Translating Body Language
June 27th, 2010 by ComputerBob
Knowing that this Journal enjoys an international audience of between 4,000 and 6,000 visitors per day, I usually try to write as clearly as possible, without using idiomatic expressions that wouldn’t make sense in other cultures.
Of course, like every other rule, my rule is made to be broken. For example, I broke it just yesterday, when I wrote, “…our lifestyles don’t hold a candle to those of our grandparents…” (emphasis added) — because I saw how that expression would be an appropriate, clean, double entendre in that particular Journal post — at least to those readers who understand its meaning.
But as difficult as it is to communicate clearly to an international audience in written or spoken language, it can be even more difficult and complicated to do it with body language.
Because often, a physical gesture that means one thing in your culture can mean something entirely different — or even be seriously offensive — to people in other cultures.
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