Folklore Form/Genre: French gesture Informant: Mitchell (“Mitch”) Tevis
Name: Shaking your hand with this gesture is a diss! Place of Discovery: Hanover, NH
Informant Data: Mitch Tevis is a 22-year-old male born on December 23rd, 1995, in California, United States. While Mitch was born in the United States, he spent much of his young life in both the United Kingdom and Paris, France. Mitch has family out in France and frequently spends time in France when he is not at Dartmouth completing his undergraduate studies. Mitch studies romance languages at Dartmouth.
Contextual Data:
- Cultural context: French gestures tend to be fairly expressive in nature.
- Social context: French individuals will use this hand gesture after a joke has been told or someone has been made fun of.
Item: The item presented here is a video of Mitch demonstrating the French gesture. I recorded this interview with an iPhone. All of the information provided in this write-up is an accurate depiction of the knowledge I obtained while speaking with Mitch.
Transcript: “I was out to lunch with three friends in my middle school class. We were actually at a cafe in Paris having lunch. While we were eating, one of my friends teased me about a girl I was interested in. And then my other friend used this “diss” gesture, which signified that the joke that had just been told was funny and entertaining in the context of the friend group in that moment.”
Informant’s Comments: This isn’t a gesture that applies to the U.S., but Mitch believes many young people in French use this gesture when jokes are made.
Collector’s Comments: It is an interesting gesture because when I think of American culture, I cannot think of a distinct gesture that Americans use for a “diss.” But I can understand how this gesture fits into the context of French culture.
Collector’s Name:
Jordan Siegal
HB 4020 Dartmouth College
Hanover, NH 03755
Dartmouth College
Tags/Keywords:
- Gestures
- France
- Insulting
- Hand
- Shaking