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I have a passion for running. Running and translating have many similarities. Do you want to know why? See http://www.translate-it.org/english/academy.html
I am also enthused about culture differences and similarities.
I hope you will enjoy reading the following article:
Gestures: a cultural ‘sign language’
The words we use have 7% impact on our communication, which means that 93% is processed through non-verbal communication: gestures, body language, facial expressions are used by all of us consciously and unconsciously in our personal and business relationships.
Some gestures have an international meaning, such as the hitchhiking gesture, others are typical of a culture. For example, Italians are well known over the world for communicating with gestures as well as with words. Sometimes, they even express themselves only with gestures!
A foreigner visiting Italy, either for business or holiday, should benefit from the knowledge of the meaning of many gestures, which may vary from region to region. It is therefore useful to know as many gestures as possible, to understand others and to be understood by them.
We should never underestimate the power of non-verbal communication.
Each social category has its own jargon, its symbolical language, and its members communicate by using signs and ideograms. On a screen used to send emails, for example, there are many ideograms to express how to send, receive, reply, or forward a message.
Non-verbal communication helps to see more of a culture and in a better way. A foreigner who simply learns a language can express and communicate as s/he wishes, but s/he may find it difficult to understand an interlocutor using gestures. Gestures are signs, and sign language is a primitive code of communication. Gestures evolve as culture and social aspects change. For example, the ‘telephone’ gesture was once made by rotating the index finger around the ear. Nowadays, we dial a number by pressing keys, that's why we simulate the receiver with the hand, with the little finger downwards and close to the mouth and the thumb upwards placed close to the ear. In our technologically advanced society, will Italians introduce a new gesture to represent the request ‘email me’?
(Many thanks to Bruno Munari and its book Italian gestures, which provided some references reported in the above article).
