Although it is widely acknowledged that gestures are complex functional elements of human communication, many current functional classification systems are rather rigid, implicitly assuming gestures to perform only one function at any given time. In this paper, we present a theoretical view on the inherent multifunctionality of speakers’ gestures, inspired by frameworks in structural-functional linguistics (Halliday’s Systemic Functional Grammar and Hengeveld & Mackenzie’s Functional Discourse Grammar). Building upon this view, we report on a large-scale internet-based gesture perception study, designed in a way open to the potential for complex multifunctionality of gestural expression. The results provide quantitative support for the view that speakers’ gestures typically contribute to multiple semantic and meta-communicative functions of the ongoing discourse simultaneously. Furthermore, we identify clusters of functions that tend to be combined, as well as correlations between pairs of them. As a whole, this paper achieves some degree of convergence between ecological and experimental views on gesture functionality.

中文翻译：

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绘制演讲者手势的多功能性

尽管人们普遍承认手势是人类交流的复杂功能元素，但许多当前的功能分类系统相当严格，隐含地假设手势在任何给定时间仅执行一种功能。在本文中，我们受到结构功能语言学框架（Halliday 的系统功能语法和 Hengeveld & Mackenzie 的功能话语语法）的启发，提出了关于说话者手势固有多功能性的理论观点。基于这一观点，我们报告了一项基于互联网的大规模手势感知研究，该研究的设计方式对手势表达的复杂多功能性潜力开放。结果为以下观点提供了定量支持，即说话者的手势通常同时有助于正在进行的话语的多种语义和元交流功能。此外，我们确定了倾向于组合的函数集群，以及它们对之间的相关性。总的来说，本文在手势功能的生态和实验观点之间实现了一定程度的融合。