Head or shoulder : identifying cross-cultural differences

Cultural differences are observed in verbal communication and nonverbal communication as well. Many gestural differences have been identified in everyday interaction and examined. While some focus on gestural differences between people within the same cultural group (e.g. (Saucier and Elias 2001; Yang 2010), others concentrate on those across the cultural groups (e.g. Pika, Nicoladis and Marentette 2009). Saucier and Elias (2001) identify co-speech gestural preferences in males and females. They find that males prefer to use more left hand while females choose to use right hands. Having conducted a meticulous examination of audio and video data, Yang (2010) studies female-specific gestures (e.g. hand-coveringmouth and hand clapping) and male-specific grstures (e.g. finger-pointing and chin-up) in Mandarin Chinese talk-in-interaction. Using empirical data, Pika, Nicoladis, and Marentette (2009) look at cultural differences in using finger gesture, particularly counting and signalling in ordering a beer, between Germans, English Canadians, French Canadians and North Americans. However, there seems to be a kind of over-generalization about some gestures, such as head shake and shoulder shrug, used by people of different language and cultural background. What is surprising is that this has gone unnoticed for more than twenty five years and still remains un-challenged when some more confusion has been added in recent years as we shall see in the following discussion. In this study, the author first reviews the relationships between different languages, cultures and gestures and looks at previous research on head shake and shoulder shrug, then shows what was stated about “shoulder shrug” by two academics in their books and by a regular column writer for a renowned Australian newspaper, and argues against the claims that a shoulder shrug is used by Chinese by providing evidence to prove that head shake is a gesture preferred by Mandarin Chinese speakers and shoulder shrug is a typical gesture used in the western countries. In addition, the possibilities that Mandarin Chinese speakers may use shoulder shrug are also discussed. Finally the discussion ends with a conclusion.