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Gesture as “deliberate expressive movement”

  • Cornelia Müller
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From Gesture in Conversation to Visible Action as Utterance
This chapter is in the book From Gesture in Conversation to Visible Action as Utterance

Abstract

This chapter offers an in-depth exploration into one of Adam Kendon‘s core theoretical assumptions: gesture as “deliberate expressive movement.” Gestures are recognized as such because they show certain characteristic features of form, because they have “features of manifest deliberate expressiveness” (Kendon 2004: 13–14, italics in the original). Kendon bases his definition of gestures on their articulatory movement characteristics and on their interactive perception. Following Kendon’s descriptive approach, and by taking the form characteristics of gestures as a theoretical and methodological point of departure, a form-based and linguistic perspective to a grammar of gesture will be outlined. In doing so and by alluding to the study of signs it will be suggested that the study of gestures reveals how linguistic structures may emerge from body movement.

Abstract

This chapter offers an in-depth exploration into one of Adam Kendon‘s core theoretical assumptions: gesture as “deliberate expressive movement.” Gestures are recognized as such because they show certain characteristic features of form, because they have “features of manifest deliberate expressiveness” (Kendon 2004: 13–14, italics in the original). Kendon bases his definition of gestures on their articulatory movement characteristics and on their interactive perception. Following Kendon’s descriptive approach, and by taking the form characteristics of gestures as a theoretical and methodological point of departure, a form-based and linguistic perspective to a grammar of gesture will be outlined. In doing so and by alluding to the study of signs it will be suggested that the study of gestures reveals how linguistic structures may emerge from body movement.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. A foreword vii
  4. From gesture in conversation to visible action as utterance 1
  5. Part I. Gaze and face
  6. Including facial gestures in gesture-speech ensembles 15
  7. Mutual gaze and recognition 35
  8. Part II. Manual gestures – quotable gestures and pointing
  9. Gesture in the communicative ecology of a South African township 59
  10. The emblem as metaphor 75
  11. Pointing, talk, and the bodies 95
  12. Part III. Manual gestures – their nature and relationship to language
  13. Gesture as “deliberate expressive movement” 127
  14. On the lower limit of gesture 153
  15. Part IV. Language evolution
  16. The word according to Adam 177
  17. The intelligibility of gesture within a framework of co-operative action 199
  18. Part V. Sign systems
  19. Signs and space in Arandic sand narratives 219
  20. Different strokes 245
  21. Gesture in all its forms 289
  22. Part VI. Children language development
  23. The development of two pragmatic gestures of the so-called Open Hand Supine family in Italian children 311
  24. How gestures help children to track reference in narrative 331
  25. Gestures and multimodal development 351
  26. Name index 371
  27. Subject index 373
https://doi.org/10.1075/z.188.07mul

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. A foreword vii
  4. From gesture in conversation to visible action as utterance 1
  5. Part I. Gaze and face
  6. Including facial gestures in gesture-speech ensembles 15
  7. Mutual gaze and recognition 35
  8. Part II. Manual gestures – quotable gestures and pointing
  9. Gesture in the communicative ecology of a South African township 59
  10. The emblem as metaphor 75
  11. Pointing, talk, and the bodies 95
  12. Part III. Manual gestures – their nature and relationship to language
  13. Gesture as “deliberate expressive movement” 127
  14. On the lower limit of gesture 153
  15. Part IV. Language evolution
  16. The word according to Adam 177
  17. The intelligibility of gesture within a framework of co-operative action 199
  18. Part V. Sign systems
  19. Signs and space in Arandic sand narratives 219
  20. Different strokes 245
  21. Gesture in all its forms 289
  22. Part VI. Children language development
  23. The development of two pragmatic gestures of the so-called Open Hand Supine family in Italian children 311
  24. How gestures help children to track reference in narrative 331
  25. Gestures and multimodal development 351
  26. Name index 371
  27. Subject index 373
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