Book contents
- The Cambridge Handbook of Gesture Studies
- Cambridge Handbooks in Language and Linguistics
- The Cambridge Handbook of Gesture Studies
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Introduction
- Part I Gestural Types: Forms and Functions
- Part II Ways of Approaching Gesture Analysis
- 6 Contributions to the Study of Visible Action as Utterance: A Fifty-Year Retrospective
- 7 Systems of Gesture Coding and Annotation
- 8 A Toolbox of Methods for Gesture Analysis
- 9 The Gestural Sign: A Concrete and Reasoned Analysis of Co-Speech Gesture
- 10 Creation and Analysis of the Multimedia Russian Corpus for Gesture Research
- 11 A Kinesiological Approach to Gesture Analysis
- 12 Motion-Tracking Technology for the Study of Gesture
- Part III Gestures and Language
- Part IV Gestures in Relation to Cognition
- Part V Gestures in Relation to Interaction
- Index
- References
9 - The Gestural Sign: A Concrete and Reasoned Analysis of Co-Speech Gesture
from Part II - Ways of Approaching Gesture Analysis
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 May 2024
Edited by
Book contents
- The Cambridge Handbook of Gesture Studies
- Cambridge Handbooks in Language and Linguistics
- The Cambridge Handbook of Gesture Studies
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Introduction
- Part I Gestural Types: Forms and Functions
- Part II Ways of Approaching Gesture Analysis
- 6 Contributions to the Study of Visible Action as Utterance: A Fifty-Year Retrospective
- 7 Systems of Gesture Coding and Annotation
- 8 A Toolbox of Methods for Gesture Analysis
- 9 The Gestural Sign: A Concrete and Reasoned Analysis of Co-Speech Gesture
- 10 Creation and Analysis of the Multimedia Russian Corpus for Gesture Research
- 11 A Kinesiological Approach to Gesture Analysis
- 12 Motion-Tracking Technology for the Study of Gesture
- Part III Gestures and Language
- Part IV Gestures in Relation to Cognition
- Part V Gestures in Relation to Interaction
- Index
- References
Summary
Geneviève Calbris’ semiotic study of French gestures began in the 1970s and shows how gestural signs interface between the concrete and the abstract. Created by analogical links originating in physical experience of the world via processes of mimesis and metonymy, they are activated by contexts of use and constitute diverse semantic constructions: Gesture is able to evoke several notions alternatively (polysemy) or simultaneously (polysign). As expressions of perceptual schemas extracted from physical experience, they prefigure concepts. A Saussurean perspective brings to light relations between physical features of gestures (signifiers) and the notions (signifieds) they are apt to evoke; it reveals signifiers that are common to different gestures (paradigmatic axis of substitution) and how signifiers interweave in gestural sequencing (syntagmatic axis of combination). Gesture expresses, animates, explains, synthesizes information, and anticipates speech. We highlight its utterance functions, its simultaneous multireferentiality, the gestural anticipation of verbal information, and the interplay of tension-relaxation between conversation partners that this can create.
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- The Cambridge Handbook of Gesture Studies , pp. 217 - 248Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2024
References
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