More to gesture than meets the (analyst's) eye? Querying the problem of online gestural loss from applied linguistics and psychotherapy perspectives

Abstract

When our social and professional spoken language activities become mediated by a screen technology, such as videoconferencing platforms, what happens to gesture? Out of the various research domains that have contended with this question, two are juxtaposed in this paper. Applied linguistics and psychotherapy differ as to the purpose of their field's speaking activities and the motivations of their practitioners, yet their professional activities share an emphasis on language, communication, participation, intersubjectivity, relational asymmetries, and ability or skill. Both domains are deeply concerned with the meaningful situation of being with others. They devote considerable attention to gesture, yet do so through different conceptual and methodological lenses, making their divergent conclusions about online gesture valuable to compare. Where applied linguists are finding gestural ‘loss’, ‘impossibility’, ‘absence’, and near ‘non-existence’, psychotherapists find not only negatives but also gestural ‘amplification’, ‘increase’, ‘closeness’, ‘enhancement’ and ‘overload’. This paper explores the different disciplinary lenses at play, asking what is meant by gesture and its criteria for online loss (or amplification) within and across these different domains of research.