We'd like to use analytics cookies to understand which symbols people look up, so we know what to research next. They are not used for advertising and we set none of them unless you say yes. What we store.
Raised hands twisting from the wrist, used in place of clapping.
Also known as: Jazz hands applause, Visual applause, Waving applause
Deaf applause is made by raising both hands above the shoulders and twisting them from the wrist, fingers spread. It replaces clapping in Deaf spaces because it is visible rather than audible, and because the noise of clapping is meaningless to an audience that cannot hear it and disruptive to anyone watching an interpreter. It is a symbol made of movement rather than shape, and it is now used well beyond Deaf events wherever an audience needs to respond without sound.
Replaces clapping with a visible response: both hands raised and twisted from the wrist with fingers spread, so an audience that cannot hear can see approval rather than infer it.
Contexts: History, Public information
Is used well beyond Deaf events, wherever an audience needs to respond without sound — in quiet spaces, during recordings, and in meetings where clapping would interrupt an interpreter.
Contexts: History, Public information
Two open hands raised above shoulder height with the fingers spread apart, shown rotating about the wrist by a pair of small curved arrows.
Both belong to Deaf visual communication.