Italians DO talk with their hands: people from Italy use more than 40 gestures per minute – twice as many as people from Northern Europe, research shows
- People from Italy use more than 40 hand gestures per minute when speaking
- That is twice as much as an average Swede, according to a new study
From the classic fingers pinched against the thumbs to indicate frustration, bewilderment or joy, to breezy waves and shrugs, Italy’s obsession with gestures is legendary.
Now a study has confirmed that Italians really do talk with their hands.
Passionate people from Italy use more than forty hand gestures per minute when speaking, the study shows.
That’s twice as much as an average Swede, according to researchers at Lund University.
And while other cultures use gestures to illustrate parts of a story, Italians use them as a kind of running commentary on what they’re saying.
From the classic fingers pinched against the thumbs to indicate frustration, bewilderment or joy, to breezy waves and shrugs, Italy’s obsession with gestures is legendary (stock image)
Researchers from Lund University in Sweden had twelve Italians and twelve Swedes retell the story of a 90-second clip of Pingu to a friend who had not seen the cartoon.
They found that the Italians used 22 hand gestures per 100 words, compared to the 11 made by the Swedish subjects.
Previous research has shown that Italians speak approximately 188 words per minute, which equates to 41 gestures.
Dr. Maria Graziano said: ‘Italians gesture more than Swedes, which was expected.
‘More interestingly, we have shown that people from different cultures use gestures differently, due to different rhetorical styles and different ways of constructing a story.’
The research showed that people in Sweden use gestures to illustrate parts of a story. Pictured: A Swedish speaker uses gestures while describing the shaping of dough
Italians use hand gestures as a kind of running commentary on what they say, the study found
In addition to the frequency of gestures, the researchers also looked at the reason why gestures were used during storytelling.
Dr. Graziano said: ‘When we tell stories, we combine different types of information: we introduce characters and events, describe actions and explain why.
‘We check whether our listener understands what we are saying.
‘And when we tell a story based on cartoons, we also mean watching them.’
The study found that Italians tended to use more pragmatic gestures – gestures that comment on the story and introduce new parts to the listener.
Swedes, meanwhile, tended to use more representational gestures, mainly demonstrating the events and actions of the story.