1 Introduction
Recurrent gestures are conventionalized co-speech gestures. They show a stable form–meaning relationship and occur repeatedly across different contexts and speakers. They are often derived from practical actions and are engaged in semantic and pragmatic meaning-making. In fact, the communicative potential of these kinds of gestures has always been a subject of study in the field of rhetoric (Reference MosherMosher, 1916; Reference OttOtt, 1902; Reference QuintilianQuintilian, 1969). However, within the field of gesture studies, recurrent gestures remained a marginal research phenomenon (Reference Bavelas, Chovil, Coates and RoeBavelas, Chovil, Coates, & Roe, 1995; Reference CalbrisCalbris, 1990; Reference KendonKendon, 1995) until the upsurge of interest observable in recent years. A psychological perspective on gesture, which conceives of gestures as spontaneous creations reflecting the imagistic side of thinking (cf. Reference McNeillMcNeill, 1992), has dominated the field of gesture studies for a long time. With it, conventionalized manual movements, such as recurrent gestures, were excluded from the research agenda (cf. Reference HarrisonHarrison, 2018; Reference MüllerMüller, 2018). As such, the rising interest in recurrent gestures “is quite significant for a field that has long wondered about the purpose and function of co-speech gesturing and that has kept itself in a theoretical bind by ruling out the conventionality and language-like nature of hand gestures” (Reference Di Paolo, Cuffari and De JaegherDi Paolo, Cuffari, & De Jaegher, 2018, p. 301).
Recurrent gestures have been studied from different disciplinary perspectives that have explored processes of their emergence and stabilization as well as facets of their communicative potential. In what follows, three different lines of research will be outlined that explore the individual, the linguistic, and the cultural side of recurrent gestures.
1.1 What Are Recurrent Gestures?
Adam Reference KendonKendon’s (2004) and Cornelia Reference Müller, Müller and PosnerMüller’s (2004) studies on the Palm Up Open Hand can be considered as the starting point for a growing interest in “recurrent gestural forms” (Reference KendonKendon, 2004, p. 226; Reference Müller, Müller and PosnerMüller, 2004, p. 239). Their research pointed out that speakers of different cultural backgrounds not only perform spontaneously created and idiosyncratic gestures (Reference McNeillMcNeill, 1992) but also show gestures which are stable in form and meaning. These gestures recur across different contexts and speakers while responding to the local exigencies of an interactive situation (Reference LadewigLadewig, 2010, Reference Ladewig, Müller, Cienki, Fricke, Ladewig, McNeill and Bressem2014b). Their investigations identified topics and research questions which can be incorporated in an overarching research agenda to be addressed from a variety of disciplinary perspectives as will be shown in this chapter (and in Reference Harrison and LadewigHarrison & Ladewig, 2021).
The most salient feature Kendon and Müller point to is the stabilization of gestural forms and meanings. Recurrent gestures, like any other gestures, are performed spontaneously, meaning their performance is not planned by a speaker. However, they differ from “singular gestures” (Reference MüllerMüller, 2010, Reference Müller2017), whose forms and meanings emerge while speaking. In the field of gesture studies, singular gestures are also called iconic gestures or metaphoric gestures (Reference McNeillMcNeill, 1992). They have not undergone stabilization processes and are therefore not culturally shared as is the case with recurrent gestures and emblems.
Of course, gestures themselves form culturally shared practices (cf. Reference StreeckStreeck, 2009), falling back on different semiotic strategies of meaning-making (cf. Reference KendonKendon, 1980; Reference Müller, Müller, Cienki, Fricke, Ladewig, McNeill and BressemMüller, 2014). Yet recurrent gestures, as the term suggests, are born through repetition and have become sedimentedFootnote 1 forms of embodied meaning “available in the joint embodied know-how” (Reference Di Paolo, Cuffari and De JaegherDi Paolo et al., 2018, p. 151) of the individuals of a community.
The second characteristic of recurrent gestures that arouses the interest of gesture scholars is their specialization in pragmatic meaning-making. This aspect was first addressed from the point of view of rhetoric (Reference QuintilianQuintilian, 1969) and in the education of actors (Reference MosherMosher, 1916; Reference OttOtt, 1902). The pragmatic meaning potential of recurrent gestures can be discovered in studies on contexts of use. They show:
how certain stable gestural forms with what we called “pragmatic” functions are used. […] They appear to have emerged as ways of treating certain recurrent features of discourse in interaction, including topic specification, refusal, negation, and offering and asking. That gestural expressions are used to treat these kinds of moments may be explained in part by the fact that such moments transcend any particular form of verbal expression, they can be indicated and treated apart from speaking as well as simultaneously with it and can serve, thus, as modulators of or as operators upon whatever spoken discourse may be involved.
This means, while singular gestures often contribute to the proposition of a multimodal utterance, recurrent gestures mainly serve pragmatic functions. Reference KendonKendon (2004, pp. 158–159) identified four pragmatic functions of co-speech gesture, that is, (a) modal – framing how an utterance should be interpreted, (b) performative – enacting a speech act such as offering ideas or stopping someone, (c) parsing – punctuating the spoken discourse into logical components, and (d) interactive and interpersonal functions regulating turns at talk such as holding the floor or requesting a turn. Recurrent gestures are specialized in fulfilling these functions, which is reflected in other terms for them proposed by a “function-centered approach” (Reference CooperriderCooperrider, 2019, p. 226) including “pragmatic gestures” (Reference KendonKendon, 1995; Reference Teßendorf, Müller, Cienki, Fricke, Ladewig, McNeill and BressemPayrató & Teßendorf, 2014; Reference StreeckStreeck, 2009; Reference Teßendorf, Müller, Cienki, Fricke, Ladewig, McNeill and BressemTeßendorf, 2014), “gestures with pragmatic function” (Reference KendonKendon, 1995, Reference Kendon2004), “interactive gestures” (Reference Bavelas, Chovil, Lawrie and WadeBavelas, Chovil, Lawrie, & Wade, 1992), or “speech handling” gestures (Reference StreeckStreeck, 2009). Their ability to participate in pragmatic meaning-making is considered based on and informed by the manual action of which recurrent gestures are born. To be more precise, many recurrent gestures “are abstracted versions of practical actions” (Reference StreeckStreeck, 2017, p. 203). They are not images of actions as psychological accounts have suggested (cf. Reference MüllerMüller, 2018, p. 9) but are movements of the hands which have become communicative actions (examples are shown in Figure 2.3). Their embodied basis in everyday actions is considered as one of the reasons why recurrent gestures are so widespread and why they occur even in completely unrelated languages (see Section 4). Reference Bressem and WegenerBressem and Wegener (2021, p. 245), for example, argue that the “instrumental actions on which, for instance, Holding Away gestures are based, are common practices not particular to specific cultures, but [they] are rather elementary human experiences.”
A third aspect that Reference KendonKendon (2004) and Reference Müller, Müller and PosnerMüller (2004) address is the diversity of recurrent gestures in terms of their contextual and kinesic variation. Both researchers identified changes in the gestural forms that go along with changes in their “semantic theme” (Reference KendonKendon, 2004, p. 227). These form variations may also stabilize. The Palm Up Open Hand gesture, for instance, shows “some highly recurrent features which are combined or blended with the core form” (Reference Müller, Müller and PosnerMüller, 2004, p. 253). These features include the use of both hands, the repeated downward movement and/or the rotation of the hand. Other form features such as an antagonistic and wide lateral motion appeared to be less recurrent.
The configuration of the hand and the orientation of the palm often form the core of a recurrent gesture, while the movement of the hand or the position in the gesture space may form their variants. The Holding Away gesture, or VP gesture in Reference KendonKendon’s (2004) terms (Figure 2.3), for instance, is characterized by a flat hand oriented away from the speaker’s body. In cases where it marks the change of a topic or signals inference, it is held close to the speaker’s body (Reference Bressem and Wegenercf. Bressem & Wegener, 2021). In cases of stopping or interrupting a coparticipant’s line of action, it is often directed toward the addressee and thus moved into the interactional gesture space (cf., Reference CalbrisCalbris, 2003; Reference HarrisonHarrison, 2018; Reference KendonKendon, 2004). Another example is the Cyclic gesture, which is characterized by the continuous outward rotation of the hand (Reference LadewigLadewig, 2010, Reference Ladewig2011, Reference Ladewig, Müller, Cienki, Fricke, Ladewig, McNeill and Bressem2014a). Its various interactional functions are embodied by the position in gesture space and the size of movement. When embodying the speaker’s communicative activity of searching for a word or concept, the gesture is located in the central gesture space. When requesting the interlocutor to continue with an activity, it is often located in the lateral periphery of the gesture space and performed with a large movement.
What these examples show is that, similar to any other gesture, recurrent gestures are engaged in meaning-making in situ (“local meaning,” Reference LadewigLadewig, 2011, Reference Ladewig, Müller, Cienki, Fricke, Ladewig, McNeill and Bressem2014b). Their response to the local exigencies of an interactive situation becomes evident in different form and meaning variants, which themselves can become stabilized. These gestural variants specialize in dealing with recurrent cognitive, interactive, and communicative tasks (cf. Reference StreeckStreeck, 2017) associated with recurring communicative activities or “contexts of use” (Reference ScheflenScheflen, 1973; Reference SherzerSherzer, 1991). This observation advanced the idea of “gesture families,” that is, socially shared groupings of gestural forms (Reference Müller, Müller, Cienki, Fricke, Ladewig, McNeill and BressemFricke, Bressem, & Müller, 2014; Reference KendonKendon, 2004; Reference Müller, Müller and PosnerMüller, 2004), which is a useful notion to study the “diversity of recurrency” (Reference HarrisonHarrison, 2018, p. 213; see also Reference Harrison and LadewigHarrison & Ladewig, 2021) and explore stabilization processes in gestures (see Section 3.1).
As mentioned before, recurrent gestures were studied from different disciplinary approaches which explored processes of their emergence and stabilization, and the facets of their communicative potential. In what follows, three different lines of research will be outlined dealing with the individual, the linguistic, and the cultural dimension of meaning construal involved with recurrent gestures.
2 Recurrent Gestures as Sedimented Individual and Social Practices
Understanding gestures as part of a “‘cultural body’ which is the sedimentation of its spontaneous acts” (Reference Merleau-PontyMerleau-Ponty, 1963, p. 249) is particularly advanced within a praxeological account of gestures. This approach is informed by the practice turn (cf. Reference Schatzki, Cetina and Von SavignySchatzki, Cetina, & Von Savigny, 2005) which has inspired theories to contradict the view that (social) meaning is mediated only by immaterial, disembodied, mental representations of the world (the linguistic turn). For praxeology, the corporeality of practices and the materiality of contexts are crucial for the creation of intersubjectivity (the material turn):
A whole range of material social science research fields, from organizational research, sociology of science and technology, and gender studies to media research and life-style analysis, now regularly fall back on praxis-theoretical vocabularies to reconstruct the routines in companies, the forms of using technical and media artifacts, the characteristics of gendered performances, or, for example, the “doing culture” in everyday time practices.
The basic notion of practice was introduced to bridge the theoretical gap between agency and structure, or subjectivism and objectivism. It is, among others, informed by what has been called micro-sociology, that studies social actions between social actors in smaller social units (Reference GarfinkelGarfinkel, 1967; Reference GoffmanGoffman, 1956), Reference WittgensteinWittgenstein’s (1953) usage theory of meaning, and the agency versus structure debate addressing the fundamental question of whether the individual’s agency or the social structure shapes human societies (Reference BourdieuBourdieu, 1977; Reference GiddensGiddens, 1984). The notion of practice highlights the idea of doing culture and “is typically invoked to explain continuities or commonalities among the activities of social groups” (Reference Rouse, Schatzki, Cetina and von Savigny.Rouse, 2005, p. 199). It allows us to focus on recurring and collective conduct based on practical knowledge rather than an intellectual “knowing that” (schema, codes). This knowing how can be considered as “a conglomerate of everyday techniques, a practical understanding in the sense of understanding something” (Reference ReckwitzReckwitz, 2003, p. 289, my translation). Practices rely on the recurrence and habitualization of acts which are considered as starting points for their emergence in language and gestures. However, the “logic of practice” (Reference BourdieuBourdieu, 1990) is to bring about openness and changeability that enable agents to adapt them to specific situations while dealing with them in a skillful way (cf. Reference ReckwitzReckwitz, 2003, p. 294).
When gestures are considered as practices, they are understood as routinized, nonreflexive, and preconceptual activities of the body in a material world (cf. Reference Streeck, Müller, Cienki, Fricke, Ladewig, McNeill and TeßendorfStreeck, 2013). They are conceived of as products of practices of which they are also resources (cf. Reference Streeck, Deppermann, Feilke and LinkeStreeck, 2016, p. 69) and as prereflexive forms of enaction (i.e. the body is in action before being conscious of it). This embodied practical knowledge becomes explicitly visible in recurrent gestures, as many of them are born of practical actions “though not [a] particular body’s actions – anybody’s actions” (Reference StreeckStreeck, 2017, p. 269). These “abstracted versions of practical actions” (Reference StreeckStreeck, 2017, p. 203) are both personal and cultural and are always related to a situation in which they are embedded. As such, the meaning of gestural practices and their practical understanding cannot be found only in the form itself but also in its relationship to a communicative context (cf. Reference BatesonBateson, 1972). The interrelation of gestural practices with their surrounding has been captured by the notion of “ecologies of gestures” (Reference StreeckStreeck, 2009), of which six have been introduced: “Making sense of the world at hand,” “[d]isclosing the world within sight,” “[d]epiction,” “[t]hinking by hand,” “[d]isplaying communicative action,” and “[o]rdering and mediating transactions” (pp. 8–11). Recurrent gestures are most often observed in the latter two ecologies because they embody communicative actions which often regulate human interaction, such as “giving and receiving,” “holding,” “holding at bay,” “slicing” or “cutting,” and the “precision grip” or “rotation” (Reference StreeckStreeck, 2009, Reference Streeck2017). These recurrent gestures are conceived of as not only more personal habits but also as routines that speakers develop as solutions for recurrent communicative tasks. They form an individual’s repertoire of communicative practices, invoking sensations and affective dimensions every time they are performed, making a speaker “feel himself, consciously or not, a particular kind of person” (Reference StreeckStreeck, 2017, p. 296). As such, recurrent gestures are part of a process of constantly shaping and reshaping a speaker as a speaker – a process described as self-making or autopoeisis (Reference Di Paolo, Cuffari and De JaegherDi Paolo et al., 2018; Reference StreeckStreeck, 2017). Individuals, while reproducing themselves as speakers, also reproduce society (cf. Reference HellerHeller, 1984) because practices of every kind sustain a community. Recurrent gestures are, thus, also understood as a form of “cultural action” embedded in a circle of individuation and of sustaining society:
Cultural development is possible because embodied persons adaptively and creatively sustain and reproduce themselves. We must therefore turn to the individual body if we want to understand the reproduction – or re-instantiation and “re-inscription” – of embodied culture. Thus, in the study of embodied communication practices, biological, phenomenological, sociological, linguistic, and anthropological perspectives merge.
Conceived of as both forms of self-individuation and resources that form a “community of practice” (Reference Lave and WengerLave & Wenger, 1991), recurrent gestures make visible the practical knowledge of dealing with communicative, interactional, and cognitive tasks. As incorporated and, thus, sedimented social acts, they create a shared cultural dimension affirming their meanings when being enacted but also creating novel significance that emerges from the particular situations and further social acts in which they are embedded (cf. Reference Di Paolo, Cuffari and De JaegherDi Paolo et al., 2018). Thus, recurrent gestures, like other stabilized expressions, are embedded in “complex processes of sedimentation and spontaneity” (Reference Di Paolo, Cuffari and De JaegherDi Paolo et al., 2018, p. 10). Novel gestural expressions can evolve as local repertoires that find ways of becoming shared in a community. However, some gestural expressions might stay as a once-in-a-life-time occurrence or develop into a personal habit. If particular performances of a recurrent gesture that respond to the local exigencies of an interactive situation become part of an “in-group pragmatics” (Reference Di Paolo, Cuffari and De JaegherDi Paolo et al., 2018, p. 158), the emergence of systematic form, meaning, and context variation can be observed. The genesis of such mutually sedimented structures shows similarities to the emergence of grammatical structures in spoken and signed languages and, thus, reveals gestures’ potential to become language-like. Both aspects, that is, stabilization and the “linguistic potential of gesture” (Reference Müller, Müller, Cienki, Fricke, Ladewig, McNeill and TeßendorfMüller, 2013; see also Reference ArmstrongArmstrong, 1999/2002), are addressed in Section 3.
3 Recurrent Gestures and Their Linguistic Potential
What does it mean to become language-like? Clearly, this aspect goes back to a linguistic view of gestures and, thus, of the linguist’s trained eye searching for units and patterns that show a degree of stability and recurrence. As a matter of fact, the idea that gestures show some degree of stability has been conceived of as a criterion for identifying types of gestures ever since antiquity (Reference BarakatBarakat, 1969; Reference MosherMosher, 1916; Reference OttOtt, 1902; Reference QuintilianQuintilian, 1969). Yet, processes of becoming stable forms have been addressed only selectively (see Section 1). During the past few years, researchers, most of them linguists, have become increasingly interested in defining stability and fleshing out parameters that contribute to the emergence of stabilized gestural forms (Reference Fenlon, Cooperrider, Keane, Brentari and Goldin-MeadowFenlon, Cooperrider, Keane, Brentari, & Goldin-Meadow, 2019; Reference LadewigLadewig, 2010, Reference Ladewig, Müller, Cienki, Fricke, Ladewig, McNeill and Bressem2014a; Reference MüllerMüller, 2018). This interest was particularly encouraged by the development of new computational, statistical, and technical tools and growing archives of audio-visual data. While conducting corpus analyses of either verbal expressions or recurrent gestures, researchers became aware of recurring “speech gesture ensembles” (Reference KendonKendon 2004, p. 310) which brought the close relationship of recurrent gestures and speech to the fore. Starting from a particular verbal unit or a recurrent gesture (cf. Reference MüllerBressem & Müller, 2017), researchers have begun reflecting upon the cognitive entrenchment of these multimodal patterns dubbed “multimodal constructions” (e.g., Reference AndrénAndrén, 2010; Reference BressemBressem, 2021; Reference SchoonjansSchoonjans, 2017; Reference ZimaZima, 2017). The point of departure is the premise that “constructions” (Reference GoldbergGoldberg, 1995), that is, entrenched form–meaning pairings taken as basic units of language, are potentially multimodal in nature because language use is multimodal (with modality understood here as a semiotic resource creating meaning). Among the gesture-based multimodal constructions discussed so far are the “Negative-Assessment-Construction,” incorporating the “Away action scheme” (Reference MüllerBressem & Müller, 2017), the “‘Tell me’ Joint Action Construction,” including the Cyclic gesture (Reference Ruth-HirrelRuth-Hirrel, 2018), and “complex beat-point constructions,” incorporating pointing gestures with the movement pattern of beats (Reference Ruth-Hirrel and WilcoxRuth-Hirrel & Wilcox, 2018). The speech-based constructions analyzed are, for instance, the German existential construction es gibt (“there is/are”) incorporating the Palm Up Open Hand (Reference MittelbergMittelberg, 2017), linguistic motion constructions of English, including “[V (motion) in circles],” “[zigzag],” “[N spin around],” and “[all the way from X PREP Y]” incorporating different movement patterns (Reference ZimaZima, 2017) or appositions accompanied by head nods (cf. Reference LanwerLanwer, 2017). Along with the systematic description of multimodal units comes the discussion of suitable grammatical models in which the phenomenon of systematic and frequent co-occurrences can be integrated. Proposals that have been made address, for instance, a continuum of constructions of infrequency to frequent systematic co-occurrences of gestures and speech (cf. Reference Zima and BergsZima & Bergs, 2017, p. 2) or prototype theory (Reference CienkiCienki, 2017).
Research on stabilization processes in the manual modality alone began in the early years of gesture studies (Reference Kendon and PoyatosKendon, 1988), where stabilized gestures were defined as “stylized gestures” or “repeated expressions” (Reference KendonKendon, 1995, pp. 274–275) showing semantic and pragmatic consistencies. With focus on the study of particular gestural forms, the methods of analyzing gestures were improved and interindividual similarities in gestural patterns were documented. What is more, the systematic description of gestural forms (Reference CalbrisCalbris, 1990) linked with contexts-of-use analyses (Reference ScheflenScheflen, 1973) revealed formal variations which reflect meaning varieties in recurrent gestures. As pointed out before, one of the landmark studies is on the Palm Up Open Hand revealing that different aspects of form, such as a repeated downward motion or a wide lateral motion, embody how the arguments offered on the open palm are presented. According to Reference Müller, Müller and PosnerMüller (2004, p. 252), a repeated downward motion embodies the listing of arguments whereas a wide lateral motion embodies a wide range of entities offered. Other examples are the Cyclic gesture or recurrent gestures of negation where varying aspects of form embody different interactional and cognitive functions such as reference to the speaker or the addressee or the speaker’s perspective on discursive objects and how they are handled (see Section 1). In these cases, interactional, situational, and cognitive aspects become embodied and stabilized in certain form parameters such as the position in gesture space or a lateral motion.
The idea that varying meanings are embodied in different gestural forms was put forward early (Reference JorioJorio, 1832/2000; Reference Neville and BlackmanNeville, 1904; Reference WundtWundt, 1901) but pursued only selectively (Reference EfronEfron, 1941/1972; Reference SparhawkSparhawk, 1978) until the rise of gesture studies in the 1990s (see e.g. Reference CalbrisCalbris, 1990; Reference KendonKendon, 1995). It was particularly advanced by research on so-called gesture families. This notion is inspired by work on recurrent gestures and highlights the interrelatedness of gestures showing similarities in form and meaning:
When we refer to families of gestures we refer to groupings of gestural expressions that have in common one or more kinesic or formational characteristics. […] The forms within these families, distinguished as they are kinesically, also tend to differ semantically although, within a given family, all forms share in a common semantic theme.
Hence, gesture families are not only distinguished by a stabilized core but also by a variation of form that embodies different aspects of the situational exigencies and of meaning. These form meaning variations were conceived of as “‘morpho-kinetics’ of gesture” (Reference KendonKendon, 1996, p. 6), “emerging morpho-semantics” (Reference KendonKendon, 2004, p. 224), or “rudimentary gesture morphology” (Reference Müller, Müller and PosnerMüller, 2004, p. 254). They are aspects of the “diversity of recurrency” (Reference HarrisonHarrison, 2018, p. 213; see also Reference Harrison and LadewigHarrison & Ladewig, 2021) which make this type of gesture particularly interesting for linguistic analyses because what we can observe here are “emergent forms of compositionality” (Reference MüllerMüller, 2018, p. 16; see also Reference FrickeFricke, 2010). Accordingly, the stabilization of gestures is closely related to the process of “de-composition of holistic gestural movements into smaller form Gestalts (the kinesic core with its prototypical meaning)” (Reference MüllerMüller, 2017, p. 297) where those aspects of form that lose meaning can take over other functions and become stabilized as well. Therefore, the study of recurrent gestures provides insights into the emergence of structures that allow movements of the hands to develop into language, that is, sign language:
In recurrent gestures, we see how a holistic gestalt begins to break down into formational features, some of which contribute to the thematic core of the gesture [while] others [do] not. In gesture families we can observe how structural islands based on two different types of principles emerge (gesture families based on a formational and semantic core and gesture families based on a shared and basic action underlying all members of the family).
Although the idea of language-like structures in gestures still needs to be fleshed out in future research, research on embodied concepts that show similar grammatical meanings in spoken and signed languages goes in this direction. Among the phenomena studied so far are embodied forms of negation (Reference Müller, Müller, Cienki, Fricke, Ladewig, McNeill and BressemBressem & Müller, 2014a; Reference Bressem and WegenerBressem & Wegener, 2021; Reference CalbrisCalbris, 2003, Reference Calbris, Cienki and Müller2008; Reference HarrisonHarrison, 2018; Reference KendonKendon, 2004), aspectuality (Reference Boutet, Morgenstern and CienkiBoutet, Morgenstern, & Cienki, 2016; Reference Cienki and IriskhanovaCienki & Iriskhanova, 2018; Reference DuncanDuncan, 2002; Reference Ruth-HirrelRuth-Hirrel, 2018), and plural forms (Reference Bressem, Müller, Cienki, Fricke, Ladewig, McNeill and BressemBressem, 2014, Reference Bressem2021). In fact, many of these concepts are embodied by recurrent gestures. What is more, the different form–meaning variations of recurrent gestures have been treated as an important factor in the description of stabilization processes in gestures as they relate to the stabilization of different gestural form parameters. In more detail, similar to grammaticalization processes in spoken and signed languages, stabilization processes in gestures can be conceived of as continua where the occurrence of certain parameters is indicative of different degrees of stabilization (e.g. Reference LadewigLadewig, 2010, Reference Ladewig, Müller, Cienki, Fricke, Ladewig, McNeill and Bressem2014a; Reference MüllerMüller, 2018). Their investigation certainly gives insights into the linguistic potential of gestures because “this admitting of degrees is not true only of gesture, or of semiosis, but is the beating heart of all that we call linguistic” (Reference Di Paolo, Cuffari and De JaegherDi Paolo et al., 2018, p. 301). This aspect is elucidated in the following section.
3.1 Recurrent Gestures as Hybrid Forms on the Gesture Continuum
The idea that gestures are stabilized to different degrees has inspired gesture scholars to introduce the notion of the “Gesture Continuum” (Reference McNeill, Müller, Cienki, Fricke, Cienki, Ladewig, McNeill and TeßendorfMcNeill, 2013), formerly known as “Kendon’s Continuum” (Reference McNeillMcNeill, 1992)Footnote 2 because it gives insights into the evolution of gestural forms. Conceiving of gestures in terms of continua goes back to Reference Kendon and PoyatosKendon’s (1988) article “How gestures can become like words,” where he addressed lexicalization processes of gestures and facial expressions and described important stages in the emergence of conventional forms:
What is to be noted about this is not just the process by which an “iconic” form becomes “arbitrary,” but also that, as the form comes to be shaped by the requirement that it be a distinctive form within a system of other forms, it is freed of the requirement of being a “picture” of something, so that then it becomes free to take on a general meaning as well. It thus becomes available for recombination with other forms and so may come to participate in compound signs or sentences. […]. [T]here is an implication that these forms emerge in the course of their use in interaction. This is crucial to bear in mind. That is, the process of lexicalization of gesture requires that there be a community of users. Again, however, this is not only essential if stable forms are to emerge; it is also essential if these forms are to have general, that is to say, conceptual meanings. What two or more people jointly agree to refer to cannot be private, and thus it will take on a general reference rather than a specific one.”
Kendon’s thoughts on the emergence of lexicalized gestures gave rise to the notion of “Kendon’s continuum” (Reference McNeillMcNeill, 1992), which has been very influential in the field of gesture studies but ironically excludes recurrent gestures (or equivalent categories at the time with other names) from the research agenda and, thus, disregards stabilization processes in gestures as a proper subject for investigation (for a discussion, see Reference MüllerMüller 2018). Kendon himself has not systematically outlined gesture continua but he undoubtedly set the stage for conceiving of dynamic processes of stabilization in terms of different degrees showing different parameters (e.g., Reference LadewigLadewig, 2010, Reference Ladewig, Müller, Cienki, Fricke, Ladewig, McNeill and Bressem2014a; Reference MüllerMüller, 2018). In one of his early case studies, for instance, he described “the ‘emergence’ of quotable gestures or emblems” as “a process of conventionalization of spontaneously created metaphorical gestures” (Reference KendonKendon, 1995, p. 275) and, thus, conceived of processes of abstraction as one parameter for stabilization. Moreover, he suggested that gestures are “a mode of expression that varies in the degree to which it is conventionalized and also in the degree to which it is ‘detachable’ from speech” (Reference KendonKendon, 1995, p. 267). In so doing, he paved the way for understanding stabilization in gestures in terms of dimensions rather than categories (illustrated by the shades in Figure 2.1; see Reference Ladewig, Müller, Cienki, Fricke, Ladewig, McNeill and BressemLadewig, 2014b, p. 1570).
Figure 2.1 Continuum of stabilization from gestures to sign
The stabilization of gestures goes along with a change of gestural meaning and often with the emergence of pragmatic functions. Reference BrookesBrookes (2001), referring to quotable gestures (emblems), points out that
[v]ariation in the range of meanings and speech act functions these gestures fulfil suggests that quotable gestures may begin as spontaneous depictions that are used to fulfil immediate communicative needs. As they are found to fulfil important practical and then social functions offering opportunities to express important conditions and social relations, the meanings and functions of these gestures expand.
Recurrent gestures are a proper subject for studying these processes because they are “hybrids of idiosyncratic and conventional elements” (Reference MüllerMüller, 2017, p. 280) where some aspects of form contribute to the core of the gesture and others are free to respond to the local exigencies of an interactive situation. Due to their hybrid character, they occupy a place between spontaneous (singular) gestures and emblems on a continuum of increasing stabilization (e.g. Reference Ladewig, Müller, Cienki, Fricke, Ladewig, McNeill and BressemLadewig, 2014b; Reference MüllerMüller, 2017). Here they are in a special position because they show variants that are similar both to singular gestures and to emblems. In view of these observations, it is proposed to regard a taxonomy of gestures in terms of dimensionsFootnote 3 rather than in terms of categories.
The idea that the stabilization of gestures is a dynamic process in which recurrent gestures form an important step is supported by distributional analyses of recurrent gestures. They show that recurrent gestures themselves are characterized by different degrees of stabilization and should therefore be considered as forming a continuum (Reference LadewigLadewig, 2010, Reference Ladewig, Müller, Cienki, Fricke, Ladewig, McNeill and Bressem2014b). To give an example (Figure 2.2), the variants of the family of the recurrent Cyclic gesture differ in the ranges of meaning and in the stabilization of their form aspects (Reference LadewigLadewig, 2010, Reference Ladewig2011, Reference Ladewig, Müller, Cienki, Fricke, Ladewig, McNeill and Bressem2014b). Whereas the Cyclic gesture in descriptions embodies continuous aspect (Reference VendlerVendler, 1957) and thus can depict various events, the Cyclic gesture in a word or concept search has only three possible meanings, reflected in three sequential positions: that is, (a) during a phase of non-fluent speech while searching for the word or concept, (b) during a phase of fluent speech or in the transition from non-fluent to fluent speech, when finding the word or concept, and (c) during a phase of fluent speech after the search. The Cyclic gesture in requests prompts the addressee to continue to do something. Thus, the latter appears to be the most stabilized variant. The variation in the gestural form supports this argument. Cyclic gestures which embody aspectual meaning show the lowest degree of stabilization and are therefore closest to singular gestures. Additional to the core form of a continuous circular movement, this variant is used with a flat hand. The Cyclic gesture embodying the activity of searching for a word or concept shows the same hand shape and is positioned in the center of the gesture space. The Cyclic gesture used in the context of requests shows three stabilized aspects of form, that is, the hand shape, the position in gesture space, and the movement size. Furthermore, it is the only variant that can substitute for speech. Gestures showing these characteristics have been labeled emblems or “quotable forms” (Reference KendonKendon, 1995, p. 272).
Figure 2.2 Continuum of stabilization in the Cyclic gesture
The observed variation in the position and movement size of the gesture shows interesting analogies to sign language. As Wilcox and colleagues (Reference WilcoxWilcox, 2005; Reference Wilcox, Rossini, Pizzuto and BrentariWilcox, Rossini, & Pizzuto, 2010) have shown, the sign IMPOSSIBLE in Italian Sign Language (LIS), which is also characterized by a rotating movement, exhibits different “pronunciations” (Reference WilcoxWilcox, 2005, p. 30). It is argued that the identified variations in the location and movement size of this sign are “analogous to prosodic stress” (Reference Wilcox, Rossini, Pizzuto and BrentariWilcox et al., 2010, p. 353). However, in the case of modal verbs in Italian Sign Language, both form aspects have achieved a grammatical status and mark morphological alternations of strong and weak forms. A second observation to be mentioned is that the movement pattern of a continuous rotation has been observed to mark aspectuality in sign languages (e.g. Reference Klima and BeluggiKlima & Beluggi, 1979, p. 293). Tying these findings back to the analysis of the Cyclic gesture, it can be argued that this recurrent gesture has developed to a marker of aspect in sign languages as it is often used to mark continuous events. It may also have developed into lexical morphemes related to time such as PROCESS or HOUR in German Sign Language (Reference LadewigLadewig, 2020, pp. 37–38).
The observed commonalities of recurrent gestures and signs of sign language give reasons to consider gestures as a source for stabilization processes in sign languages (see e.g. Reference Shaffer, Janzen, Conathan, Good, Kavitskaya, Wulf and YuShaffer & Janzen, 2000; Reference van Loon, Pfau, Steinbach, Müller, Cienki, Fricke, Ladewig, McNeill and Bressemvan Loon, Pfau, & Steinbach, 2014; Reference WilcoxWilcox, 2005). This aspect was taken up in the different versions of gesture continua where signs mark their endpoint. Studies investigating the developmental paths of gesture to sign adduced evidence that gestural forms can undergo processes of stabilization in form and meaning and develop into linguistic elements of signed languages, such as discourse markers or lexical and grammatical morphemes (e.g. Reference Janzen, Pfau, Steinbach and WollJanzen 2012; Reference Janzen, Shaffer, Meier, Cormier and Quinto-PozosJanzen & Shaffer 2002; Reference Pfau and SteinbachPfau & Steinbach 2006; Reference Shaffer, Janzen, Conathan, Good, Kavitskaya, Wulf and YuShaffer & Janzen 2000; Reference WilcoxWilcox 2004, Reference Wilcox2005). Recurrent gestures appear to be an important stage in these processes. Studies on the Palm Up Open Hand in different sign languages (e.g. Reference Conlin, Hagstrom and NeidleConlin, Hagstrom, & Neidle, 2003; Reference Cooperrider, Abner and Goldin-MeadowCooperrider, Abner, & Goldin-Meadow, 2018; Reference Engberg-Pedersen, Schulmeister and ReinitzerEngberg-Pedersen, 2002; Reference van Loon, Pfau, Steinbach, Müller, Cienki, Fricke, Ladewig, McNeill and Bressemvan Loon et al., 2014) or the evolution of modal markers in American Sign Language (ASL) and French Sign Language (LSF) (Reference ShafferShaffer, 2000; Reference Shaffer, Janzen, Conathan, Good, Kavitskaya, Wulf and YuShaffer & Janzen, 2000) support this argument. These studies show that recurrent gestures may be considered as a stage in the grammaticalization process from gesture to sign where they may bypass the stage of emblems. However, this does not imply that recurrent gestures are borrowed from spoken languages and incorporated into the sign system. Although cases of language contact occur (see Reference MüllerMüller, 2018), “[s]uch gestures are not ‘hearing people’s’ gestures, they belong to deaf people, too, and evidence is mounting that they are integral to both lexicalization and grammaticalization patterns in sign languages” (Reference Janzen, Pfau, Steinbach and WollJanzen, 2012, p. 836). The similarities in forms and functions of manual movements across spoken and signed languages are indicative of a modality-independent motivation and evolution of gestures and signs to the point where the forms are integrated into a language system.Footnote 5 Then they can develop into linguistic units within the confines of a language system.
4 The Cultural Dimension of Recurrent Gestures
As mentioned before, recurrent gestures can become sedimented forms of embodied meaning available in the joint embodied knowledge of individuals and communities where they may form repertoires. Researchers have only started to document repertoires of recurrent gestures in different communities. Reference StreeckStreeck (2017), for instance, has reconstructed a repertoire of “[c]onventional gestures and personal habits” (Reference StreeckStreeck, 2017, p. 203) observed in one speaker which recur over various contexts and which are considered as a “result of ongoing self-making” over time (Reference StreeckStreeck, 2017, p. 287, see Section 2). Reference Müller, Müller, Cienki, Fricke, Ladewig, McNeill and BressemBressem and Müller (2014b) reconstructed a repertoire of recurrent gestures with pragmatic functions of German speakers (Figure 2.3). Their corpus includes several gestures of negation, such as the Brushing Away gestures (Reference Teßendorf, Müller, Cienki, Fricke, Ladewig, McNeill and BressemTeßendorf, 2014), the Holding Away gesture, the Sweeping Away gesture, and the Throwing Away gesture. Bressem and Müller also documented different gestures embodying a back-and-forth, motion including the Vague gesture, the Weighing Up gesture, or the Change gesture (Figure 2.3).
Figure 2.3 Repertoire of recurrent gestures based on Bressem and Reference Müller, Müller, Cienki, Fricke, Ladewig, McNeill and BressemMüller (2014 b, pp. 1580–1584;
Recently, Will (2022) published a study of a repertoire of recurrent gestures in Hausa speakers. Among the gestures documented are known forms such as the Sweeping Away gesture or the Holding Away gesture. Will also introduced new gestural forms including the Two-Finger Tap gesture, the Holding gesture, the Washing gesture, the Shaking gesture, and the Snapping gesture. The latter brings an aspect to the fore that has long been neglected in gesture studies. The sound the hands produce while gesturing can be an essential part of multimodal meaning-making. Reference Müller, Müller, Cienki, Fricke, Ladewig, McNeill and BressemBressem and Müller (2014b) made similar observations for the Dropping gesture (“Dropping of the hand,” see Figure 2.3) where the lax flat hand drops on the lap and produces an “acoustic signal” (Reference Müller, Müller, Cienki, Fricke, Ladewig, McNeill and BressemBressem & Müller, 2014b, p. 1584). This gesture is used to “dismiss topics of talk by marking parts of the talk as less important and interesting” (p. 1584).
Repertoires of recurrent gestures provide the basis for cross-cultural comparisons to explore the distribution of recurrent gestures across different communities and to determine their functions and variations. Some researchers argue that the documentation of gestural repertoires and their description can only be a first step in cross-cultural studies. “[E]xplanation is the end goal” as Reference CooperriderCooperrider (2019, p. 227) notes. Reference KendonKendon (1981) invites researchers to study the “geographic distribution” of gestures and to inquire the reasons for functional similarities and differences across cultures (Reference KendonKendon, 1981, p. 108). As a matter of fact, cross-cultural studies of recurrent gestures are rare, but researchers started to reason about the distribution of recurrent gestures across different communities. One reason for their emergence across cultures is their engagement in the construal of pragmatic meaning. “[G]estures reveal a great deal about interactional practices, the social norms that underlie them and how local and wider ideologies in societies shape the nature of gestures and their use” (Reference Brookes and Le GuenBrookes & Le Guen, 2019, p. 129). Accordingly, if certain practices, norms, and ideologies are shared among speech communities, they may share gestural forms.
As outlined in the sections above, there has been much study of the interactional dimension of recurrent gestures. Their social functions are slowly moving into the focus of attention. Examples are studies on recurrent gestures within politics, which provide insights into processes of social power and control (e.g. Reference StreeckStreeck, 2008; Reference WehlingWehling, 2017). Reference StreeckStreeck (2008), for instance, documented a repertoire of recurrent gestures used by Democrats in the 2004 US election campaign where the members of the democratic party appeared to share a “code” or “public gesture style” (Reference StreeckStreeck, 2008, pp. 156, 178). While avoiding mimetic forms of depiction, the politicians use recurrent gestures with pragmatic functions to mark speech acts and visualize the information structure “hereby providing viewers with visual structure that facilitates the parsing and processing of speech” (Reference StreeckStreeck, 2008, p. 154). Based on his analysis, Streeck formulates a broader research agenda where the study of recurrent gestures in political discourse may provide insights into the “theory of self-presentation (Goffman, 1959) within the context of electoral politics” (Reference StreeckStreeck, 2008, p. 183). This research can also contribute to the notion of “para-interaction,” which is currently discussed in the field of media-linguistics (e.g. Reference Luginbühl and SchneiderLuginbühl & Schneider, 2020). Lempert’s analysis (Reference Lempert2011) of the Ring gesture observed for Barack Obama contributes to such an agenda. His study shows that Obama used the Ring gesture recurrently to make a sharp point. These occurrences of the Ring gesture go along with the creation of a “persona” (Reference Horton and Richard WohlHorton & Richard Wohl, 1956) who exhibits the attributes of “being argumentatively ‘sharp’” (Reference LempertLempert, 2011, p. 241) and thus appears to be authoritative. In another study, Reference LempertLempert (2017) compared forms and functions of the Precision-grip with the Slice gesture, the Index-finger-extended, the Power grip, and enumeratives used by Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton during the primary season of 2007−08. He observed a kinesic and functional relationship between the precision grip and the extended index-finger, termed “pragmatic affinity” (Reference LempertLempert, 2017, p. 37). Both gestures are used to make a point. Their status of being close and thus to fulfill similar functions is evidenced by the way in which the gestures are performed. In some cases, the hand shapes seem like blends. In other but rare cases, these gestures slip within a single intonation unit. Lempert concludes that the gestures documented belong to a register that has not developed into a stable code yet. “To turn to gestural enregisterment is to turn to the messiness of an assemblage of gestural signs and make that very state of existence an object of investigation” (p. 62). Reference StreeckStreeck’s (2008) conclusions go a step further because he sees “a surprising congruence between the type of gestures that Quintilian advocated” and “what appears to be an unspoken consensus about adequate gesticulation among the Democratic Party politicians” (Reference StreeckStreeck, 2008, p. 178). While rejecting Quintilian’s notion of a normative pairing between gestures and pragmatic functions, the consensus described includes the avoidance of iconic or depictive gestures, the use of gestures to mark discourse functions, and the restriction of the movement range of co-speech gestures (cf. Reference StreeckStreeck, 2008, p. 178). One motivation for the emergence of such a way of gesturing is that the politicians are eager to keep a rhetorical style which may go along with the creation of persona in para-(social) interaction. This may well be the case, but the preference for recurrent gestures is also related to the observed modes of speaking, which is mainly arguing in the context of election campaigning. In other televised conversational settings, Barack Obama, for instance, uses a lot of depictive gestures, which goes along with impersonating himself as an individual who creates a narrative of his legacy.
Coming back to the question of why recurrent gestures are found across different speech communities, two cross-linguistic studies should be mentioned. Reference Ruth-HirrelRuth-Hirrel (2018) compared the forms and functions of the Cyclic gesture (see Figure 2.3) in English and Farsi. One of her observations is that language-specific properties appear to interact with the stability of gestural variants of the Cyclic gesture co-occurring with progressive constructions in English. In these cases, the Cyclic gesture is performed with both hands using asynchronous large circles. These instances suggest a stabilization of form and meaning on the level of multimodal constructions (see Section 3). This is different in Farsi. Although the Cyclic gesture occurs with progressive constructions in Farsi, only a low degree of form stability could be documented. The study is currently being expanded by integrating the Cyclic gesture used in German (Reference Ladewigcf. Ladewig, 2020). Both authors argue that the common basis for the occurrence of the Cyclic gesture in the three speech communities is the domain of time (see “domain-centered approach,” Reference CooperriderCooperrider, 2019). Accordingly, in all three languages, the Cyclic gesture has emerged from experiences with cyclic motions and the recurrence and repetition of events through time.
Reference Bressem and WegenerBressem and Wegener’s (2021) cross-linguistic study of the Holding Away gesture (Figure 2.3) in German and Savosavo (a Papuan language of the Solomon Islands) reveals parallels in the pragmatic function in both (completely unrelated) languages. This recurrent gesture relates discourse segments in different ways. It may operate on the level of the message, when setting up a contrast or making inferences, but it can also be used as a topic-relating discourse marker when emphasizing the speaker’s focus on the conclusion of a topic and a subsequent topic change. In addition to the common functions, the study also identified two message-connecting functions of the Holding Away gesture that are unique to each language. Savosavo speakers occasionally use the Holding Away gesture to mark elaboration in speech and thus the insertion of additional information. German speakers, on the other hand, use this gesture “to indicate that the present utterance is an inference drawn from the previous utterance. This inferential use of the gesture is in fact the most frequent use of the holding away gesture in our German data set” (Reference Bressem and WegenerBressem & Wegener, 2021, p. 231). The action scheme of holding something away, showing the effect of clearing the body space, is considered as the derivational base of this gesture. Variations observed in both speech communities are not only motivated by cultural specificities, according to the authors, but also by the type of data. As such, the perceived differences may arise from the data collection technique in terms of purpose of recording (for research or entertainment), the degree of interactivity (monologic or dialogic), and generic expectations shaping discourse in different situations.
Although cross-cultural studies of the kind mentioned are still rare, their documentation in different speech communities has already shown how widespread and diverse they are. Due to these observations, Reference CooperriderCooperrider (2019) treats recurrent gestures as “natural conventions,” which means that “they are culturally selected (i.e., conventionalized) from a menu of motivated (i.e., natural) options” (p. 229). He argues that basic communicative functions result from a set of motivated possibilities from which groups tend to select a few. The consequences resulting from this proposal are twofold. “First, there will be very few absolute universals – specific recurrent gestures or gestural practices that are found the world over. But, second, there will be very few one-off cases that are found in one place and only one place” (Reference CooperriderCooperrider, 2019, p. 230). Cross-cultural comparisons can spell out the continuum from “one-off cases” to absolute gestural universal, providing insights into the motivation and stabilization of gestural forms and their diversity of recurrency (Reference Harrison and LadewigHarrison & Ladewig, 2021). They should be considered as the next step of the research agenda introduced at the beginning of this chapter.
5 Conclusion
This chapter has given an overview of the research strands on recurrent gestures. These gestures are stabilized forms that embody a practical knowledge of dealing with different communicative, interactional, and cognitive tasks. Due to their hybrid character, they occupy a space between singular gestures and emblems on a continuum of stabilization. Whereas the early days of recurrent-gesture research focused on the identification of these gestures and on the refinement of descriptive methods, their role in self-individuation and their social role are moving into the focus of attention. Based on the thorough studies of recurrent gestures in individual speech communities, the time is ripe to study recurrent gestures cross-culturally. Moreover, these studies pave the way for fleshing out modality-independent and modality-dependent processes of stabilization in manual movements and, thus, for the further development of an interface between gesture and sign.
