From Gesture in Conversation to Visible Action as Utterance

Language use is fundamentally multimodal. Speakers use their hands to point to locations, to represent content and to comment on ongoing talk; they position their bodies to show their orientation and stance in interaction; they use facial displays to comment on what is being said; and they engage in mutual gaze to establish intersubjectivity. This volume brings together studies by leading scholars from several fields on gaze and facial displays, on the relationship between gestures, sign, and language, on pointing and other conventionalized forms of manual expression, on gestures and language evolution, and on gestures in child development. The papers in this collection honor Adam Kendon whose pioneering work has laid the theoretical and methodological foundations for contemporary studies of multimodality, gestures, and utterance visible action.

Stephen C. Levinson, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen:
Adam Kendon is one of the key pioneers of interaction and gesture studies. In this exciting volume honouring his work, nearly every facet of his research – from facial to manual gestures, sign language to language evolution – is investigated and pushed into new territory by an outstanding group of international scholars. All students of gesture and interaction will want a copy of this book on their desks.