Abstract Over the past few decades, gesture researchers have shown growing interest in the idea that certain gestural forms are conventionally associated with fairly specific, yet not too narrow, semantic and pragmatic meanings. These gestures are referred to as recurrent gestures and are argued to be grounded in bodily experiences, including instrumental actions and movement patterns. In this paper, we first provide supporting evidence for the conventionalized status of the target kinetic pattern of this study — the Two-Handed Alternation gesture on the Sagittal axis (2HAS). We then demonstrate how two different types of embodied motivations, namely mimetic schemas (grounded in instrumental actions) and image schemas (grounded in bodily experiences of movement patterns), converge in the single recurrent kinetic pattern of 2HAS, giving rise to its various referential and pragmatic functions.
Some studies have shown cross-cultural differences in the frequency of representational gesture production. There have been anecdotal reports of Arabic speakers gesturing frequently in order to depict their message. The primary purpose of the present study was to test whether Arabic speakers use more representational gestures than English speakers when telling a story. Secondarily, we tested whether that difference was mediated by story quality. We asked adults who spoke either Egyptian Arabic as a first language and English monolinguals to watch a cartoon and tell the story back. The Arabic speakers gestured significantly more than the English speakers. While story quality approached significance as an independent predictor of gesture production, we found no evidence that it mediated the cross-cultural difference. One interpretation of these results is that there are cultural norms for gesture frequency.
This study assessed if early multimodality increasingly involves more mature productions, in a pragmatic (i.e., declaratives) and referential (i.e., words) sense, and if it is associated with grammar, which would point to multimodality's role in language development. Data is derived from the spontaneous multimodal behaviours of 8-to-28-month-old Peruvian children, along with data collected with the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories (CDI). We found the production of multimodal behaviours that included words correlated positively (i) with age, an effect especially strong for declaratives, and (ii) with the spontaneous production of multiword utterances. Also, (iii) the production of multimodal behaviours correlated positively with the morphosyntactic complexity score (CDI), and (iv) multimodal behaviours involving vocalizations specifically correlated negatively with MLU (CDI). Therefore, early multimodality presents a language-oriented profile, increasingly favouring combinations with words and a declarative function, and correlating with multiword utterances, as well as with a more mature morphosyntactic profile.
This study investigates non-verbal hand gestures used in street drive-thru coffee shops (gahwet taka:si) in Amman, Jordan, focusing on their role as stand-alone emblems for quick transactions. Integrating Symbolic Interactionism with theories of conventionalization and embodiment, the paper examines how meaning is negotiated between customers and employees through joint action. The methodology consisted of qualitative identification of the gestural lexicon through interviews and observation of 19 coffee shop employees, followed by quantitative validation with 71 participants. Qualitative analysis reveals pathways of conventionalization, including iconicity, pantomime, and shared cultural knowledge, which codify these movements into a system. Quantitative results indicate a high level of recognition among frequent visitors, suggesting that exposure and interaction frequency drive the acquisition of this gestural competence. This study demonstrates how gestures become codified within a commercial context, offering a real-world application of Symbolic Interactionism in understanding the development of an informal, culturally embedded transactional gesture system.
Over the past few decades, gesture researchers have shown growing interest in the idea that certain gestural forms are conventionally associated with fairly specific, yet not too narrow, semantic and pragmatic meanings. These gestures are referred to as recurrent gestures and are argued to be grounded in bodily experiences, including instrumental actions and movement patterns. In this paper, we first provide supporting evidence for the conventionalized status of the target kinetic pattern of this study - the Two-Handed Alternation gesture on the Sagittal axis (2HAS). We then demonstrate how two different types of embodied motivations, namely mimetic schemas (grounded in instrumental actions) and image schemas (grounded in bodily experiences of movement patterns), converge in the single recurrent kinetic pattern of 2HAS, giving rise to its various referential and pragmatic functions.
Spoken language lists can be accompanied by digital lists: manual actions by means of which the fingers of the non-dominant hand are associated with the spoken listed items. In this paper we offer an overview of the formal aspects of digital list constructions and their contextual motivations in Brazilian Portuguese. We also describe their discourse functions. To achieve these goals, we analyzed 125 digital list constructions collected from 77 online videos, using the work of Wilcox et al. (2023) as a framework. Our results show that digital list constructions in Brazilian Portuguese typically begin at the pinkie finger. Discursively, they show that such constructions are used to introduce and refer back to referents, as well as to organize discourse. We conclude that digital list constructions in Brazilian Portuguese share many similarities with list constructions in signed languages, especially in Brazilian Sign Language (Libras), but also exhibit striking differences.
Intraindividual conflict is a cognitive state that can precipitate conceptual change. Organizational behavior has been a recent home for research on intraindividual conflict, but gesture-based data remain relatively uncommon in this literature compared with self-report and verbal measures. We argue that co-speech gesture can reveal the mental models that structure sense-making during intraindividual conflict. To demonstrate this, we present a detailed analysis of one individual's narrated account of an intraindividual conflict arising at the intersection of her personal and workplace identities. By analyzing how the speaker systematically gestures across distinct regions of space, we suggest that a sequence of embodied mental models unfolds over the course of her narration. These mental models are implicitly visible in gesture before they emerge in speech. Gesture analysis suggests that the narrator's sensemaking shifts toward a model that yields concrete, actionable options for how she can respond in the workplace. Our study shows that integrating gesture analysis into research on intraindividual conflict clarifies how people work through tension in real time and offers a productive avenue for advancing organizational behavior theory.
This study examines speakers' points during word searches in Mandarin-speaking daily interaction, specifically when searching for place references. It investigates whether these points are directed toward the referent and what functions they serve in local contexts. The dataset comprises 67 points from 303 minutes of video recordings, analyzed using multimodal conversation analysis. Findings show that points occur in both solitary and joint word searches. When the sought-after TCU component refers to a nearby location, points are more likely to be accurate, whereas accuracy decreases significantly for distant locations. Accurate points provide spatial deixis that is precise in direction yet abstract in reference, facilitating the retrieval of place references independently or collaboratively. They not only indicate the location of the referent but also invoke participants' shared knowledge about it. Inaccurate points, by contrast, index the absence of the particular TCU component while displaying the speaker's commitment to completing the word search.
Gestures integrate with speech and support planning and delivery. This study examined whether restricting gesture degrades simultaneous interpreting quality. Eight L1-Spanish interpreters rendered two matched English speeches (EN -> ES) in a within-subjects design: gestural (as usual) and non-gestural (hands holding a table-mounted bar). Outputs were rated on accuracy, terminology, cohesion and prosody; pauses and self-repairs indexed fluency. Inter-rater reliability for total scores was acceptable (Spearman rho = .614, p < .01). Quality declined without gesture: total weighted score 8.2 vs. 7.0, t test p = .0003. All criteria fell (accuracy p = .0001; prosody p = .0012; cohesion p = .0072; terminology p = .0185). Fluency worsened, with more pauses/self-repairs (21.3 vs. 27.6 per speech), t(7) = 3.58, p = .009. No participant improved on any criterion. Findings indicate that preventing gesture removes a resource that supports management of parallel demands on comprehension, memory, and production in a complex language task.
This paper challenges the common belief that first language (L1) speakers simplify their language when communicating with second language (L2) users, which is captured in Charles Ferguson's 'Foreigner Talk' hypothesis. Academic research has long suggested that, along with simplified vocabulary and syntax, L1 speakers use more illustrative and larger gestures to accommodate L2 addressees. Since this stereotype remains empirically unverified, we analyzed L1 gesture production in two video corpora, implementing automated motion-tracking techniques to measure gesture size. We found that L1 speakers produced larger gestures when describing a picture to an L2 addressee than to an L1 addressee, whereas this difference did not occur during free conversation. In both communicative tasks, however, they used more deictic gestures and organized their gesture space to structure the interaction. In sum, gesture qualifies as a versatile resource in L1-L2 interaction, which is tailored to the conversational task at hand.
Human communicative discourse can be understood as a form of nano-scale niche construction. If our burst-like communicative moves in the medium of language are to create niches that persist long enough to be exploited as shared informational environments, then we need ways to bind individual moves into larger, temporarily stable structures. One important resource for this purpose is multimodality, as found in pioneering work in gesture research by Adam Kendon and by David McNeill, among others. The discussion points to areas where gesture studies and evolutionary approaches to human communication have potential for collaboration and innovation.
The study investigated whether the perspective of multimodal input in visuospatial maps predicts children's spatial performance, particularly verbal recall and direction-following behavior. 5-year-old monolingual Turkish children were engaged in the Directions Task, which included visuospatial maps and videos of a speaker describing routes on maps in three conditions: Speech-Gesture combination with a front-facing view, Speech-Gesture combination with an upper back angle, and Speech-only condition with a front-facing view for control. Children were asked to verbally recall and draw the route described in the videos. They also engaged in perspective-taking, mental rotation, and relational reasoning tasks. Results showed that children's verbal recall, but not necessarily behavioral recall, was enhanced by receiving multimodal directions. Moreover, children's relational reasoning and perspective-taking abilities modulate their verbal recall performances. The results of this study underline the importance of multimodal input and presentation perspective in enhancing children's spatial performance.
Prior research has shown that gestures can help solve mental rotation problems. Given that mental rotation ability is malleable through training, the current study aims to explore the beneficial effect of observing gestures on improving mental rotation abilities and the possible underlying mechanism of this effect. We conducted two experiments using a pretest-training-posttest design. Experiment 1 showed that participants in the speech-plus-gesture group improved more than those in the speech-only group, demonstrating that observing gestures has a beneficial role in mental rotation training. Experiment 2 revealed that when performing a secondary movement involving the legs during video observation, the participants in the speech-plus-gesture group improved more than those in the speech-only group. However, no significant between-group differences were observed when the secondary movement involved the arms. These findings suggest that observing gestures is beneficial for promoting individuals' mental rotation abilities through the exploitation of the learner's motor system in training.
Abstract This chapter explores some of the ways that gestures show variation in use between groups. There are three main themes to gesture variation in this chapter. The first is cultural influence. This includes examination of how people use the gestural space available to them, how gesture use is influenced by culture-specific understanding of politeness, and the spread of culture-specific emblem gestures. The second theme is cognitive influence on gestures. In this section we look at the literature on the way different groups conceptualize spatial relationships, and how this affects gesture use. We also look at how spatial metaphors for time influence gesture use. The third and final topic is the influence of language structure on gestural production. In this section we will look at the way the semantics and syntax of verb structures in different languages influence the shape of iconic gestures.
Previous research has suggested a link between levels of empathic engagement and the frequency and saliency of certain gestural forms, notably conduit and palm-revealing gestures. The present research investigates if these patterns are also observable in the use of pointing gestures within Tibetan communities, an underrepresented population in linguistics and cognitive science studies. To address this query, we implemented a referential communication task to elicit pointing behavior. This paradigm required participants to harness a repertoire of pointing techniques in order to facilitate the accurate assembly of intricate toy block configurations. The results showed that like many other cultural populations, Tibetan participants showed an overall preference for manual over non-manual pointing gestures at least within a controlled laboratory environment. However, Tibetan participants with higher levels of empathy produced manual pointing more often compared to those with low empathy. Notably, the two groups showed no difference in the mean number of non-manual pointing. These findings underscore the significance of integrating individual differences in investigating pointing preferences and, more broadly, enhance our understanding of the predictors of gesture use in human communication.
Abstract This chapter looks at both neurological and cognitive research to explore where gesture resides in the physical brain and how it contributes to the processes of the mind. In relation to neurological research, gesture is part of the sensorimotor system. Gesture is also closely linked with language in the brain, activating many of the same regions, including Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas. Gesture use varies with neurotype and is shown to suffer similar impairment to language for people with acquired brain injuries. Cognitive models allow us to consider the evidence from language and gesture production to build an understanding of the sequence of steps required to move from the abstract processes of thought to the concrete production of speech and gesture. This chapter summarizes key models of language and gesture production, models for understanding the relationship between gesture, movement, and thought, and models of gesture perception and processing.
East Asian languages and cultures are known to show substantial differences from European ones, including in terms of how negation is expressed. The present study considers how gestures relate to the expression of verbal negation by speakers of Mandarin Chinese. Based on around 400 minutes of Chinese TV programs, we establish some relatively stable gestural form-meaning mappings associated with verbal negation. For instance, holding away gestures tend to express rejection , and wigwagging gestures tend to express denial . Our analyses of these gestural correlations with verbal negation provide insights into the multifunctionality of negative verbal clauses when viewed from a multimodal perspective.
Abstract This chapter demonstrates how gesture communicates meaning using context-dependent and imagistic features that are distinct from both spoken and signed language systems. The integration of speech and gesture is seen in the alignment of gesture with phonological, semantic, and pragmatic features of language. This chapter provides an introduction to the features of the performance of a gesture, and how people use the gesture space. Finally, in order to understand how the modern approach to gesture studies emerged, this chapter provides a brief introduction to the history of the field, tracing the literature from ancient Greek writing on rhetoric, to nineteenth-century anthropology, and twentieth-century psychology and linguistics.
