For this lesson I opted to go to the food court at the mall to watch people. I chose to go around lunchtime because I thought I would have a wider range of people to observe at that time and in that place. I was right; the availability of people to observe was almost overwhelming. After watching several different tables of people for a while, I settled on two people sitting together at a table for four. They were eating lunch. He was eating something with a fork (which will be important later); she was eating tacos (which will also be important later). I think they were a couple; they seemed to be “together.”
As I watched them, I noticed that he talked more than she did. I also noticed that he ‘talked’ with his hands a lot. He seemed to communicate with body behavior much more than she did. In fact, many of the gestures I will describe in this paper came from him. He tended to use emblems, illustrators, regulators, and affect displays. She used emblems, regulators, and affect displays. There seemed to be an absence of adaptors, but I think this was because they were eating. Who wants to touch their hair after they’ve handled greasy tacos? If a person is using a fork, they’re not likely to be tapping their fingers.
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As the man talked, I observed him to use emblems such thumbs up; illustrators such as gesturing with his fork as he described something (he did this several times); regulators such as nodding and leaning forward (though I’m wondering if he leaned forward as much as he did because the food court was loud and he was trying to hear the lady); and affect displays such as smiling, rolling his eyes, shaking and nodding his head, and ‘shivering’ in an animated fashion, as if expressing an exaggerated disgust about something (rather than being cold). Unless she was talking, the man seemed to use kinesics any time he talked. One of his uses of the thumbs up gesture (emblem) seemed to be done sarcastically; he performed the gestured in an exaggerated manner. I’m not sure what they were talking about, but at one point he pointed to her while he was talking, as if making a point (regulator). He also leaned forward towards the lady when she was talking, nodding as she spoke (regulator). During a discussion in which they seemed to be discussing which direction to go at some point, he pointed behind him with his fork (illustrator). As I noted earlier, he also seemed to ‘shiver’ at one point, as if something she’d said had humorously grossed him out, and he’d shivered in an exaggerated fashion in response, which seemed to make her laugh (affect display).
She was harder to read since she didn’t use her hands as much, since she was eating tacos. However, I did observe the lady to use some kinesics. At one point the man asked her a question right after she’d taken a big bite of taco; in response to his question, she gave him the okay sign (emblem). When they were having their discussion about which direction they were going to go or where something was, she used her index finger to point in a direction that was not the same direction he’d indicated with his fork (illustrator). She leaned forward and nodded in response to something the man said at several points in their conversation (regulator). However, the man must have said something that annoyed her at one point because she put down the taco she was holding, leaned back, and shook her head (regulator). She seemed to use affect displays a lot; she had a very expressive face. She clearly thought he was funny because she smiled and laughed several times during their conversation (affect display). Though when he said whatever it was that annoyed her, she also frowned very obviously as she shook her head (regulator). The two of them also clearly discussed something that they both found annoying or ridiculous. In the course of that part of the conversation, I observed both of them to roll their eyes in an exaggerated fashion at whatever they’d been discussing (affect displays). Then he asked her a question, to which she simply shrugged in response (emblem).
