PUB - Publikationen an der Universität Bielefeld

Head bobble is stereotypically associated with the people from the Indian Subcontinent. The interpretation of this gesture as conveying degrees of agreement has led to amusing anecdotes of cultural misunderstanding. However, there is no existing analysis of this gesture and how it differs from nods used to indicate agreement. Moreover, it is not clear if bobbles and nods are used only by listeners or speakers. This research investigates the use of bobbles and nods by Hindi speakers and listeners from India to indicate explicit agreement marked by “yes” or “Ok” and implicit agreement. We analyzed YouTube videos (90 minutes) of street interviews recorded in Delhi, India. The videos were annotated to mark the role of the interlocutors (Speakers: turn holders; Listeners: provided feedback with backchannel and/or stayed silent when another person talked) and the communicative contexts for each target gesture. Overall, speakers used nods more often (66%) then listeners, whereas bobbles were used both by listeners and speakers with equal frequency. Both listeners and speakers used nods to mark explicit agreement more frequently (Listeners: 63%, Speakers: 86%) than implicit agreement. As for bobbles, listeners used them slightly more frequently to convey implicit (54%) as compared with explicit agreement. Contrarily, speakers used bobbles overwhelmingly to mark explicit agreement (92%). This leads us to claim that (1) Hindi-speaking Indian listeners and speakers prefer to use nods to convey explicit agreement and (2) bobbles are used for implicit agreement by speakers but implicit agreement by listeners. This shows that there is a functional split in the use of nods and bobbles that depends on the role of interlocutors. Moreover, there is no one-to-one relation between target gestures, interlocutors’ roles, and the communicative contexts. This supports the claim that bobbles are not as clearly associated with strong agreement as nods are.