Talk to the hand (the Sunday times, lifestyle, 23 May, 2010)

Many young people nowadays use a lot more hand gestures. They’re like a lingo for their age group. The writer believes that the hand gestures are popularised by television shows and variety shows such as American musical comedy Glee, for example, extending the thumb and index finger shows an “L” for “loser” and raising the three middle fingers all separated, to show the letter “W” for “whatever”. The signs also seem to have influenced from other cultures, too, such as Japan and Taiwan.

Why such signs are popular? According to one of the undergraduate student, signs are used in classrooms especially when the students are not allowed to talk. The young generation seem to use certain gestures or slang to distinguish themselves from others such as the old or parent generation, because most people can adapt to other peoples’ way of communicating. They can do so by choosing to imitate or to maintain their own styles. Indeed, most parents are clueless to the hand gestures that the younger generations use. Youths on the other hand, also do not want to reveal what are the meanings of the signs they use.

I’m a foreign student from Japan, and in my homeland, such signs used here are very different from my culture. We seldom use signs to convey our feelings and words. Therefore, this article appeals to me because it helps me understand the difference of both cultures more.

I agree with the writer to a certain point that television shows and variety shows influence the younger viewers to use hand gestures to communicate. However, I think that peer influences are most likely the reason why younger people use signs and hand gestures. Friends are a stronger influence in life than television and variety shows.

Perhaps, using hand gestures will be the start of getting interest in sign language, though the hand gestures the people use recently meant good or bad…




Yoshida Yukie (Joyce)
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