“SOME THINGS REALLY SHOULDN’T BE

EXPRESSED IN WORDS”

ITALIAN HAND GESTURES

Elisabetta Incollingo

Aims

To explain the history and origin of the language of gestures

To classify the most common gestures and create an activity to engage students

To perform some of the most common gestures to show how to use the hands to make meaningful gestures

Learning outcomes

To summarize why italians use hands gestures and what type of gestures they are

To identify how and when to use hand gestures

To perform at least 2-3 favourite gestures according to your own likes or what you can remember the most

Types of gestures

Psychologists of communication have identified lots of different types of gestures, but mainly we distinguish among: Pantomimic, representation (theatre,

affection)Pictographic, related to shapeDeictics, associated to the context

(toddlers way)Beat, enhance speechSymbolic, culturally shared (typical)

Italian hand gestures

What do you think italian gestures are?They are symbolic, because they are culturally

shared for their meaning within the population and could not be understood by another

BUT BE CAREFUL…1. They can only be used in informal situations, (eg. talking to family or friends)2. Normally, they are used to describe an external situation3. They are used to express something we cannot communicate with words

1 Hand, 2 Hands,1 Finger…

Italian hand gestures can be done by using 1 finger, two fingers, 1 hand, 2 hands, arms and other parts of the body, including face expressions…

Just to warm up…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DW91Ec4DYkU

1. How many hand gestures have you spotted?2. Have you ever seen them before?3. Do you remember their meaning?

Now… let’s pretend to be italian!

Group Activity: Mix & Match

Working together, try to match the pictures with their meaning

Now try to match them with the description (look for the numbers…)

This is a self discover approach, so don’t worry if you get it wrong, the point is for you to:

- Communicate to the group- Finding solutions together- Be engaged and discuss point of views

Results and feedback

We are now going to:

Assess your prior knowledge by seeing the right matching between the picture and the meaning of the gestures

Explain and perform together how to use them and when

Picture 1 The Meaning

“What do you want?”“What are you talking about?”

“Mamma mia!!!” “Where are you going?”

Beside these, it is also widely used in many contexts when

talking about something that is unreal, or real but kind of silly.

Picture 2 The Meaning

2.1 “You’re scared eh?”Or

2.2 “It’s crowded, full of people, too busy” (place)

Picture 3 The Meaning

“Delicious” (food)

“It’s done perfectly” (something very good, done well)

Picture 4 The Meaning

“Very good, tasty, yummy” (food only)

Picture 5 The Meaning

“Perfect!” (Well done)

It can also be used ironically to mean something that has

happened as planned.

Picture 6 The Meaning

“If I catch you…” (threat)

Picture 7 The Meaning

“Nothing left”

“We have none”

Picture 8 The Meaning

“Enough!!!”

“Stop!”

Picture 9 The Meaning

“I don’t care about what you’re saying”

Picture 10 The Meaning

“You’re crazy”…

Or

“What you’re saying is not acceptable”

Picture 11 The Meaning

“You’re clever”

“You can look forward to what happens next”

“Sneaky”

Picture 12 The Meaning

“Stealing”

“Doing something behing someone’s back”

Formative Assessment

Can you explain what is the need of italian gestures?

Can you name a couple of types of gesture?

Can you perform one gesture and address its meaning?

Production: one student picks a picture and performs the gesture, the others must guess.

Thanks for the attention…

I hope you have enjoyed this lesson and hopefully next time you go to Italy you can

pretend to act the “italian way”!

There are a lot of videos on youtube if you want to do some practice or see a more expanded list of gestures, by typing: “Italian Hand Gestures”

Goodbye for now