eleitä

Eleitä is the Finnish term for gestures, i.e., bodily movements used to communicate nonverbally. The word is used in everyday language to refer to intentional motions such as hand signs, facial expressions, postures, shifts in gaze, and other body cues that accompany spoken language or convey meaning on their own. In nonverbal communication, eleitä work together with spoken language to express attitudes, emotions, emphasis, and turn-taking cues.

Researchers in linguistics and anthropology classify gestures into categories: emblems, which are conventionalized gestures with explicit meaning and can be understood without speech; illustrators, gestures that accompany speech to illustrate or emphasize content; regulators, gestures that help manage conversation, such as indicating a desire to speak; and affect displays or adaptors, which reflect internal state or coping behaviors, such as nervous fidgeting.

Meanings of eleitä vary across cultures; a gesture acceptable in one culture may be misunderstood or offensive in another. Context—such as setting, relationship, and verbal content—shapes interpretation. In performance and media, eleitä are used to convey character, mood, and subtext; in sign languages, hand movements are part of a structured linguistic system rather than mere gestures.

The study of eleitä overlaps with nonverbal communication, linguistics, psychology, and cultural anthropology. See also nonverbal communication, body language, facial expression, and sign languages.