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Table 2.
Nationality distribution among the participants (N=27) in Sweden
Nationality
Number
British
1
British/Mexican
1
Cameroonian
1
Chinese
6
German
1
Greek
1
Iranian
3
Iraqi
1
Lithuanian
1
Pakistani
1
Romanian
1
Russian
3
Swedish
5
Vietnamese
1
The subjects were also given a short questionnaire which included questions about
their cultural background and interpretation of the video clip. The questionnaire is in
the appendix of the paper. Some open-ended questions were aimed at eliciting
information about the participants' own interpretation of the event, while the selection
of the adjectives was aimed at directing the participants' attention towards the
assumed interpretation related to hesitance and uncertainty. The adjectives to describe
the gesture and body movement were picked from the Roget's Thesaurus as
synonyms and antonyms for the words
hesitant
and
unsure
, and then mixed. The
selection also included some less frequent words.
3 Results and Discussion
3.1 General Observations
The analysis of the data collected in Japan confirmed the observation that Chinese and
Japanese participants do not use shoulder shrug as a sign of hesitation, and would
rather shake their head or move hands sideways. The interpretation of the video clip
was described as the speaker being doubtful or puzzled, uncertain, and unsure, and
one male participant expressed the speaker's thoughts as “I don't think you are right
but I don't want to tell you you're wrong. I don't agree with you”. The Japanese
subjects also recognized the shoulder shrug as hesitant and unsure, but noted that in
Japanese culture, hesitation would normally be expressed verbally or by tilting the
head sideways. The Korean male student recognized the gesture as uncertain, unsure,
and impolite, but he also said he would use the gesture himself in cases when he was
not sure of the situation or did not know the topic. It is interesting that the Swedish
participant who was studying in Japan and had lived in various other countries for a
