说话经常会带着手势。这手势从哪里来的? 你可能认为,手势当然是学说话的时候,从别人那里学来的。换句话说,看别人怎么比划,我也怎么比划嘛。 这个好像很对。可是,最近一帮老美心理学家的发现却让人大跌眼镜。 他们让说英语的人和说土耳其语的人讲一样的故事。发现他们用的手势不一样。当然,不同文不同种嘛,常言说,非我族类…… 可是,接下来的一个发现就让人震惊了! 他们又看了说这两种话的盲人,是天生就盲的那种。结果你猜怎么着?你猜对了,他们的手势仍然是不一样的。英国人打英国手势,土耳其人打土耳其手势。当然,非我族类…… 慢着!这可是天生的盲人!也就是说,他们从来没见过别人打手势。那么,他们怎么会打和本国人一样的手势的?还是说,只要这么说话就会这么打手势? 至少,这帮老美就是这么认为的,语言决定了手势,和能不能看见无关。 这件事仔细想想挺让人冒汗的。 你看,说话的时候打的手势,绝大部分人都不是故意的。换句话说,几乎都是下意识的。 说英国话还是说土耳其话,能驱动你的下意识做出不同的动作! 这个,嗯…… 你或许觉得也没什么了不起,洋话说多了,自然也带一点洋派头…… 可是,如果中国人的英语水平极大地提高了,将来很多人都能说一口流利的英语……是不是意味着,中国人也会一点点地串种? 到那个时候,这句非我族类……天啊,想想真可怕。 当然,还有一个补救,就是给洋人灌输中文,强迫他们像我们学英文一样地学中文。中国人的英文有多好,就要求洋人的中文有多好。 那时候,反正大家都串种了,也就无所谓了,族类?那是神马东东? 附:原文摘要 Is Seeing Gesture Necessary to Gesture Like a Native Speaker? Şeyda Özçalışkan 1 ⇑ Ché Lucero 2 Susan Goldin-Meadow 2 , 3 1 Department of Psychology, Georgia State University 2 Department of Psychology, University of Chicago 3 Department of Comparative Development, University of Chicago Şeyda Özçalışkan, Georgia State University, Department of Psychology, P. O. Box 5010, Atlanta, GA 30302-5010 E-mail: seyda@gsu.edu Next Section Abstract Speakers of all languages gesture, but there are differences in the gestures that they produce. Do speakers learn language-specific gestures by watching others gesture or by learning to speak a particular language? We examined this question by studying the speech and gestures produced by 40 congenitally blind adult native speakers of English and Turkish ( n = 20/language), and comparing them with the speech and gestures of 40 sighted adult speakers in each language (20 wearing blindfolds, 20 not wearing blindfolds). We focused on speakers’ descriptions of physical motion, which display strong cross-linguistic differences in patterns of speech and gesture use. Congenitally blind speakers of English and Turkish produced speech that resembled the speech produced by sighted speakers of their native language. More important, blind speakers of each language used gestures that resembled the gestures of sighted speakers of that language. Our results suggest that hearing a particular language is sufficient to gesture like a native speaker of that language.