VII

AN APPLICATION

THE MOTIVATION OF REFUSAL

Expressing disgust by a grimace, defending oneself by pushing the palm forward, refusing to help by tossing the palm over the shoulder, turning down an invitation by holding the palm outward, correcting a mistake by raising the forefinger, denying something by laterally shaking the head: these physical attitudes and gestures are all variants of refusal or rejection. Comparing and contrasting these gestural and facial expressions gives explanatory indications of motivation and leads to the following ‘psychological’ interpretation: people quite naturally mime and transfer to the psychological domain the physical discharge of a bothersome object, whether it be in front of them, on them, or in them, and whether the refusal be active or passive (Calbris 1985b). The following gives several of the examples I have observed and which have led me to this point of view.

Active refusal

One gets rid of an object in front of oneself by pushing away in several directions, like a person going through a jungle might do:

• repelling by an outward projection of the fingers (several times) *. It is in this way that one frees oneself from having to intervene: It wasn’t up to me to do anything, * he has to take care of it himself, puts something off until later: * Problems I’ll explain later, or refuses to intervene: Hold on! * I decline any responsibility for this thing.

• pushing to the side in two ways, (a) The right forearm brushes to the left * to clear a place in front of oneself: Because we’d have to * scratch what was done in ‘80, and that bothered me, explains a director. An engineer confides that he fears a series of layoffs: As soon as the students are gone, * there’ll be some sweeping out. (b) The hand, held in a sagittal plane, pushes to the side * to put a problem ‘aside’: That * is another affair, declares a teacher at a union meeting. Except for some mechanical, * subsidiary measures, explains the presidential candidate.

• tossing to the ground. The fingers are raised, to be ‘dropped’ from the wrist in a sign of capitulation: * We’ll have to drop it. The gesture is often accompanied by a smirk and a turning away of the head. More energetic, the movement of bending toward the ground is a way of stopping someone who is rattling on or making you laugh too much.

• throwing behind oneself, also in two possible ways, (a) Either above, with a broad movement of the hand over the shoulder *, like this lawyer during a televised debate: If he doesn’t make a commitment, * he should refuse the case! (b) Or on the side, with the fingers folded back onto the face-up palm, at waist height or chest height *, like this woman who decides to stop taking certain medication: It’s the only one I’m still taking; the others. . .*. This very common gesture of offhand refusal (Chapter 4, Agreement—Disagreement) can be a speech substitute.

If the cumbersome object is on oneself, it is removed by

• shrugging the shoulder(s). A single physical movement corresponds to several different intentions: a shoulder can be raised in a sign of exclamation, or raised to be dropped in a sign of powerlessness, or to slough off some small thing offhandedly. In this shrug—traditionally associated with a blasé attitude (Fr. Bof), with indifference (‘I don’t give a damn’), or with offhandedness (‘Too bad’)—I see the shedding of a light burden by jerking the shoulder, either because it is uninteresting or because it is beginning to be cumbersome. Something of little esteem is thrown off in a negligent manner, over the shoulder. This offhand rejection is suggested by a 60-year-old woman: I told him, ‘* Don’t pay any attention!’ and adopted by one 50 years old: They’re not here, * we can say what we think! Indeed, in both cases, the shoulder shrug might be synonymous with ‘It doesn’t matter.’

• rubbing the palms as if to remove dust after manual work, alternately one on the other *. This gesture, a sign of ceasing or ending, is associated with the French expression N, i, ni, fini! and is synonymous with ‘Finished,’ ‘Good riddance.’ It often complements a statement, or substitutes for one: As far as I’m concerned, I’ve done everything I was supposed to on this *, concludes a draftsman.

When the bothersome element is internal, certain physiological manifestations are euphemistically transposed:

• The grimace derived from the vomit reflex corresponds to moral disgust: * That’s a disgusting thing to do. Faced with a television program different from what she expected, a friend reacted with a very clear expression of disgust: nose wrinkled, very marked furrow from the nose to the corners of the mouth, upper teeth showing, corners of the lips turned down. Attenuated, the expression becomes a sign of contempt. This attitude, often signified simply by ‘eyeing someone up and down,’ is sometimes supplemented by a slight nasal exhaling which seems to me to symbolize the release of the insignificant, deprecated element. Signs with an equivalent motivation are found among gypsies, who signify contempt by spitting. They also show how little they make of someone or something by dusting off their coats or hands in mime. Is this a form of offhand rejection analogous to our shrug?

• To signify ‘Nothing but hot air’ (depreciation) or ‘Nothing’ (ignorance), the French mime the release of stomach or intestinal gas:

(a) Releasing stomach gas is depicted by loudly deflating the cheek *: But it’s bogus; half the time it doesn’t work *.—I have no idea *. The louder deflating of one or two cheeks using the forefinger and middle fingers stuck together, or either one separately (Illustration 16), is a typical gesture of deprecation which means Ça ne vaut pas tripette (‘It’s not worth anything’) or C’est du bidon (It’s bogus). The origin of the latter expression is in the meaning of bidon (belly), originally applied to a puffed-up sheet intended to fool people concerning a quantity of merchandise (Rey and Chantreau 1976: 84). Here are two examples: a young girl asks her boyfriend his opinion on the musical performance of her friends. The boyfriend inflates his cheek, abruptly deflates it by poking it with a forefinger and middle finger stuck together, and then makes a rather negative comment. Another adolescent, after criticizing a text, concludes by pressing his forefingers into his cheeks.

Illustration 16. Du bidon, du vent!—Rubbish, hot air. From Calbris 1985b: 16

(b) Intestinal gas is analogically represented at the opposite end of the digestive tube by a ‘mouth fart,’ i.e., a noisy projection of the lower lip *, Ppp! This lip noise, highly unpleasant and vulgar to foreign ears, is quite common, and may even be performed on televised literary programs: Pathetic, short-sighted, * ppp!, none of that goes very far (televised sketch).—One writer notes, As Céline says, if you re not putting your hide on the page, * ppp, you re not writing.—* Ppp I was completely abandoned, says a filmmaker. This depiction of nothing is also appropriate for situations of ignorance. Concerning Savonarola, Françoise Sagan admits: But that he burned the Forum library, * ppp, I didn’t know.—Education centered on the learner, * ppp, no one knows what that means, remarks a professor during a televised round-table discussion. The motivation of this common, widely used sign is not conscious for native speakers. Why the jutted lip and noise? The mouth is analogically associated with the anus, the other end of the digestive tract, or with the vagina, another orifice ringed with lips (Fónagy 1970: 114, 124). Several signs prove that these latent analogies are widespread, though differentiated. A Japanese woman must not show her throat when laughing. In France, the rule holds when yawning. In the metro I have seen a middle class woman use her scarf to hide the wide-open mouth of her ten-year-old son, who was yawning with delight.

Passive refusal

Many expressions of refusal consist in imitating reflexes. When mimed, the reflex of raising the forearms in front of oneself to push away or protect (Darwin 1872) becomes, with some variation, a sign of self-protection, defense, opposition, etc. The symbolic transfer from the physical to the psychological plane involves, on the one hand, generalization on the level of the signified (Repulsion—Repugnance; Self-protection—Refusal of responsibility; Stop—End; Refusal—Opposition—Objection; Restriction; Implied negative), and on the other hand, a possible reduction through substitution on the level of the gestural signifier; for the forearms one substitutes the hands, then a single hand, then the forefinger or thumb (Figure 11).

Repulsion and repugnance are signified by pushing the palm outward. A TV host pushes back the aggressive intolerance of his guest: But * I don’t like this intolerance. A researcher pushes away an abhorrent prospect: . . . with the risk of going back to being a secretary, * not for anything!

The hands are raised in front of oneself to refuse responsibility (Chapter 4, Agreement—Disagreement). The speaker raises only one hand when the risk is weaker, such as when he is not or no longer concerned, i.e., when a third party or past event is in question. A young woman speaks of a secretary: And in those cases, * she doesn’t dare say anything. A receptionist speaking with a colleague mimes the self-protection that a third person should be prepared for: I’ll tell you, euh . . . *, she’s going to take a beating. A woman in the street says, I was right * not to go.

The examples of raising a hand to object, refuse, or deny are innumerable, and the gesture is very often illustrated in comic strips and billboard advertisements.

The negative implication of Ça . . .! (lit. that) is particularly French. The palm is raised outward while the chin is lifted forward and the eyebrows are raised *. These upward movements of the hand, chin and eyebrows are stopped in suspension. The raised palm is generally cupped, as if the implication were contained in it: * Ah that. . . ! If she had told me that. . . . This very conventional, basic gesture is supplemented by a facial expression which specifies the implied attitude, for example, lifting one’s eyes upward to denigrate someone, With him. . . ! (it’s a guaranteed catastrophe) or insinuate obviousness, That. . . ! (we should have expected), or sticking out the lower lip in ignorance, Now that. . . ! (I don’t know). These various physical expressions can substitute for speech.

The raised palm stops or requests a stop: * Halt the construction.—Before, I did a lot of workshops, then I said * ‘Enough.’ The thumb, substituting for the hand, does the same. This gesture is common among children to ask that a game be suspended, * Pouce! (lit. thumb), and it can have a figurative meaning. A singer interviewed on television admits the need for a break: You say to yourself, ‘What do I want to do? I want a * time out (Fr. faire pouce).’

Restriction is partial objection. Correspondingly, the physical opposition of the vertical partition is reduced to an oblique plane or to the surface of one finger (Chapter 6, Parallel reduction or reinforcement). Either the hand is raised proportionally to the restriction (*, *): Here’s something * at the fringe, * very much at the fringe of the news. . . , or the raised forefinger partially contradicts: The mother is of Chaouïa origin, * partly.

Another type of objection is correction. The speaker’s partner, or the speaker himself, has made an error. In either case, the speaker raises his forefinger, palm outward, which opposes in order to ‘redress’: If you permit me, * that was not the same situation.—Ah no, * excuse me!

The self-protecting surface, which can be broadened statically by using both palms (refusing responsibility), can also be broadened dynamically by a transverse movement of one or both palms, either a single movement or one repeated in a frontal sweeping. These gestures are variants of negation (Chapter 6, The variants of negation).

The self-protection reflex is not only gestural. It also manifests itself in the eyes and mouth.

• In excessively strong light, one knits one’s brows * and squints. This reflex, when mimed and allied with a grimace of the mouth and a wrinkling of the nose, signifies any kind of displeasure, literal or figurative, and is also a sign of refusal. A child teases his friend (who is due to leave for a sanatarium): Hey, your eyes are red. You been crying? The friend answers, * You’re crazy. It’s conjunctivitis. In an ad for detergent, a man checks the cleanness of the wash his wife has laid out: Of course, but it could be better. The wife’s face wrinkles, and she knits her brow: * What! Since squinting to see faraway things better or to see through something (‘What is this?’) is also accompanied by a knit brow, it seems that in the above example, this movement combines the notions of refusal and suspicion, and implies How?

• The fact that doubt and reprobation, i.e., intellectual and emotional refusal respectively, are expressed by pushing out the pursed lips, in addition to knitting one’s brow, suggests that this type of moue is equivalent to the outwardly pushed palm. Indeed, the lips are puckered for various physical reasons: to kiss, to snap up, to hold onto, or to reject. By moving the lips out in one way or another, one can transpose to the mouth the acts of pushing away, taking, or touching. For example, when a suspect ironically proposes to show the commissioner out, the latter reacts with a moue of refusal: * That’s entirely unnecessary. A journalist is interviewing the general secretary of a trade union: So it’s a warning? The union representative protests with a moue, and the journalist corrects himself: Or a caution?

The evasion reflex is also mimed. The mouth, nose, and eyes are moved away from the source of a taste, smell, or sight that is unpleasant—literally or figuratively—by turning the head (Darwin 1872: 249; Jakobson 1973: 113–119). The expression of disgusted refusal combines the various movements for refusing food: turning the head away from it with a grimace, as if to vomit, and sometimes lifting the palm outward to push it away (Illustration 7), making the repulsion concrete. In short, according to the degree of disgust felt or to be expressed, one withdraws, or pushes away, or both. It is also possible to withdraw by throwing the head back and to the side *: And you do gymnastics? An old woman exclaims, * Oh, not me! Other signs of refusal, such as a tongue click, a shrug, or a loud sigh are often added to the head-turn. Here is a silent interaction between two salesmen, mocking a new, young colleague. One of them points to the assiduous and sullen rookie. The other responds by puffing his cheeks and blowing out while turning his head away, implying, ‘Don’t remind me. He’s a bore!’

We know that an infant refuses food by turning his head to one side. If one insists, he turns his head to the other side. The lateral shaking in a sign of refusal or negation seems clearly based on this instinctive movement. Here again, the sign of refusal is strengthened by other signs such as a moue, blowing, or a knit brow. Listening to a colleague, a professor shakes his head while making a moue to indicate his disagreement without saying anything. In the metro, a teacher is correcting the work of what must have been a poor student: he is exhaling loudly through limp lips and shaking his head. A man is describing the film The Ballad of Narayama by Shoheï Imamura to a young girl who begins to shake her head, to knit her brow, and to grimace. Her expression of disgusted refusal anticipates the verbal reaction: It must be horrible!

One plugs one’s ears in order not to hear . . . complaints, for example. While this gesture is not mimed in France, a person may hide his eyes with one hand in order to mime the refusal to watch a catastrophe, at the same time lifting his head back, probably to call heaven to witness to the misfortune, like one man recalling an animated picnic: The bread was soaking in the rain, * oh!

The backing-up reflex is a way of avoiding. In place of the body’s rearing backward, the head traces a backward movement, with the neck stiff: * But yes, he was working! Tipping the head forward or lowering the eyelids—which are signs of acquiescence, greeting, or obsequiousness—also evoke the movement of the torso or whole body toward a posture of submission, from which these signs are derived (Chapter 3, Specificity of the head). Conversely, can the act of rearing up, of ‘rising up against,’ be transposed to the face? Such seems to be the case for the Greek ‘No’ (Papas 1972: 32), expressed by lifting the head back and raising the eyebrows and/or by suddenly interrupting the flow of air. These signs are found in sketchy form in the negative ellipsis Ça . . . ! which involves, in addition to the palm cupped outward, a lifting of the chin and a glottal stop.

Blowing out air through relaxed lips, * Pouh, which indicates physical or mental fatigue and is a common sign of exasperation, also expresses refusal through weariness. A woman refuses to describe an accident: * Pouh, I don’t like to talk about it. Another woman refuses to participate in a reading panel: * Oh, not again!

Refusal through different signifieds

The gestures that illustrate clichés of deprivation may become, in context and by role reversal, expressions of failure or refusal. In this case, the refusal consists in representing someone else’s privation. He is informed that (1) he will get nothing, Que dalle, pas un sou (not a penny), by flicking the thumbnail off an upper front tooth, that (2) what he hoped to get va lui passer sous le nez (lit. will pass under his nose = slip between his fingers), by sliding a forefinger under the nose, or that (3) he will have to ‘tighten his belt,’ se serrer la ceinture: The right hand, supine, represents in a stylized way the tightening of the belt (by one or two notches) through a transverse movement across the waist.

Most gestures of derision are insolent or mocking refusals, whose underlying obscenity rarely comes to mind. The most common are the forearm jerk, sticking out the tongue, and the pied de nez, which present as phallic substitutes the forearm (fist closed), tongue, and ‘foot-long’ nose, respectively. Note that the phallic nature of the protruding tongue is confirmed by the fact that it can accompany, as a redundant feature, the forearm jerk (Illustration 8) or pied de nez. Finally, the gesture illustrating Mon oeil! (My eye!), a euphemism for Mon cul! (My ass!) (Duneton 1978: 221), is more specifically an expression of refusal to believe, probably because the eye also symbolizes knowledge.

It would be interesting to verify the analogy between physical and psychological expressions of refusal in other cultures and to know what each culture extracts, for expressive gestures, from the various physical reflexes (in the body and face) of rejection, self-protection and evasion. Are the postures of folding inward and resistance transposed gesturally? Is there a gestural transfer from one semantic field to another as is the case in France for the expression of refusal through deprivation. Finally, is insolent or mocking refusal, represented in France by a phallic forearm jerk or pied de nez (and in America by ‘the finger’), expressed elsewhere by obscene gestures of derision?