Some uses of head tilts and shoulder shrugs during human interaction, and their relation to stancetaking.

International audienc

CYCLIC GESTURES AND MULTIMODAL SYMBOLIC ASSEMBLIES: AN ARGUMENT FOR SYMBOLIC COMPLEXITY IN GESTURE

In this dissertation, I seek to better understand the nature of the relationship between meanings expressed in gesture and those expressed in speech. This research focuses on the use of cyclic gestures in English. Cyclic gestures are manual co-speech gestures that are characterized by a circular movement of the hand or arm. Despite cyclic gestures being commonplace in many types of spoken discourse, no previous studies to date have specifically explored the functions these gestures serve in English. Broadly, this dissertation addresses two questions: (1) What functions do cyclic gestures serve in interaction in English, and (2) how are cyclic gestures integrated with other meaningful units in multimodal expressions? Using data collected from television talk shows, I examine the functional-semantic properties of spoken language expressions that accompany cyclic gestures and identify properties of meaning that repeatedly align with the expression of the gestures. I also explore relationships between fine-grained formal properties of cyclic gestural expressions and functional-semantic properties of the co-expressed speech. The results of the study find a number of significant relationships between gesture forms and spoken language meanings. For example, when cyclic gestures were expressed with spoken constructions serving an evaluative function, they were significantly associated with bimanual asynchronous rotations and finger spreading (p \u3c .001) with a moderately strong effect size (φc = 0.26). Drawing on the patterns identified in the analysis of the data, I analyze cyclic gestures as component symbolic structures that profile schematic processes. I argue that formal properties that accompany cyclic movement gestures (e.g., handshapes and locations of the hands in space) have the potential to be meaningful. Data from English suggest that cyclic gestures can integrate simultaneously with other symbolic structures in gesture to form complex gestural expressions (i.e., symbolic assemblies). Extending theoretical tools from the framework of Cognitive Grammar (Langacker, 1987, 1991), I explore how the schematic meaning of cyclic gestures is instantiated in specific complex gestural expressions and how those gestural constructions interact with symbolic structures in speech. This work challenges traditional assumptions about the nature of gesture meaning, which treats gestures as simplex, holistic structures. Instead, the findings of this research suggest that gestures are best analyzed as constructions

Gesture and Speech in Interaction - 4th edition (GESPIN 4)

International audienceThe fourth edition of Gesture and Speech in Interaction (GESPIN) was held in Nantes, France. With more than 40 papers, these proceedings show just what a flourishing field of enquiry gesture studies continues to be. The keynote speeches of the conference addressed three different aspects of multimodal interaction:gesture and grammar, gesture acquisition, and gesture and social interaction. In a talk entitled Qualitiesof event construal in speech and gesture: Aspect and tense, Alan Cienki presented an ongoing researchproject on narratives in French, German and Russian, a project that focuses especially on the verbal andgestural expression of grammatical tense and aspect in narratives in the three languages. Jean-MarcColletta's talk, entitled Gesture and Language Development: towards a unified theoretical framework,described the joint acquisition and development of speech and early conventional and representationalgestures. In Grammar, deixis, and multimodality between code-manifestation and code-integration or whyKendon's Continuum should be transformed into a gestural circle, Ellen Fricke proposed a revisitedgrammar of noun phrases that integrates gestures as part of the semiotic and typological codes of individuallanguages. From a pragmatic and cognitive perspective, Judith Holler explored the use ofgaze and hand gestures as means of organizing turns at talk as well as establishing common ground in apresentation entitled On the pragmatics of multi-modal face-to-face communication: Gesture, speech andgaze in the coordination of mental states and social interaction.Among the talks and posters presented at the conference, the vast majority of topics related, quitenaturally, to gesture and speech in interaction - understood both in terms of mapping of units in differentsemiotic modes and of the use of gesture and speech in social interaction. Several presentations explored the effects of impairments(such as diseases or the natural ageing process) on gesture and speech. The communicative relevance ofgesture and speech and audience-design in natural interactions, as well as in more controlled settings liketelevision debates and reports, was another topic addressed during the conference. Some participantsalso presented research on first and second language learning, while others discussed the relationshipbetween gesture and intonation. While most participants presented research on gesture and speech froman observer's perspective, be it in semiotics or pragmatics, some nevertheless focused on another importantaspect: the cognitive processes involved in language production and perception. Last but not least,participants also presented talks and posters on the computational analysis of gestures, whether involvingexternal devices (e.g. mocap, kinect) or concerning the use of specially-designed computer software forthe post-treatment of gestural data. Importantly, new links were made between semiotics and mocap data