91: Lauren Gawne, Is Pointing Rude, and Gestures Studies

21 snips

Aug 28, 2025

In this discussion, Lauren Gawne, a senior lecturer and gesture researcher, delves into the complexities of pointing. Is it truly rude? Lauren explores cultural perceptions, revealing that index-finger pointing can feel aggressive due to its associations. The conversation also highlights diverse pointing methods across cultures, such as lip and chin pointing, and discusses the fascinating role of gesture in language—a key component of sign languages. Plus, learn how gestures enhance memory and storytelling. Where will pointing lead us next?

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INSIGHT

Gesture, Emoji, And Language Are Linked

Gesture, emoji, and spoken language interact as linked communication channels with different strengths.
Lauren Gawne studies gestures alongside emoji and Tibetan grammar to map those relationships.

ANECDOTE

Hosts Asked If They Were Told Not To Point

Lauren asks the hosts whether they were ever told pointing is rude and what rules their parents taught.
This question launched the episode's deep dive into pointing taboos and cultural variation.

INSIGHT

Pointing Draws Attention And Feels Threatening

Pointing can be socially linked to looking and seen as hostile because it draws attention to people.
Even when taught not to point, people continue to point because it remains a useful attention device.

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Is pointing rude? I'm sure it's a simple question with a simple answer that won't completely break our brains in rethinking all we take for granted about gesture. Also, what is Lauren’s holy grail lost media of gesture studies?

Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:05:01) Is Pointing Rude?
(00:48:11) Questions for Lauren
(01:25:26) Outro

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Diverse but incredibly niche interests is the sweet spot, studying the holes in emoji, Tom wasn’t a rude pointer child like Ella, the Disney point, when you point you don’t direct to the end of your finger - you psychically project forward, dogs and horses are great points - cats not so much, we are the only primate that points in the wild, you likely pointed before you spoke, ITS CALLED THE INDEX FINGER BECAUSE IT POINTS LIKE AN INDEX, non index pointing, “that is one lens through which we could consider this”, lip pointing in Encanto, travel guides will simplify to pointing is rude because it’s complex and nuanced where it’s rude, we haven’t even gotten to rainbows, taboos for pointing at specific things, who dude watch where you’re pointing it’s threatening, what if hypothetically a host just went to japan and pointed a lot, Japan is often on the linguistics bingo card, pointing is the pronoun system in ASL, spacial pronoun tracking, you can be a better pointer than someone, gesture and speech have different strengths, Tom’s gestures are more honest than his words to his cohosts, pointing was some of the earliest emoji, “medieval illuminated manuscript marginalia creators would be disappointed with you Ella”, the finger pointing came before the arrow, “we had hands before we had writing”, gesture studies is still new and very interdisciplinary, the way you study gesture is every way, you gesture bigger in loud environments, computers are good at reading hands but not hands in context, the only thing Tom can correct Lauren on is that it was Just Dance not DDR, gesture is ephemeral to study, a huge reason we have gesture study now is video exists, the holy grail lost tapes of gesture, using gesture studies to prove the nazis wrong, are gestures are both for you and the person you’re talking to, I’m not analyzing your gestures if what you’re saying is interesting, metaphorical gesture space, we move ideas around like little apples, you’ll never be able to watch a ted talk again, the archery V myth, exploiting the ambiguity of gesture, we’ve been gesturing with communicating for so long and only reading and writing so recently - so of course we yearn for emoji, “we’re adding the body straight back in the moment we get the chance to”, the rate of literacy is weird, Lauren insisted no emotion on the head shake emoji because it’s not universally negative, sign language has gesture, for the Aymara language the future is behind you - i cant see whats going to happen, iconic resources, cognitive linguistics is obsessed with our meat puppets, we all experience the same gravity and that influences how we think, part of the joy is being the meat puppet.