Communication As Gesture

Co-speech gestures are ubiquitous: when people speak, they almost always produce gestures. Gestures reflect content in the mind of the speaker, often under the radar and frequently using rich mental images that complement speech. What are gestures doing? Why do we use them? This book is the first to systematically explore the functions of gesture in speaking, thinking, and communicating – focusing on the variety of purposes served for the gesturer as well as for the viewer of gestures. Chapters in this edited volume present a range of diverse perspectives (including neural, cognitive, social, developmental and educational), consider gestural behavior in multiple contexts (conversation, narration, persuasion, intervention, and instruction), and utilize an array of methodological approaches (including both naturalistic and experimental). The book demonstrates that gesture influences how humans develop ideas, express and share those ideas to create community, and engineer innovative solutions to problems.

The present volume is an excellent introduction to the study of human nonverbal communication, including interaction and gesture, for students and specialists in other disciplines, as well as a convenient compilation of significant contributions to the field for experts. Part 1 includes four articles, the import of which is primarily theoretical or methodological. Part II comprises eight articles in which instances of interaction are examined and attempts are made to explain how the behavior that can be observed in them functions in the interaction process. Part III presents six articles on what may broadly be referred to as 'gesture'. These articles deal with specific actions, mostly of the forelimbs, which are usually deemed to have specific communicational significance. In an introductory chapter, the volume editor, Adam Kendon, not only examines the various issues raised by the eighteen papers but also shows the relevance of each article as a contribution to the development of an understanding of how human visible behavior functions communicatively.

Gestures are prevalent in communication and tightly linked to language and speech. As such they can shed important light on issues of language development across the lifespan. This volume, originally published as a Special Issue of Gesture Volume 8:2 (2008), brings together studies from different disciplines that examine language development in children and adults from varying perspectives. It provides a review of common theoretical and empirical themes, and the contributions address topics such as gesture use in prelinguistic infants, the relationship between gestures and lexical development in typically and atypically developing children and in second language learners, what gestures reveal about discourse, and how all languages that adult second language speakers know can influence each other. The papers exemplify a vibrant new field of study with relevance for multiple disciplines.

Through constant exposure to adult input in interaction, children’s language gradually develops into rich linguistic constructions containing multiple cross-modal elements subtly used together for communicative functions. Sensorimotor schemas provide the "grounding" of language in experience and lead to children’s access to the symbolic function. With the emergence of vocal or signed productions, gestures do not disappear but remain functional and diversify in form and function as children become skilled adult multimodal conversationalists. This volume examines the role of gesture over the human lifespan in its complex interaction with speech and sign. Gesture is explored in the different stages before, during, and after language has fully developed and a special focus is placed on the role of gesture in language learning and cognitive development. Specific chapters are devoted to the use of gesture in atypical populations. CONTENTS Contributors Aliyah Morgenstern and Susan Goldin-Meadow 1 Introduction to Gesture in Language Part I: An Emblematic Gesture: Pointing Kensy Cooperrider and Kate Mesh 2 Pointing in Gesture and Sign Aliyah Morgenstern 3 Early Pointing Gestures Part II: Gesture Before Speech Meredith L. Rowe, Ran Wei, and Virginia C. Salo 4 Early Gesture Predicts Later Language Development Olga Capirci, Maria Cristina Caselli, and Virginia Volterra 5 Interaction Among Modalities and Within Development Part III: Gesture With Speech During Language Learning Eve V. Clark and Barbara F. Kelly 6 Constructing a System of Communication With Gestures and Words Pauline Beaupoil-Hourdel 7 Embodying Language Complexity: Co-Speech Gestures Between Age 3 and 4 Casey Hall, Elizabeth Wakefield, and Susan Goldin-Meadow 8 Gesture Can Facilitate Children’s Learning and Generalization of Verbs Part IV: Gesture After Speech Is Mastered Jean-Marc Colletta 9 On the Codevelopment of Gesture and Monologic Discourse in Children Susan Wagner Cook 10 Understanding How Gestures Are Produced and Perceived Tilbe Göksun, Demet Özer, and Seda AkbIyık 11 Gesture in the Aging Brain Part V: Gesture With More Than One Language Elena Nicoladis and Lisa Smithson 12 Gesture in Bilingual Language Acquisition Marianne Gullberg 13 Bimodal Convergence: How Languages Interact in Multicompetent Language Users’ Speech and Gestures Gale Stam and Marion Tellier 14 Gesture Helps Second and Foreign Language Learning and Teaching Aliyah Morgenstern and Susan Goldin-Meadow Afterword: Gesture as Part of Language or Partner to Language Across the Lifespan Index About the Editors

Publisher Description

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-proceedings of the International Gesture Workshop, GW'99, held in Gif-sur-Yvette, France, in March 1999. The 16 revised long papers and seven revised short papers were carefully reviewed for inclusion in the book. Also included are four invited papers and the transcription of a round table discussion. The papers are organized in sections on human perception and production of gesture, localization and segmentation, recognition, sign language, gesture synthesis and animation, and multimodality.

This book critiques current assumptions about 'communication', particularly digitally mediated communication, by re-examining conceptual foundations in rhetoric, linguistics, semiotics, information theory, and cybernetics. The result is a dimensional account of interaction that is at once both intuitive and revolutionary.

Bringing together twenty-five years of research, Why We Gesture offers a radical new perspective on gesture-speech unity.