Current anthropological studies of gesture give extensive attention to communities of study from a synchronic perspective while also focusing on semantic, cognitive, and linguistic analyses of gesture. However, less well explored is how the uses and meanings of gestures can change over time within societies and the role of gesture in social interactions. In addition, individual, interpersonal, and societal level politics can also influence what gestures mean and how they are strategically used. This paper uses careful analysis of European missionary reports and trader accounts written in the late 17th and early 18th centuries to focus on shifting power relations in the pre-colonial era Kongo Kingdom in West Central Africa. Larger social transformations will be used to contextualize three key incidents where gestures were at the center of complex negotiations about meaning and power. The paper argues for gesture studies scholars to consider deep, contextual, and historically grounded examinations of gestures and the role they play in shaping relationships and societies.
{"title":"Temporality, social interaction, and power in an anthropology of gesture","authors":"Yolanda Covington-Ward","doi":"10.1075/gest.19021.cov","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/gest.19021.cov","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Current anthropological studies of gesture give extensive attention to communities of study from a synchronic perspective\u0000 while also focusing on semantic, cognitive, and linguistic analyses of gesture. However, less well explored is how the uses and meanings of\u0000 gestures can change over time within societies and the role of gesture in social interactions. In addition, individual, interpersonal, and\u0000 societal level politics can also influence what gestures mean and how they are strategically used. This paper uses careful analysis of\u0000 European missionary reports and trader accounts written in the late 17th and early 18th centuries to focus on shifting power relations in\u0000 the pre-colonial era Kongo Kingdom in West Central Africa. Larger social transformations will be used to contextualize three key incidents\u0000 where gestures were at the center of complex negotiations about meaning and power. The paper argues for gesture studies scholars to consider\u0000 deep, contextual, and historically grounded examinations of gestures and the role they play in shaping relationships and societies.","PeriodicalId":35125,"journal":{"name":"Gesture","volume":"18 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41564731","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Research on narratives in an Australian language demonstrated surprising facts about speakers’ spatial orientation and knowledge both in the insistent use of morphologically hypertrophied spoken directional terminology and in accompanying gestures. Pursuing comparable phenomena in a Mayan language from the other side of the globe revealed correspondingly complex gestural devices for communicating about location and direction but with very different kinds of support from speech. Evidence from a new sign language, emerging in the same Mayan context, suggests that mechanisms for signing about space both resemble and depart from the gestural practices of the surrounding speech community. In particular, they invoke spatial “frames of reference” not used by speakers to sign about location and direction, and they employ signed “spatial grammar” to express syntactic argument structure.
{"title":"Space as space and space as grammar","authors":"J. Haviland","doi":"10.1075/gest.20014.hav","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/gest.20014.hav","url":null,"abstract":"Research on narratives in an Australian language demonstrated surprising facts about speakers’ spatial orientation and knowledge both in the insistent use of morphologically hypertrophied spoken directional terminology and in accompanying gestures. Pursuing comparable phenomena in a Mayan language from the other side of the globe revealed correspondingly complex gestural devices for communicating about location and direction but with very different kinds of support from speech. Evidence from a new sign language, emerging in the same Mayan context, suggests that mechanisms for signing about space both resemble and depart from the gestural practices of the surrounding speech community. In particular, they invoke spatial “frames of reference” not used by speakers to sign about location and direction, and they employ signed “spatial grammar” to express syntactic argument structure.","PeriodicalId":35125,"journal":{"name":"Gesture","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46836182","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper presents an analysis of a data set consisting of instances of body-directed gesture that occurred in racializing expressions of social difference during ethnographic interviews with two neighboring peoples of Ecuador: the indigenous Chachi, speakers of the Cha’palaa language, and Afro-Descendant people, who speak a variety of Spanish. When talking about differences among social groups and categories, a particular sub-type of body-directed gestural practice was salient: using indexical-iconic self-directed gestures as a way to describe other people’s physical bodies or appearances, including references to skin color, hair texture, clothing and ornamentation, and embodiments of carrying objects close to the body. The paper describes the trends seen in the forms and meanings of these gestures in their role here as part of socially categorizing and racializing discourses in the Latin American socio-historical context.
{"title":"Body-directed gesture and expressions of social difference in Chachi and Afro-Ecuadorian discourse","authors":"Simeon Floyd","doi":"10.1075/gest.19034.flo","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/gest.19034.flo","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This paper presents an analysis of a data set consisting of instances of body-directed gesture that occurred in racializing expressions of social difference during ethnographic interviews with two neighboring peoples of Ecuador: the indigenous Chachi, speakers of the Cha’palaa language, and Afro-Descendant people, who speak a variety of Spanish. When talking about differences among social groups and categories, a particular sub-type of body-directed gestural practice was salient: using indexical-iconic self-directed gestures as a way to describe other people’s physical bodies or appearances, including references to skin color, hair texture, clothing and ornamentation, and embodiments of carrying objects close to the body. The paper describes the trends seen in the forms and meanings of these gestures in their role here as part of socially categorizing and racializing discourses in the Latin American socio-historical context.","PeriodicalId":35125,"journal":{"name":"Gesture","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43524976","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
A considerable body of literature points at parallels between gestural elements and sign language structures. This raises the question to what extent variation in gesture environment may lead to related variation across sign languages, or,mutatis mutandis, to what extent similarities in gesture environment may lead to similarities across (otherwise unrelated) sign languages.This article will address that question by reviewing a series of studies relating to size and shape specifying (SASS) signs and gestures in signed and spoken languages in West Africa. The review finds that the use of body-based SASS gestures coincides with the use of body-based SASS signs in the sign languages studied, which in turn aligns with (a) restrictions on the number and types of handshapes used in space-based SASS signs, (b) limited use ofspace-based size depictionin lexical items (Nyst, 2018), and (c) a gap in the repertoire of phonemic handshapes.I conclude that culture-specific patterning in gesture environment may impact on cross-linguistic variation in SASS morphology and handshape phonology. As such, the gestural environment presents an explanation why SLs may be alike or different, in addition to shared ancestry, language contact, and iconicity.
{"title":"The impact of cross-linguistic variation in gesture on sign language phonology and morphology","authors":"Victoria Nyst","doi":"10.1075/gest.19009.nys","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/gest.19009.nys","url":null,"abstract":"A considerable body of literature points at parallels between gestural elements and sign language structures. This raises the question to what extent variation in gesture environment may lead to related variation across sign languages, or,mutatis mutandis, to what extent similarities in gesture environment may lead to similarities across (otherwise unrelated) sign languages.This article will address that question by reviewing a series of studies relating to size and shape specifying (SASS) signs and gestures in signed and spoken languages in West Africa. The review finds that the use of body-based SASS gestures coincides with the use of body-based SASS signs in the sign languages studied, which in turn aligns with (a) restrictions on the number and types of handshapes used in space-based SASS signs, (b) limited use ofspace-based size depictionin lexical items (Nyst, 2018), and (c) a gap in the repertoire of phonemic handshapes.I conclude that culture-specific patterning in gesture environment may impact on cross-linguistic variation in SASS morphology and handshape phonology. As such, the gestural environment presents an explanation why SLs may be alike or different, in addition to shared ancestry, language contact, and iconicity.","PeriodicalId":35125,"journal":{"name":"Gesture","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45085607","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
For gesture research outside anthropology, the promise – and challenge – of anthropological method stems from one or more of its core commitments: its pursuit of human variation, both diachronic and synchronic; its insistence on naturalistic rather than experimental research design; and its integrative sensibility that situates human behavior in relation to an expansive sociocultural context. This essay reflects on this last sensibility. As we envision an anthropology of gesture and weigh its potential for gesture studies, we should pause and reflect on the fitful history of gesture in anthropology. As a parable for the present, I revisit a neglected anthropological voice from twentieth-century gesture research: Ray L. Birdwhistell, whose ambitious postwar science of kinesics teamed film-based microanalysis with American linguistic structuralism. At stake in Birdwhistell’s work was a problem that looms large here, that of how and at what cost a science of gesture can contextualize its object integratively.
{"title":"What is an anthropology of gesture?","authors":"Michael P. Lempert","doi":"10.1075/gest.19019.lem","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/gest.19019.lem","url":null,"abstract":"For gesture research outside anthropology, the promise – and challenge – of anthropological method stems from one or more of its core commitments: its pursuit of human variation, both diachronic and synchronic; its insistence on naturalistic rather than experimental research design; and its integrative sensibility that situates human behavior in relation to an expansive sociocultural context. This essay reflects on this last sensibility. As we envision an anthropology of gesture and weigh its potential for gesture studies, we should pause and reflect on the fitful history of gesture in anthropology. As a parable for the present, I revisit a neglected anthropological voice from twentieth-century gesture research: Ray L. Birdwhistell, whose ambitious postwar science of kinesics teamed film-based microanalysis with American linguistic structuralism. At stake in Birdwhistell’s work was a problem that looms large here, that of how and at what cost a science of gesture can contextualize its object integratively.","PeriodicalId":35125,"journal":{"name":"Gesture","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43656787","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This essay is a (necessarily selective) historical review of some contributions to the study of gesture (in all its varieties) from an anthropological perspective. Reasons for an interest in gesture by the authors considered are varied. Some are interested because it seems a simpler form of communication which might throw light on language emergence, others see it as interesting as a form of communication in its own right. In the early days of ethnography attempts were made to describe all aspects of “primitive”or “savage” life and if gestures were noticed an attempt would be made to describe them. Later on, especially as we get into the second half of the twentieth century, much study of gesture was motivated by the idea that it might serve as a “window” on mental processes, rather than how it works in communication, but in recent years the role of gesture in communication has once again received more emphasis and its study from an anthropological viewpoint has, accordingly, again gained in importance.
{"title":"Gesture and anthropology","authors":"A. Kendon","doi":"10.1075/gest.00041.ken","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/gest.00041.ken","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This essay is a (necessarily selective) historical review of some contributions to the study of gesture (in all its\u0000 varieties) from an anthropological perspective. Reasons for an interest in gesture by the authors considered are varied. Some are interested\u0000 because it seems a simpler form of communication which might throw light on language emergence, others see it as interesting as a form of\u0000 communication in its own right. In the early days of ethnography attempts were made to describe all aspects of “primitive”or “savage” life\u0000 and if gestures were noticed an attempt would be made to describe them. Later on, especially as we get into the second half of the twentieth\u0000 century, much study of gesture was motivated by the idea that it might serve as a “window” on mental processes, rather than how it works in\u0000 communication, but in recent years the role of gesture in communication has once again received more emphasis and its study from an\u0000 anthropological viewpoint has, accordingly, again gained in importance.","PeriodicalId":35125,"journal":{"name":"Gesture","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41957266","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In Australian Indigenous societies the means for demonstrating kinship-based respect are rich and varied, and mastery of their ideological and contextual dimensions is highly valued and an indication of communicative expertise. Special speech registers, sometimes referred to as ‘mother-in-law’, ‘brother-in-law’, or ‘avoidance’ languages, are one aspect of this complexity. Another dimension of respect is afforded by Australian Indigenous sign languages, used in contexts where speech itself is disallowed as well as in everyday interactions where signing is practical and useful. What is lacking from the majority of accounts of these special semiotic repertoires is an investigation of the ways that speech and communicative actions, such as sign or gesture, may work together in such contexts. Also neglected is the possibility that the articulation of signs and gestures may be modified to indicate a respectful stance towards avoided kin. Drawing on both archival sources and recent fieldwork, this paper delineates some of the articulatory dimensions of signs and gestures used in this domain.
{"title":"Embodying kin-based respect in speech, sign, and gesture","authors":"Jennifer M. Green","doi":"10.1075/gest.20015.gre","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/gest.20015.gre","url":null,"abstract":"In Australian Indigenous societies the means for demonstrating kinship-based respect are rich and varied, and mastery of their ideological and contextual dimensions is highly valued and an indication of communicative expertise. Special speech registers, sometimes referred to as ‘mother-in-law’, ‘brother-in-law’, or ‘avoidance’ languages, are one aspect of this complexity. Another dimension of respect is afforded by Australian Indigenous sign languages, used in contexts where speech itself is disallowed as well as in everyday interactions where signing is practical and useful. What is lacking from the majority of accounts of these special semiotic repertoires is an investigation of the ways that speech and communicative actions, such as sign or gesture, may work together in such contexts. Also neglected is the possibility that the articulation of signs and gestures may be modified to indicate a respectful stance towards avoided kin. Drawing on both archival sources and recent fieldwork, this paper delineates some of the articulatory dimensions of signs and gestures used in this domain.","PeriodicalId":35125,"journal":{"name":"Gesture","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43272598","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In this paper, we investigate the intimate link between hands and minds – or rather: How the hands are a means for exploring thoughts in collaboration with others. Specifically, this study investigates a series of locally occurring instances of gestural reuse in naturally occurring psychotherapeutic interaction. The repetition of gestural sequences and formats in interaction has been researched as serving pragmatic functions of building cohesion (McNeill & Levy, 1993) and managing different aspects of turn-taking (Koschmann & LeBaron, 2002). Taking a micro-analytic approach to the study of gesture, we show how reusing other participants’ gestures in the context of psychotherapy serves additional functions: As affordances for shared, embodied cognition. The study contributes to the growing body of research on gesture as a co-participated, co-operative (Goodwin, 2013, 2018) and embodied phenomenon that criss-cross the boundaries of inside-the-skull, individual-centered and socially distributed cognition.
{"title":"Gesture reuse as distributed embodied cognition","authors":"J. S. Philipsen, S. B. Trasmundi","doi":"10.1075/gest.00031.phi","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/gest.00031.phi","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000In this paper, we investigate the intimate link between hands and minds – or rather: How the hands are a means for exploring thoughts in collaboration with others. Specifically, this study investigates a series of locally occurring instances of gestural reuse in naturally occurring psychotherapeutic interaction. The repetition of gestural sequences and formats in interaction has been researched as serving pragmatic functions of building cohesion (McNeill & Levy, 1993) and managing different aspects of turn-taking (Koschmann & LeBaron, 2002). Taking a micro-analytic approach to the study of gesture, we show how reusing other participants’ gestures in the context of psychotherapy serves additional functions: As affordances for shared, embodied cognition. The study contributes to the growing body of research on gesture as a co-participated, co-operative (Goodwin, 2013, 2018) and embodied phenomenon that criss-cross the boundaries of inside-the-skull, individual-centered and socially distributed cognition.","PeriodicalId":35125,"journal":{"name":"Gesture","volume":"18 1","pages":"1-30"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47424478","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Mitchell J. Nathan, Amelia Yeo, Rebecca Boncoddo, Autumn B. Hostetter, M. Alibali
We developed and tested a survey instrument to measure teachers’ attitudes about gesture in learning and instruction (TAGLI). Teachers (N = 192) generally believed that instructional gestures are beneficial for learning, and not distracting for students. Teachers had positive expectations, both for gestures that are redundant with (i.e., match) the accompanying speech, and gestures that are complementary to (i.e., mismatch) speech. However, teachers’ attitudes varied with teachers’ grade bands (middle v. high school) and curricular content areas (STEM v. non-STEM). Teachers endorsed a range of reasons for gesture’s pedagogical effectiveness. These reasons largely mirror the reasons teachers reported for why they produced gestures: gestures help make connections between representations and ideas, make abstract concepts more concrete, and they appropriately direct learners’ attention. Teachers reported that they frequently use gestures while teaching, explaining, and in everyday conversation.
{"title":"Teachers’ attitudes about gesture for learning and instruction","authors":"Mitchell J. Nathan, Amelia Yeo, Rebecca Boncoddo, Autumn B. Hostetter, M. Alibali","doi":"10.1075/gest.00032.nat","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/gest.00032.nat","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000We developed and tested a survey instrument to measure teachers’ attitudes about gesture in learning and instruction (TAGLI). Teachers (N = 192) generally believed that instructional gestures are beneficial for learning, and not distracting for students. Teachers had positive expectations, both for gestures that are redundant with (i.e., match) the accompanying speech, and gestures that are complementary to (i.e., mismatch) speech. However, teachers’ attitudes varied with teachers’ grade bands (middle v. high school) and curricular content areas (STEM v. non-STEM). Teachers endorsed a range of reasons for gesture’s pedagogical effectiveness. These reasons largely mirror the reasons teachers reported for why they produced gestures: gestures help make connections between representations and ideas, make abstract concepts more concrete, and they appropriately direct learners’ attention. Teachers reported that they frequently use gestures while teaching, explaining, and in everyday conversation.","PeriodicalId":35125,"journal":{"name":"Gesture","volume":"18 1","pages":"31-56"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43051295","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Review of Gazzola (2018): \u0000 L’Arte de’ cenni di Giovanni Bonifacio","authors":"A. Arcangeli","doi":"10.1075/gest.00035.arc","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/gest.00035.arc","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":35125,"journal":{"name":"Gesture","volume":"18 1","pages":"110-113"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49072265","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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