Hand Gestures in Japanese Communication

Japanese Language Education Universitas Riau, Pekanbaru, Riau, Indonesia

^* Corresponding author: nana.rahayu@lecturer.unri.ac.id

Abstract

In nonverbal communication, gestures are performed to be used in conjunction with verbal communication. Japan is a country that uses more nonverbal communication compared to Indonesia. When communicating, the Japanese often use hand gestures. This hand gesture is very important to know for Japanese language learners because it has many variations of use in body language learning. The same hand gesture sometimes has a difference in the intent to be conveyed between the sender and recipient of the message. Therefore, this study was conducted to describe the form of nonverbal communication, especially the form of hand gestures and the meaning of hand gestures. This study used Japanese drama as a source of data that can be seen and studied by Japanese language learners. This study used a descriptive method to describe the differences in the hand gestures of adult Japanese and children in communicating. The results of this study are expected that Japanese language learners, especially students of the Japanese Language Education Program FKIP Universitas Riau, can understand the culture of the Japanese people and that to suppress verbal communication, they often use hand gestures.