>I think it is very interesting the same gestures have the different.
I think so, too. Very interesting it
is.
Maybe gestures are similar to natural
language in that point. As you know,
Ferdinand de Saussure, a very very
famous Swiss linguist, pointed out
that words found in natural language
are essentially arbitrary things in
that there is no predictable relation
between the forms of them and what
they mean. If there were such a thing,
one would find it very difficult to
explain the fact that what is meant by
a word dog is called differently de-
pending on countries. In fact, we call
them inu.
If gestures have some arbitrariness such
as the above, it is very natural they
have different meanings according to
where they are used, I think. But even
if this is true, gestures are, compared
with natural language, less arbitrary
without no doubt. They are more iconic,
and in this point, they are rather similar
to symbols.
