Hesitation in Intercultural Communication: Some Observations on Interpreting Shoulder Shrugging

This paper concerns the different ways in which hesitation, and hesitation related phenomena like uncertainty, doubt and lack of knowledge are expressed in different cultures. The paper focuses especially on shoulder shrugging as a signal of hesitation or uncertainty, and starts from the observation that shoulder shrugging has different interpretations depending on the interlocutor’s cultural context. It is not commonly used in Eastern cultures while in Western cultures it is a sign of uncertainty and ignorance. The paper reports a small study on the differences in interpretation of a particular video tape gesture, and draws some preliminary conclusions of how this affects intercultural communication between human interlocutors and between humans and conversational agents.