Meaning Making in Political Discourse. A Cognitive Semiotic Exploration of Hand Expressions
Author
Summary, in English
Political discourse has been and remains a central topic of scholarly inquiry due to its role in
shaping public opinion, ideologies, and social interactions. It constitutes a highly polysemiotic
form of communication in which hand expressions play a central role in the organisation and interpretation of interactions. This thesis investigates hand expressions in televised political discourse from a cognitive semiotic perspective. As a novel theoretical contribution, the thesis introduces a gestural cline from bodily signs to bodily signals, developed in relation to the Mimesis Hierarchy, a cognitive semiotic model of meaning making based on the concept of bodily mimesis. The cline conceptualises hand expressions along a continuum from low to high levels of communicative explicitness and representational complexity. Within the proposed cline, adaptors and beats were categorised as bodily signals, whereas emblematic, iconic, and deictic gestures were categorised as bodily signs. Recurrent gestures, however, constituted a theoretically ambiguous category from the outset.
The analysis is based on annotated video material from the Icelandic political television programme Kryddsíldin, combining quantitative and qualitative approaches to examine the distribution, communicative function, and potential gender-based variation of different forms of hand expression. The material was annotated in the ELAN annotation system, distinguishing between emblems, iconic/deictic gestures, beats, adaptors, and recurrent gestures. The expressions were subsequently analysed according to their denotational and/or non
denotational meanings. The findings show that hand expressions in Kryddsíldin were predominantly composed of signals characterised by relatively low communicative explicitness and representational complexity. Beats emerged as the most frequent hand expression type across all speakers, followed by recurrent gestures and adaptors, whereas bodily signs occurred comparatively infrequently. Beats further exhibited considerable functional flexibility,
occurring both independently and in conjunction with other gestures, particularly recurrent
gestures. Recurrent gestures were found to display recurring formal and functional patterns while remaining strongly dependent on contextual interpretation. Given that they also express
both denotational and non-denotational meanings, it is proposed that they fall in an intermediate
position between sign and signals on the proposed cline.
shaping public opinion, ideologies, and social interactions. It constitutes a highly polysemiotic
form of communication in which hand expressions play a central role in the organisation and interpretation of interactions. This thesis investigates hand expressions in televised political discourse from a cognitive semiotic perspective. As a novel theoretical contribution, the thesis introduces a gestural cline from bodily signs to bodily signals, developed in relation to the Mimesis Hierarchy, a cognitive semiotic model of meaning making based on the concept of bodily mimesis. The cline conceptualises hand expressions along a continuum from low to high levels of communicative explicitness and representational complexity. Within the proposed cline, adaptors and beats were categorised as bodily signals, whereas emblematic, iconic, and deictic gestures were categorised as bodily signs. Recurrent gestures, however, constituted a theoretically ambiguous category from the outset.
The analysis is based on annotated video material from the Icelandic political television programme Kryddsíldin, combining quantitative and qualitative approaches to examine the distribution, communicative function, and potential gender-based variation of different forms of hand expression. The material was annotated in the ELAN annotation system, distinguishing between emblems, iconic/deictic gestures, beats, adaptors, and recurrent gestures. The expressions were subsequently analysed according to their denotational and/or non
denotational meanings. The findings show that hand expressions in Kryddsíldin were predominantly composed of signals characterised by relatively low communicative explicitness and representational complexity. Beats emerged as the most frequent hand expression type across all speakers, followed by recurrent gestures and adaptors, whereas bodily signs occurred comparatively infrequently. Beats further exhibited considerable functional flexibility,
occurring both independently and in conjunction with other gestures, particularly recurrent
gestures. Recurrent gestures were found to display recurring formal and functional patterns while remaining strongly dependent on contextual interpretation. Given that they also express
both denotational and non-denotational meanings, it is proposed that they fall in an intermediate
position between sign and signals on the proposed cline.
Department/s
- Master's Programme: Language and Linguistics
- Cognitive Semiotics
Publishing year
2026
Language
English
Full text
Document type
Student publication for Master's degree (two years)
Topic
- Languages and Literatures
Keywords
- Bodily signals
- bodily signs
- cognitive semiotics
- political discourse
- the Mimesis Hierarchy
- recurrent gestures.
Supervisor
- Jordan Zlatev (Docent)
- Alexandra Mouratidou