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Gesture Is An Important Part Of Language

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Gesture is an important part of language the world over. Apart from sign languages, gestures, or talking with one’s hands, largely go unnoticed by a majority of speakers. That being said, there are some gestures that are so integral to a language that ignoring them is impossible. Such gestures can widely vary across languages and the world, and making a mistake with them can be disastrous. To alleviate some of this confusion, incorporating gestures into dictionaries of a specific language or country may be helpful, as well as indexing and recording such gestures. This process, though, may prove to be a complicated endeavor. Gestures, due to their ubiquitous use and arbitrary meanings, should be indexed conclusively into dictionaries of their corresponding languages and possibly even resources of their own. Gesture is an incredibly effective way to convey an idea and are an essential part of many languages. In most languages, gesture serves as a way to emphasize speech or to say a short phrase without speaking. They have been conventionalized in society, and while they do not have all the same linguistic properties as words do, their meaning within their culture is undeniable. As Rousseau says, “one speaks more effectively to the eye than to the ear.” (8) It can be hard to mistake something as simple as a head nod or a wave in greeting. Gestures such as the ones above and others such as thumbs-up, now ingrained in social media sites such as Facebook, are everywhere in

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