Body language

Whether or not we realize it, we all use gestures and postures to express ourselves: by means of “body language” we communicate information about our attitudes and feelings, information which may not evident at all in what we are actually saying. In fact many recent studies have shown that careful observation of a person’s body language can give a much more truthful account of what is going on inside that person that the actual words that he or she uses: the more consciously controlled words are often less trustworthy that the spontaneous behaviour of the body itself. This applies to all nationalities, to those who have a reputation for being calm and inexpressive just as much as other renowned for their use of disticulation.

Although it is only in relatively recent times that this aspect of human behaviour has been brought to our attention and studied, our verbal language has always used our innate knowledge and understanding of body language. Anyone with an interest in his own language could have formulated a detailed psychological theory of human behaviour long before the term “body language” was first coined. Why do we describe some people as stiff-necked? What do we mean when we say someone holds his head high? Is there any connection between someone who has both feet on the ground and someone who is described as a pushover? What happens when someone puts his foot down, welcomes you with open arms or tries to keep you at arm’s length?

These expressions appear to describe psychological attitudes by referring to postures or attitudes taken up by the body, and when we seriously consider what the body was actually doing in these situations, it is not always easy to see any clear dividing line between a literal and figurative meaning. For example, a child can literally put his foot down and we know immediately that he is obstinately trying to get his own way. We say the same of an adult who acts firmly and insistently, but when your boss puts his foot down and refuses to let you leave work early, it is doubtful whether you will see his foot actually more.

Pairs of physical and psychological meanings can be in many of these expressions. A doctor treating you for a bad cough will not mean quite the same thing when he says “Get it off your chest”, as the psychiatrist treating you for depression, and saying exactly the same words. You are encouraged in one case to get the fluid out of your bronchial tubes, and in other to unburden yourself of your worries.

In many of these expressions there is a fairly obvious connection between the original physical action described and the more psychological meaning, but in a few, the origin of the idiomatic meaning might be quite mysterious, involving bits of social history. You might have heard the expression to pull someone’s leg. If I believe what a friend is saying, even though it is not actually true and is only intended as a joke, he might then say, “I’m only pulling your leg”, meaning he is only teasing me. This expression has a rather gruesome hangman’s practice of pulling his victim’s leg when a rope around his neck failed to have the intended effect. So pulling someone’s leg came to mean joking or teasing, just as the verb torment can refer to play teasing as well as to physical torture. No, I’m not pulling your leg!

This last kind of the expression is less frequent that the references to body language which have a more obvious psychological origin. Many idioms which refer to specific parts of the body, such as the head, hands, feet, back, face, heart or even stomach, are likely to reveal interesting insights into the way in which the human body physically reflects mental or emotional states. It is no surprise to find expressions which connect the heart with love, but many suggest a link between the heart and other emotions, particularly courage and fear. You might expect the head to be referred to in expressions the intellect and ideas, but there seem to be just as many, if not more, in which the head is regarded as a symbol or measure of a person’s status.