Book contents
- Pointing
- Pointing
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Preface
- Introduction to Pointing:
- Part One Culture and Development
- 1 Pointing at, Talking about, and Looking Away:
- 2 The Design of Pointing
- 3 Development of Pointing in Toddlers:
- 4 Attention Management by Deictic Gestures and Demonstratives:
- 5 Pointing to Dinner Participants in Deaf and Hearing Children’s and Adults’ Signing and Gesturing
- 6 The Cultural Nature of Early Social Communication
- 7 Pointing at Local Knowledge:
- 8 The Role of Infant Pointing in Child-Led Caregiving:
- 9 How Infants Learn to Follow Attention from Gaze-Direction and Pointing Gestures
- 10 Touch, Pointing and Mind-Reading
- 11 Socially Signaling Robotics:
- 12 Developmental Significance of the Human Pointing Gesture
- Part Two Evolutionary Perspectives
- Index
- References
7 - Pointing at Local Knowledge:
Roaming Place References in Gija Conversations
from Part One - Culture and Development
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 June 2026
Book contents
- Pointing
- Pointing
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Preface
- Introduction to Pointing:
- Part One Culture and Development
- 1 Pointing at, Talking about, and Looking Away:
- 2 The Design of Pointing
- 3 Development of Pointing in Toddlers:
- 4 Attention Management by Deictic Gestures and Demonstratives:
- 5 Pointing to Dinner Participants in Deaf and Hearing Children’s and Adults’ Signing and Gesturing
- 6 The Cultural Nature of Early Social Communication
- 7 Pointing at Local Knowledge:
- 8 The Role of Infant Pointing in Child-Led Caregiving:
- 9 How Infants Learn to Follow Attention from Gaze-Direction and Pointing Gestures
- 10 Touch, Pointing and Mind-Reading
- 11 Socially Signaling Robotics:
- 12 Developmental Significance of the Human Pointing Gesture
- Part Two Evolutionary Perspectives
- Index
- References
Summary
This chapter explores the role of pointing when referring to (non-)local places in everyday conversations conducted in Gija, an endangered Australian Aboriginal language from the East Kimberley, Western Australia. Conversation analytic methods are supplemented by a geospatial approach, which provides a procedure for measuring the angular vectors of pointing gestures and positioning them in ‘real space’. Analyses suggest that pointing is implicated in displays of detailed geographical knowledge and knowledge of recipients’ cultural connections to country. These types of bodily and verbal displays are fitted to recounting events that transpired on local Gija country. This level of detail is not required for events that occurred in nonlocal environments. This chapter aims to expand understandings of pointing as tied to the wider ecology of speakers’ cultural and communicative contexts, and, for these speakers of Gija, as grounded in displays of knowledge of country and land associations.
Keywords
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- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- PointingCulture, Development, and Evolution, pp. 135 - 154Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2026
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