Data is central to scholarly research, but the nature and location of data used is often under-reported in research publications. Greater transparency and citation of data have positive effects for the culture of research. This article presents the results of a survey of data citation in six years of articles published in the journal GESTURE (12.1-17.2). Gesture researchers draw on a broad range of

Abstract Mathematical achievement is an early predictor of students’ academic outcomes, and mathematics achievement continues to be important throughout life. Thus, it is essential to examine instructional methods that enhance mathematical learning. One method that may impact mathematical learning is the use of gestures, yet a comprehensive methodical review of the data has not been conducted. The

Abstract This paper proposes a novel analysis of deictic gestures which yields a taxonomy of manual pointing. ‘Gesture form analysis’ brings into relief the diversity of pointing by considering the imaginary forms necessarily involved in interpreting a gesture. It combines into a single framework insights found in the literature on how the meaning of any gesture is enabled by a series of spatial operations

Sign languages do not arise from thin air: rather, they emerge in communities where conventions are already in place for using gesture. Little research has considered how these conventions are retained and/or adapted as gestures are integrated into emerging sign language lexicons. Here we describe a set of five gestures that are used to convey negative meanings by both speakers and signers in a single

Abstract In this paper I examine the use of the ‘rotated palms’ gesture family among speakers of Syuba (Tibeto-Burman, Nepal), as recorded in a video corpus documenting this language. In this family of gestures one or both forearms are rotated to a supine (‘palm up’) position, each hand with thumb and forefinger extended and the other fingers, in varying degrees, flexed toward the palm. When used independently

Abstract Kinship plays a central role in organizing interaction and other social behaviors in Indigenous Australia. The spoken lexicon of kinship has been the target of extensive consideration by anthropologists and linguists alike. Less well explored, however, are the kin categories expressed through sign languages (notwithstanding the pioneering work of Adam Kendon). This paper examines the relational

Abstract The mathematical concept of function is an essential underpinning for advanced study in mathematics, such as calculus, and influences success in higher mathematics. Teaching about functions is challenging as many students find it difficult to understand. Effective teaching strategies are reliant on a teacher’s knowledge of the current understandings of their students. The gestures of the twenty-three

Abstract Using a repetition paradigm, in which speakers describe the same event to a sequence of listeners, we analyze the degree of reduction in representational gestures. We find that when listener feedback, both verbal and non-verbal, is minimal and unvarying, speakers steadily reduce their motoric commitment in repeated gestures across tellings without regard to the novelty of the information to

Abstract Events with a motor action component (e.g., handling an object) tend to evoke gestures from the point of view of a character (character viewpoint, or CVPT) while events with a path component (moving through space) tend to evoke gestures from the point of view of an observer (observer viewpoint, or OVPT). Events that combine both components (e.g., rowing a boat across a lake) seem to evoke

Abstract Conversational facial gestures are not emotional expressions (Ekman, 1997). Facial gestures are co-speech gestures – configurations of the face, eyes, and/or head that are synchronized with words and other co-speech gestures. Facial gestures are the most frequent facial actions in dialogue, and the majority serve pragmatic (meta-communicative) rather than referential functions. A qualitative

Abstract In this paper, we examine the conceptual pedagogical value of representational gestures in the context of teaching halving to first graders. We use the concept of the ‘polysign’ as an analytical tool and introduce the notion of a ‘mathematics gesture sequence’ to assess the conceptual role gestures play in explicating mathematical concepts. In our study of four teachers each teaching a lesson

Abstract Using recurrent gestures as the model, this essay considers how an inside-looking-out view of speech-gesture production reflects the interactive-social exterior. The inside view may appear to ignore the social context of speaking and gesture, but this is far from the truth. What an exterior view sees as important appears in the interior but in a different way. The difference leads to misunderstandings

Abstract This paper examines the Open Hand Prone ‘vertical palm’ as a resource for participants in conversation for displaying their treatment of a co-participant’s – or their own – turn/action as interruptive. Through this practice participants can manage turn-taking by making it relevant for the co-participant to stop talking. The data for this study consist of video-recorded conversations in English

Abstract Infants can extend their index fingers soon after birth, yet pointing gestures do not emerge until about 10 to 12 months. In the present study, we draw on the process-relational view, according to which pointing develops as infants learn how others respond to their initially non-communicative index finger use. We report on a longitudinal maternal diary study of 15 infants and describe four

Abstract We examined the cognitive resources involved in processing speech with gesture compared to the same speech without gesture across four studies using a dual-task paradigm. Participants viewed videos of a woman describing spatial arrays either with gesture or without. They then attempted to choose the target array from among four choices. Participants’ cognitive load was measured as they completed

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

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

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

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

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

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)

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

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

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

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

Abstract A renewed interest in understanding the role of iconicity in the structure and processing of signed languages is hampered by the conflation of iconicity and transparency in the definition and operationalization of iconicity as a variable. We hypothesize that iconicity is fundamentally different than transparency since it arises from individuals’ experience with the world and their language

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”

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

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

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

The age-old debate between the proponents of the gesture-first and speech-first positions has returned to occupy a central place in current language evolution theorizing. The gestural scenarios, suffering from the problem known as “modality transition” (why a gestural system would have changed into a predominantly spoken system), frequently appeal to the gestures of the orofacial area as a platform

This study examined the relationship between word frequency and timing of communicative gestures in children with specific language impairment (SLI) and typically-developing (TD) children. Nine children with SLI and twelve age-matched TD children produced a narrative after watching an animated cartoon. Redundant gesture-speech pairs were identified and coded for temporal alignment between gesture and

Does being instructed to gesture encourage those with low gesture rates to produce more gestures? If participants do gesture more when asked to, do they produce the same kinds of gestures? Does this vary as a function of the type of discourse being produced? We asked participants to take part in three tasks, a quasi-conversational task, a spatial problem solving task, and a narrative task, in two phases

The study describes certain structural modifications employed on the citation forms of ISL during signing for intensification purposes. In Signed Languages, citation forms are considered relatively immune to modifications. Nine signers signed several scenarios describing some intense quality. The signers used conventional adverbs existing in ISL for intensification purposes. Yet, they also employed

Relying on the analysis of naturally occurring interaction recordings, this article proposes the moment-by-moment description of a specific type of focused interaction, the interaction of the martial art Aikido. In Aikido encounters, participants exchange moves of attack, defense, avoidance also using a “weapon”. These “Aikido movements”, as I shall call them, are articulated by the whole body and

Little is known about how individual signs that occur in naturally produced signed languages are recognized. Here we examine whether sign understanding may be grounded in sensorimotor properties by evaluating a signer’s ability to make lexical decisions to American Sign Language (ASL) signs that are articulated either congruent with or incongruent with the observer’s own handedness. Our results show

Closing argument represents the most crucial part of the adversarial system of justice. For attorneys, it provides an opportunity to showcase their persuasive skills through the full range of semiotic resources at their disposal. While studies of legal discourse have examined speech performance, few studies, if any, have analyzed how speech integrates with gesture and material conduct in the production

The aim of the present study was to examine the use of gestures in the narrative productions of preschool children. Both the developmental patterns of gestures and verbal production and the relationships between them were analysed. The participants included 45 preschool children, aged 38 to 71 months. The narrative competence of each child was assessed individually using a new storybook narrative task

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

This paper presents a study of selected iconic gestures with a view to determining their effects on RT in a task-relevant and a task-irrelevant context. In two experiments, participants were presented with a coloured shape on a computer screen, a spoken statement referring to the presented shape, and a gesture that was task irrelevant. The findings from both experiments show strong support for the

This paper examines the speech-accompanying gesture and other kinesic behaviour of bilingual English-Māori and monolingual English speakers in New Zealand. Physical expression has long been regarded a key component of Māori artistic and spoken performance, as well as in personal interactions. This study asks (1) if there are gestures more common to or exclusively employed by the Māori population of

Adults regularly use word-gesture combinations in communication, and meaningful gestures facilitate word learning. However, it is not clear if this benefit of gestures is due to the speaker’s movement increasing the listener’s attention or if it needs to be a meaningful gesture, if the difficulty of the task results in disparate reliance on gestures, and if word classes are differentially affected

Great apes do not possess language or any comparable system of symbolic communication. Yet they communicate intentionally and possess cognitive competencies like categorization and decontextualization. These provide the basis for mental concepts and the meaning side of linguistic symbols. The arbitrarily linked and conventionalized forms for expressing these meanings, however, seem to be largely missing

Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) reportedly have difficulties in responding to bids for joint attention, notably in following pointing gestures. Previous studies have predominantly built on structured observation measures and predefined coding categories to measure children’s responsiveness to gestures. However, how these gestures are designed and what detailed interactional work they can

A comparison of size gestures made during object descriptions by Anyi speakers from the Ivory Coast and Dutch speakers in the Netherlands reveals considerable formational differences. Firstly, whereas all Anyi speakers make use of body parts to depict size and shape, none of the Dutch speakers do. Secondly, Dutch gestures outlining a size and shape in space are more varied than their Anyi counterparts

In this paper, we analyze single-handed hold gestures that convey either the height or the shape of an object. The analyses include (1) differentiating which parts of the hands are profiled in each gesture, (2) considering whether these parts are occluded by other fingers, and (3) deriving predictions from (1) and (2) with regard to what hand shape characteristics favor height or shape gestures. In