What is the meaning of gestures?

Orators in ancient Greece and Rome once pointed out: "Without gestures, there can be no eloquence." So, what is the meaning of gestures in a speech?

First of all, gestures can greatly help to express thoughts and feelings.

In speeches and other oral communication activities, in order to express their feelings more accurately and fully, people always gesture with their hands when speaking. For example, when explaining what someone or something looks like, use gestures to strengthen its image; When expressing an emotion, we use gestures to enhance its appeal; When expressing an idea, use gestures to enhance its profundity; When making a call, use gestures to strengthen its agitation; When indicating a certain direction, use gestures to enhance its clarity, and so on. It can be said that no matter what thoughts, feelings, attitudes and wishes are expressed in oral language, almost all of them can make some corresponding gestures to enhance the meaning of expression.

Second, gestures can adjust the balance of some organs in the body. This is manifested in both the speaker and the listener.

For the speaker, if he only speaks with his mouth without using gestures at the same time, it will appear monotonous, unbalanced and uncoordinated, which will easily lead to boredom and powerlessness in his speech itself. As the speaking time becomes longer, the speaker himself will gradually reduce his interest in speaking and lose his spirit. On the other hand, if you "gesture" when you speak, it will make your speech and actions echo and keep your whole body balanced, thus making the speaker more excited and eloquent.

For the audience, seeing the speaker's gestures is very different from not seeing them. If you just listen and don't look (just listen and don't look), in addition to not being able to understand the speaker's thoughts and feelings more accurately and fully, from a physiological point of view, the moving auditory organs will gradually get tired because there is no movement adjustment of other organs, and they will not listen any more. On the other hand, if the auditory organs and visual organs move at the same time when listening and watching, they will adjust each other and echo each other, so that both listening and watching are in an excited state for a long time.

Third, gestures can greatly enliven the atmosphere of speech activities.

In a speech, if the speaker only speaks without making gestures, then no matter how loud the voice is, the atmosphere is not as good as talking and making gestures. This is because gestures, as a kind of body movements, have the characteristics of movement and can make sounds-words also have the color of movement, thus becoming more vivid. At the same time, the combination of gestures and other attitude words will make the speech more vivid, lively and colorful. This more active speech atmosphere caused by gestures is of great benefit to both the speaker and the audience.