Gestures in spatial descriptions
Author
Summary, in English
Most studies of gesture production to date have been based on analyses of narrative discourse in face-to-face interaction. Issues such as the relationship between gesture types and the content of speech, as well as the distribution of particular gesture types across given narrative sequences have been
investigated. Depictive gestures, e.g., are frequent where the content concerns the description of concrete objects or actions at a narrative level (McNeill 1992). Little is known about the gesture production in other discourse types, however. Just as different discourse genres have oral characteristics, they are likely to result in different gestural characteristics.
In this small-scale study, a preliminary analysis is presented of the gestures produced during a spatial description task during which interlocutors were prevented from seeing each other. This paper will discuss the impact of the discourse type on the use of specific gesture types, especially on deictic gestures. In addition, the traditional issue of why speakers gesticulate at all will be briefly addressed in relation to the question of how visibility conditions affect speakers’ gesture production.
investigated. Depictive gestures, e.g., are frequent where the content concerns the description of concrete objects or actions at a narrative level (McNeill 1992). Little is known about the gesture production in other discourse types, however. Just as different discourse genres have oral characteristics, they are likely to result in different gestural characteristics.
In this small-scale study, a preliminary analysis is presented of the gestures produced during a spatial description task during which interlocutors were prevented from seeing each other. This paper will discuss the impact of the discourse type on the use of specific gesture types, especially on deictic gestures. In addition, the traditional issue of why speakers gesticulate at all will be briefly addressed in relation to the question of how visibility conditions affect speakers’ gesture production.
Department/s
Publishing year
1999
Language
English
Publication/Series
Working Papers, Lund University, Dept. of Linguistics
Volume
47
Full text
- Available as PDF - 406 kB
- Download statistics
Links
Document type
Working paper
Publisher
Department of Linguistics, Lund University
Topic
- General Language Studies and Linguistics
Status
Published
ISBN/ISSN/Other
- ISSN: 0280-526X