ABSTRACT
In short, patterned bodily movements, however slight, seem normally and invariably to accompany utterance. The com forting British conviction that only foreigners have recourse to gesture (or 'gesticulate5 to use the term urged by prejudice) accordingly proves difficult to sustain. The Englishman’s raised eyebrow and the Italian’s vigorous hand and arm movements must rank (aesthetics apart) as degrees of the same inveterate activity-although those who consider it 'natural’ to point with the index finger will always and inevitably regard as odd those who habitually point with another part of the body, such as the lower lip or the chin. Nobody just talks.
