Abstract: In the eighteenth century and before, gesture was considered from the point of view of how it should be used in oratory, as a part of the art of engaging in persuasive discourse. This contrasts with the interest pursued in modern gesture studies where, for the most part, the hand movements that people make when they speak have been studied as representations of the substantive or propositional content of the utterance, seen as providing clues about the mental or cognitive processes governing speaking. Speaking is also a form of social action, however, and gestures play an important role in this. An historical perspective on the study of gesture from a pragmatic point of view is provided, followed by a summary of the main features of the pragmatic functioning of gesture.

Abstract: Drawing upon corpus analyses of recurrent gestures, a pragmatics perspective on gestural meaning and conventionalization will be developed. Gesture pragmatics is considered in terms of usage-based, embodied and interactively emerging meaning. The article brings together cognitive linguistic, cognitive semiotic and interactional perspectives on meaning making. How the interrelation between different types of context (interactional, semantic/pragmatic/syntactic, distribution across a corpus) with the embodied motivation of kinesic forms in actions and movement experiences of the body might play out in the process of conventionalization is illustrated by discussing three recurrent gestures: the Palm-Up-Open-Hand, the Holding Away, and the Cyclic gesture. By merging conventional and idiosyncratic elements recurrent gestures occupy a place between spontaneously created (singular) gestures and emblems as fully conventionalized gestural expressions on a continuum of increasing conventionalization (cf. Kendon’s continuum: McNeill, 1992 , 2000 ). Recurrent gestures are an interesting case to study how processes of conventionalization may involve emergent de-compositions of gestural movements into smaller concomitant Gestalts (cf. Kendon, 2004 , Chapters 15 & 16). They are particularly revealing in showing how those de-compositional processes are grounded experientially in contexts-of-use and remain grounded in conventionalized, yet still embodied, experiential frames.

Abstract: The shrug is a widely shared gesture ensemble with several different components. These include: lifting the shoulders; rotating the forearms outwards with extended fingers to a “palm up” position; with mouth firmly closed, pulling the lips downwards (the “mouth shrug”), which may or may not be combined with raising the eyebrows and tilting the head to one side. It comprises a rich yet consistent network of forms (a single component or a combination of components can index the whole enactment). These components, together or in various combinations, are shown to express incapacity, powerlessness, indetermination, indifference, obviousness which, we suggest, are unified by a common semantic theme of personal disengagement. Since the shrug expresses pragmatic meanings and its formational and semantic core remains stable across different contexts and speakers, the shrug also qualifies as a recurrent gesture. Based on empirical evidence gathered from a videotaped corpus of dyadic interactions between native speakers of British English, this study proposes a qualitative-yet-systematic method to provide a unified account of shrugging.

Abstract: Do speakers intend their gestures to communicate? Central as this question is to the study of gesture, researchers cannot seem to agree on the answer. According to one common framing, gestures are an “unwitting” window into the mind ( McNeill, 1992 ); but, according to another common framing, they are designed along with speech to form “composite utterances” ( Enfield, 2009 ). These two framings correspond to two cultures within gesture studies – the first cognitive and the second interactive in orientation – and they appear to make incompatible claims. In this article I attempt to bridge the cultures by developing a distinction between foreground gestures and background gestures. Foreground gestures are designed in their particulars to communicate a critical part of the speaker’s message; background gestures are not designed in this way. These are two fundamentally different kinds of gesture, not two different ways of framing the same monolithic behavior. Foreground gestures can often be identified by one or more of the following hallmarks: they are produced along with demonstratives; they are produced in the absence of speech; they are co-organized with speaker gaze; and they are produced with conspicuous effort. The distinction between foreground and background gestures helps dissolve the apparent tension between the two cultures: interactional researchers have focused on foreground gestures and elevated them to the status of a prototype, whereas cognitive researchers have done the same with background gestures. The distinction also generates a number of testable predictions about gesture production and understanding, and it opens up new lines of inquiry into gesture across child development and across cultures.

Abstract: There is growing momentum towards a theory of languaging that acknowledges the diverse semiotic repertoires people use with each other. This paper contributes to this goal by providing further evidence from signed language discourse. In particular, we examine iconic signs from Norwegian Sign Language, which can be interpreted as both “regular” lexical signs and token depictions. This dual potential is manipulated by signers in context. We analyze these signs as descriptions and depictions , two different modes of representation. Then we compare these signs to some of the description and depiction that occurs in spoken language discourse. In this way we aim to present some of the advantages of using description and depiction in analyses of communication and interaction. By doing this, we also forge links between the languaging of speakers and the languaging of signers.

Abstract: Gestures that are used by interlocutors to manage the gist of their ‘discourse interactions’, namely content exchange and floor taking, can have one of two very different pragmatic functions: to signal inclusion and cooperation in friendly conversation, or to establish control in more argumentative conversation. While inclusive-cooperative gestures have been extensively studied (e.g., Bavelas, Chovil, Lavrie, & Wade, 1992 ; Kendon, 1995 ; Muller, 2004 ; Sweetser, 1998 ), control gestures received little attention (although see Kendon, 1995 , 2004 ) until a recent spark of interest in their form and function (e.g., Calbris, 2011 ; Muller, 2017 ; Wehling, 2010 , 2012 , 2013 ). However, even though research has detailed important aspects of such discourse managing gestures, to date no comprehensive account of their conceptual foundations and pragmatic functions exists. The present paper fills this gap in the literature. Building on prior analyses of control gestures in argumentative discourse (e.g., Wehling, 2010 ) and inclusive-cooperative gestures in friendly conversation (e.g., Bavelas et al., 1992 ; Muller, 2004 ), it details a typology of discourse management gestures that distinguishes inclusive-cooperative and control gestures as separate pragmatic types and accounts for their forms and functions in terms of their conceptual foundations in primary metaphoric, space-motion schematic, and force dynamic reasoning.

Abstract: Research on manual gesture has been preoccupied with unconventionalized and conventionalized extremes. Homesigns developed spontaneously by deaf children unexposed to standardized sign languages have been used as a window onto more general socio-cognitive processes of semiotic systemization. Spontaneous, idiosyncratic gesticulation has been contrasted with shared, highly regimented “emblematic” or “quotable” gestures to reveal a cline of conventionalization. I direct attention here to the vast and relatively understudied middle ground in which manual gesture shows evidence of only partial conventionalization. Using a corpus of televised political debate data from a US presidential campaign cycle, I note, first, that there is nothing as coherent and systematized as a “register” of political gesture here. Focusing on gesture variation in precision-grip and index-finger-extended gestures of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, I identify form-functional “pragmatic affinities” among gestures that have not crystallized into stable types or classes. Dwelling on the specificities of gesture variation, with its mercurial forms and incomplete conventionalization, may allow us to appreciate the processual complexities of gestural enregisterment in social and historical life.

Abstract: This article examines the social and interactional foundations of sign-creation among DeafBlind people in Seattle, Washington. Linguists studying signed languages have proposed models of sign-creation that involve the selection of an iconic gestural representation of the referent which is subjected to grammatical constraints and is thereby incorporated into the linguistic system. Drawing on 18 months of ethnographic fieldwork and more than 190 hours of video recordings of interaction and language use, I argue that a key interactional mechanism driving processes of sign-creation among DeafBlind people in Seattle is deictic integration. Deictic integration restricts the range of contextual values that the grammar can retrieve by coordinating systems of reference with patterns in activity. This process brings language into alignment with the world as it is perceived by the users of that language, making a range of potentially iconic relations available for selection in the creation of new signs.

Abstract: Hand gestures have been found to provide both semantic information and cognitive facilitative effects in language tasks. These benefits, however, have typically been linked to micro-levels of word and sentence production, and little attention has been paid to the macro-levels of narrative production and organization. In this study, we examined the length, content, syntactic complexity, and organization of narratives of ten typically developing adults under two conditions: (i) Free Gesture, in which participants were allowed to gesture freely while retelling a story, and (ii) Restricted Gesture, where the participants were prevented from moving their hands freely. Results indicated that although narrative length and content did not vary significantly between conditions, narratives produced in the Free Gesture condition were significantly more grammatically complex and better organized than those produced in the Restricted Gesture condition. The findings are discussed with respect to the potential facilitative cognitive effects of gesture for discourse planning.

Abstract: This paper lays out the foundations of a frame-based account of gesture pragmatics through detailing how frames and metonymy interact not only in motivating gestural sign formation, but also in guiding crossmodal processes of pragmatic inferencing. It is argued that gestures recruiting frame structures tend to profile deeply embodied, routinized aspects of scenes (in the Fillmorian sense of the term), that is, of the motivating context of frames. Two kinds of embodied frame structures situated at different levels of abstraction, schematicity, and entrechment are proposed: (A) Basic physical action and object frames understood as directly experientially grounded frames involving physical action and interaction with the material and social world; (B) Complex, highly abstract frame structures that are more detached from the motivating contexts of experience. It is further suggested that gestures exhibiting a comparably low degree of iconicity and/or indexicality are likely to assume pragmatic rather than referential functions. Finally, potential avenues for further research into the relation of scenes, frames, and (multimodal) constructions are outlined.

Abstract: When we speak, we do not only produce a chain of words and utterances, but we also perform various body movements that convey information. These movements are usually made with the hands and are what McNeill (1992) terms gestures. Although gesturing is universal, the way we gesture and the meanings we associate with gestures vary cross-culturally. Using a qualitative approach, this paper describes and illustrates the forms and functions of pointing gestures used by Malay speakers. The data discussed is based on 10 video recorded direction-giving interactions. Findings show that pointing among Malay speakers is achieved through the use of various manual pointing gestures and other bodily actions involving gaze, torso and head movements, which communicate distinct functions. This study has indicated that although some gesture forms and functions are shared among Malay speakers and other cultural groups, some direction-giving pointing behaviors are Malay specific.

Abstract: Based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork in lowland Peru, this study examines interactional functions of Northern Kampa (Arawak) lip funneling gestures. The study has shown that lip funnels have two functions, spatial deictic and upgrading. Spatial deictic lip funnels orient the addressee to a referential target in acts of direct and deferred ostension and abstract pointing; they are accompanied with aligned gaze and coupled with a variety of lexical items (although they need not be). Spatial deictic lip funnels are intense, sometimes held for the duration of the entire utterance. The second function of lip funnels is to amplify the speaker’s claim to epistemic authority in upgraded responses. In the upgrading function, lip funnels are paired with a limited range of grammatical constructions (negative-interrogative, polar focus and exhaustive focus); the gesturer’s gaze is directed at the recipient, or eyes are shut. Nasalization of vowels is in complementary distribution with eye shutting. ‘Upgrading’ lip funnels are transitory facial actions, normally lasting a split second.

Abstract: This study discusses the Influence Use of Audio Visual Media in Learning Dance Of Learning Outcomes In High School Student Class XI Darussalam aims to describe the field and know the effect of the use of audio-visual media to the learning outcomes of students in dancing Ranup Lampuan in SMA Darussalam Medan. To discuss the purpose of the study above, use the theories related to the topic of this research is the theory of learning, learning theory, dance, theory of learning outcomes and audio-visual media. Time used in this study is for 2 (two) months, namely in July 2016 to August 2016. The study site is a Private School High School Darussalam Medan is located on the street. Darussalam No. 26 ABC, Petisah Medan, Medan, North Sumatra. The population in this study were high school Darussalam Medan, while samples were students of class XI IPA SMA Darussalam Medan. Analysis of the data in this study using quantitative descriptive, namely data collection techniques by observation, library research, assessment questionnaires, and documentation. The results based on the data collected can be seen that the ability of the students in learning the dance Ranup Lampuan class XI SMA Darussalam Medan before and after using audio-visual media obtained by the average value of 65.10 and 76.95. From these data it can be seen an increase in the value of before use and after use audio-visual media. Learning Dance Ranup Lampuan using audio-visual media positive and significant impact on learning outcomes of students of class XI SMA Darussalam Medan. Keywords : Audio-visual

Abstract: Though gesture is a growing area in second language research, its role in the teaching and learning of grammar remains on the margins. Drawing from Sociocultural Theory, the present case study addresses this gap by offering a microgenetic analysis of an ESL learner’s developing understanding of the progressive aspect. Our analysis is threefold. First, we observe how the learner’s gesture reveals her initial understanding of the progressive aspect. This is followed by study of the learner’s appropriation of the teacher’s gesture for the progressive aspect. Finally, we examine the crucial ways in which the learner’s gesture differs from the teacher’s, arguing that the learner merged her initial understanding and the teacher’s gesture, instead of merely copying the teacher. We contend that gesture should not be regarded as supplementary to speech but as an indispensable window into the learning process that may not be accessible through the verbal channel alone.

Abstract: The present study investigates deliberate and spontaneous temporal gestures in Mandarin speakers. The results of our analysis show that when asked to gesture about past and future events deliberately (Study 1), Mandarin speakers tend to mimic space-time mappings in their spoken metaphors or graphic conventions for time in Chinese culture, including sagittal mappings (front/past, back/future), vertical mappings (up/past, down/future), and lateral mappings (left/past, right/future). However, in their spontaneous co-speech gestures about time (Study 2), more congruent gestures were produced on the lateral axis than on the vertical axis. This suggests that although Mandarin speakers could think about time vertically, they still showed a horizontal bias in their conceptions of time. Speakers were also more likely to gesture according to future-in-front mappings despite more past-in-front mappings found in spoken Chinese, suggesting a dissociation of temporal language and temporal thought. These results demonstrate that gesture is useful for revealing the spatial conceptualization of time.

Abstract: This article focuses on a signed performance by a deaf Nepali man who communicates in natural sign, which is similar to home sign but with greater cross-signer conventionality. The signer skillfully employs pantomimic (“gestural”) and lexical (“linguistic”) repertoires for distinct pragmatic purposes. In the narrative frame, he uses pantomime to vividly enact his morning routine; in the metanarrative frame, he utilizes lexical signs to directly address the audience. By examining the two repertoires’ formal characteristics and their relationship to different frames, this analysis showcases the signer’s communicative competency, demonstrates the relevance of pragmatics and genre to studies of all signed communicative modes, and challenges the idea that gesture is what language leaves behind.