When I told a friend whom I’d voted for in 1980, she pointed her finger at my forehead and pulled an imaginary trigger. I\u2019ve been killed symbolically before, playfully strangled by people who wrapped their hands around my neck and shook me a few times because they didn\u2019t like something I\u2019d done. Have you ever been murdered by gesture? How serious are the death wishes of people who kill by pantomime?<\/p>\n
In most parts of the United States, pointing an actual gun at someone constitutes a crime<\/a>, even if the gun isn’t loaded. Because pointing weapons at people can make them fear<\/a> for their lives, \u201cbrandishing\u201d can qualify as a crime of assault. A finger representing a gun can\u2019t hurt anyone physically, but emotionally, it can do powerful work. A murderous gesture can arouse anger<\/a> and fear, maybe because it signals a desire to kill without making an actual threat. <\/p>\n People unfamiliar with sign languages underestimate the communicative power of bodies, especially the hands. Studies of early humans indicate that vocal language evolved only after evolutionary breakthroughs in the motor system enabled hominids to retrieve motor memories and control and model their movements (Donald 739-40). People\u2019s ability to communicate by making sounds has evolved through exaptation of the motor system, exploiting structures and mechanisms that evolved to guide motions (Gallese and Cuccio, 11). Human language relies on motor function not just for the production of speech but for the organization of words into comprehensible phrases (Glenberg and Gallese, 907-8).<\/p>\n Given language\u2019s dependence on the motor system, it should come as no surprise that gestures work as more than decorative flourishes. Rather than optional accompaniments to speech, hand gestures are essential to communication and cognition<\/a> (Kelly and Tran, 586). Psychologists in the field of gesture studies regard bodily gestures not as the products of thinking but as part of the process (Kelly and Tran, 589-90). When people act out what they\u2019re saying in a conversation, they are developing ideas even as they share them. Gestures are unfinished thoughts.<\/p>\n Like a gesture’s ability to communicate a concept, its capacity to arouse emotions deserves more attention<\/a> than it usually gets. Making an obscene gesture in anger can evoke violent responses. Less provocative hand gestures formed while speaking can convey the speaker\u2019s emotional state (Kelly and Tran, 596). Because gestures reveal coalescing emotions and thoughts, they present emerging possibilities rather than “something internal and already formed\u201d (Gallagher 128; Bolens 22). Gestures can promote understanding as long as one doesn\u2019t take them as definitive statements.<\/p>\n In literature, where writers\u2019 choices of words help readers to imagine gestures, an evocative description of a bodily movement can play a key role in a story. In Jane Austen\u2019s Pride and Prejudice<\/a>, Mr. Darcy\u2019s startled response when he sees Elizabeth Bennett suggests strong emotion<\/a> because it contradicts the controlled style of bodily movement Austen has established for him (Bolens 29). Many fiction writers call attention to their characters\u2019 body language<\/a>, especially their hand movements, because hands can communicate so much about people\u2019s inner states.<\/p>\n Pointing an imaginary gun at a friend\u2019s head and shooting would seem to convey a mental state quite clearly. If one considers recent research on hand gestures, however, the meaning becomes murkier. Given the political conflicts currently straining social bonds, shooting someone symbolically because of whom she voted for 46 years ago seems counterproductive. But if one interprets the mock-shooting as an angry flash in emerging thoughts, the murderous gesture feels less deadly. In the end, the thought that prevailed in my friend was not a death wish. \u201cWhy did you vote for him?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When I told a friend whom I’d voted for in 1980, she pointed her finger at my forehead…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":589511,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-589510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=589510"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589510\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/589511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=589510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=589510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=589510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}