不会忘记带上一本词语手册，这足以帮他们表达并理解Ja（德语）“是”、Nein（德语）“不”、Grazie（德语）“吃”与Uu se trouvent les toilettes（法语）“厕所在哪里”这样的用语。然而，尽管大多数人都知道手势语是跨文化交际的最普遍形式，但他们却没认识到手势语和言语一样具有差异性和地域性，一样也容易引起误解。

想想我们那位困惑的游客吧。拇指和食指形成环状手势在美国表示友好，在法国和比利时则含有侮辱人的意思——“你一文不值”，而在希腊和土耳其，这表示一个侮辱性或者下流的性邀请。

事实上，当你从一个国家或地区来到另一个国家或地区时，你会发现许多手势语具有完全不同的意思。“大拇指竖起向上”总是一个表示肯定的手势吗？绝对不是。上下点头总是表示“对”的意思吗？也不是！

许多手部动作根本就没有什么含义，不管是在哪个国家，这使得情况更加复杂。

如果你看电视时把声音关掉，或在远处观察一次对话，你就会注意到那些几乎不间断的动作，尤其是手和臂的运动。人们挥动手臂、耸肩膀、摆动手指、指向某处、抓挠胸脯或者抠鼻子。

这些各种各样的动作可以划分为三大类型：操纵性动作、象征性动作与说明性动作。

操纵性动作是指用身体的某个部位的动作，通常是用手，做出摩擦、抠、挤压、清洁或者清理身体其他某个部位的动作。这些动作并没有具体的含义。当人们感到不适或偶尔完全放松时，操纵性动作一般都会增加。

象征性动作是一种能够完全代替言语的身体行为。在许多文化中，上下点头都表示“是”的意思。耸肩的同时双掌朝上明显表示“我不知道”或者“我不确定”。

说明性动作是本身没有含义但可以用来解释所说的话的身体行为。挥动手臂、扬起或使眼眉低垂、打响指和敲桌子都可以用来加强或解释伴随这些动作的话语，但这些动作本身并不能单独使用。人们有时用说明性动作来表现某种意义或动作，尤其是当他们想不出合适的词语，或者用动作更容易说明问题的时候，比如在解释“Z字形”的意思或如何系鞋带的时候。

因此，同一个说明性动作可能在此时伴随着一句肯定的话出现，在彼时却伴随一句否定的话出现。而在象征性动作中，情况就不同了。象征性动作在所有场合对于某个群体、某个阶级、某种文化或亚文化群都表达同样的含义。

人们有意识地使用象征性动作。当然，除非出现轻率乱用的情况，动作使用者知道它们的含义。当纳尔逊·洛克菲勒向一位诘问者竖起中指时，他完全清楚这个手势的含义，他也相信和他交流的这个人也同样明白。

我们三人正在编写一部关于象征性动作的词典……在寻找象征性动作的过程中，我们发现，只是一味去观察人们的互相交流沟通并没多大作用，因为象征性动作只是偶尔才被用到。而要求人们描述或识别其文化中重要的象征性动作更是收效甚微。甚至当我们清晰地解释了这个概念时，大多数人还是觉得用这种方法认识并分析他们自己的交际行为很困难。

相反，我们开发出一种研究程序，使我们能够识别出极具多样性的文化中的象征性动作：如日本的城市居民、美国的白人中产阶级、巴布亚岛上没有文字的南福勒人、新几内亚岛的土著人、伊朗人、以色列人以及伦敦、马德里、巴黎、法兰克福和罗马的居民。这个程序包括三个步骤。

（第一步）给来自相同文化背景的一组人一系列短语，并询问他们是否有某个手势或面部表情来表达每个短语，如“现在几点啦”、“他是一个同性恋”、“很好”、“是”等等。

我们发现，一般在10至15人回答了问题之后，我们就可以归类出他们文化中的绝大多数象征性动作。

（第二步）分析结果。如果大多数人不能“表演”出某一条口头信息，我们就删掉这一条。

（第三步）进一步研究剩余的动作，以排除那些虚构出来的动作和说明性动作。有许多人急于取悦别人以致当场发明出一个手势。当我们要求美国人做出“锯木头”的手势时，就算他们之前从未考虑过怎么做，他们也肯定会乐意配合我们，可是他们做出的手臂动作并非象征性动作。

为了剔除这些“虚假的象征性动作”，我们给同一文化背景的其他人看第一组人演示的录像带。我们问他们，哪些是虚构的动作，哪些是示意性动作，哪些是他们以前看过或亲自使用过的象征性动作。我们还要求这组人向我们提供他们自己对每个动作的解释。

在第二轮解释之后保留下来的手势很可能就是那种特定文化的象征性动作。运用这种程序，我们已经发现了三种类型的象征性动作。

第一类是大众的象征性动作，它们在几种文化中都具有相同或相似的含义。左右摇头表示“不”就是一个很好的例子。

第二类为特定的象征性动作，它们在一种文化中具有某种特定的含义，但在其他文化中则没有这种含义。令人惊讶的是，美国并没有某种特定的象征性动作，尽管其他国家有很多这样的例子。例如，法国人把一只拳头放到鼻尖旁同时扭动的动作表示“他已经喝醉了”，这个手势在其他国家并没有用到。

德国人表示“好运”的象征性动作是双手握拳，把大拇指包在拳头里，敲击想象中的桌子，这也是德国文化特有的。

第三类是多重含义的象征性动作，它们在一种文化中有一种含义，而在另一种文化中却有完全不同的另一种含义。大拇指放在食指和中指之间在德国、荷兰和丹麦是邀请发生性关系的含义，而在葡萄牙和巴西，这个动作是表示祈求好运或希望得到保护。

正在使用的象征性动作的数量在各种文化中差别颇大，在美国不到60种，而在以色列有250多种。这种差异是可以理解的，毕竟以色列是由来自许多国家的新近移民组成的，而其中大多数国家都拥有自己的大量象征性动作。

此外，由于象征性动作在必须保持肃静的军事行动中很有用，而且所有以色列人都要在武装部队中服兵役，因此可以说服兵役为学习新的象征性动作提供了机会，也使之成为必要。

象征性动作使用的种类及数量在不同的文化中差别也很大。例如，有些文化尤其偏重侮辱性的象征性动作，而另一些文化中却有大量表达饥饿或性的象征性动作。

总之，正如德斯蒙德·莫里斯在他的著作《手势语》一书中所引证的那样，手势语在现代文化中存在着重大的地区性差异。我们在本文中描述的研究成果适用于生活在各个国家的大城市中的人：伦敦，而不是整个英格兰；巴黎，而不是整个法国。然而，由于旅游和电视的普及，某种象征性动作在乡下也经常为人所知，尽管该动作并不在那里使用。

Key Words:

misunderstanding ['misʌndə'stændiŋ]

n. 误会，误解

thumb [θʌm]

n. 拇指

v. 翻阅，示意要求搭车

gesture ['dʒestʃə]

n. 手势，姿态

v. 作手势表达

understand [.ʌndə'stænd]

vt. 理解，懂，听说，获悉，将 ... 理解为，认为<

puzzled