WHAT’S THE “SECRET” OF THE GESTURE LANGUAGE? A FEW CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON THE PSEUDO-SCIENCES DEALING WITH THE “NON-VERBAL DECODING”

Abstract

In this article we deal with a situation commonly met with in contemporary society: the representatives of pseudo-sciences invite their readers to learn „to decode the non-verbal language”. They pretend that in this way our body is supposed to be „readable” and it would be enough to know these „theories” in order to read into our interlocutors and to find out their thoughts and emotions. It is obvious that we find ourselves in front of a discourse imitating the rhetorical codes of science, but having nothing to do with science. Moreover, these pseudo-sciences have never been presented or discussed within the academic sphere