Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T19:53:31.021Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Separating viewpoint from mode of representation in iconic co-speech gestures: insights from Danish narratives*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 January 2017

ANNE THERESE FREDERIKSEN
ANNE THERESE FREDERIKSEN*
Affiliation:
UCSD Linguistics Department
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

During narrative retelling, speakers shift between different viewpoints to reflect how they conceptualize the events that unfolded. These viewpoints can be indicated through gestural means as well as through verbal ones. Studies of co-speech gestures have inferred viewpoint from gesture form, i.e., how entities are mapped onto the (primarily manual) articulators, but the merits of this approach have not been discussed. The present study argues that viewpoint is more than gestural form. Despite connections between the two, many other factors may influence a gesture’s form. Assessing viewpoint from gesture form alone limits the applicability of gestural viewpoint as a window onto speakers’ event conceptualization and introduces unnecessary differences in the categorization of viewpoint across gestures types. The present study examines iconic co-speech gestures in Danish narratives, and makes explicit the means used to infer gestural viewpoint. The approach advocated here ensures that the notion of viewpoint can be applied in a principled way to all or most iconic gestures.

Keywords

viewpointgesturesign languagerole-shiftmode of representation
Type
Research Article
Information
Language and Cognition , Volume 9 , Issue 4 , December 2017 , pp. 677 - 708
Copyright
Copyright © UK Cognitive Linguistics Association 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

I am grateful to the participants who contributed their narratives to the dataset examined in this study. I would also like to thank everyone who helped develop my thinking on the subject of viewpoint with discussions or comments on previous versions of the manuscript, especially Fey Parrill, Kensy Cooperrider, and Elisabeth Engberg-Pedersen. All remaining mistakes are my own.

References

references

Aarons, D., & Morgan, R. (2003). Classifier predicates and the creation of multiple perspectives in South African Sign Language. Sign Language Studies, 3(2), 125–156.Google Scholar
Bahan, B., & Supalla, S. (1995). Line segmentation and narrative structure: a study of eye gaze behavior in American Sign Language. In Emmorey, K. & Reilly, J. S. (Eds.), Language, gesture, and space (pp. 171–194). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Baker, C., & Padden, C. (1978). Focusing on the nonmanual components of American Sign Language. In Siple, P. A. (Ed.), Understanding language through sign language research (pp. 27–57). New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Bavelas, J., & Chovil, N. (1997). Faces in dialogue. In Russell, J. & Fernández-Dols, J. (Eds.), The psychology of facial expression (pp. 334–346). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bavelas, J., Gerwing, J., & Healing, S. (2014), Including facial gestures in gesture-speech ensembles. In Seyfeddinipur, M. & Gullberg, M. (Eds.), From gesture in conversation to visible action in utterance (pp. 15–34). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Beattie, G., & Shovelton, H. (2001). An experimental investigation of the role of different types of iconic gesture in communication: a semantic feature approach. Gesture, 1(2), 129–149.Google Scholar
Beattie, G., & Shovelton, H. (2002). An experimental investigation of some properties of individual iconic gestures that mediate their communicative power. British Journal of Psychology, 93(2), 179–192.Google Scholar
Borghi, A. M., Glenberg, A. M., & Kaschak, M. P. (2004). Putting words in perspective. Memory & Cognition, 32(6), 863–873.Google Scholar
Brentari, D., Coppola, M., Mazzoni, L., & Goldin-Meadow, S. (2012). When does a system become phonological? Handshape production in gesturers, signers, and homesigners. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory, 30(1), 1–31.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Brentari, D., Renzo, A. D., Keane, J., & Volterra, V. (2014). Cognitive, cultural, and linguistic sources of a handshape distinction expressing agentivity. Topics in Cognitive Science, 7(1), 95–123.Google Scholar
Brown, A. (2008). Gesture viewpoint in Japanese and English: cross-linguistic interactions between two languages in one speaker. Gesture, 8(2), 256–276.Google Scholar
Brunyé, T. T., Ditman, T., Mahoney, C. R., Augustyn, J. S., & Taylor, H. A. (2009). When you and I share perspectives: pronouns modulate perspective taking during narrative comprehension. Psychological Science, 20(1), 27–32.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bryant, D., & Tversky, B. (1999). Mental representations of perspective and spatial relations from diagrams and models. Journal of Experimental Psychology. Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 25(1), 137–156.Google Scholar
Cassell, J., & McNeill, D. (1991). Gesture and the poetics of prose. Poetics Today, 12(3), 375–404.Google Scholar
Clark, H. H. (2016). Depicting as a method of communication. Psychological Review, 123(3), 324–347.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Debreslioska, S., Özyürek, A., Gullberg, M., & Perniss, P. (2013). Gestural viewpoint signals referent accessibility. Discourse Processes, 50(7), 431–456.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
DeLancey, S. (1981). An interpretation of split ergativity and related patterns. Language, 57(3), 626–657.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dudis, P. (2004). Body partitioning and real-space blends. Cognitive Linguistics, 15(2), 223–238.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Earis, H., & Cormier, K (2013). Point of view in British Sign Language and spoken English narrative discourse: the example of ‘The Tortoise and the Hare’. Language and Cognition, 5, 313–343.Google Scholar
Emmorey, K., Tversky, B., & Taylor, H. (2000). Using space to describe space: perspective in speech, sign, and gesture. Spatial Cognition and Computation, 2(3), 157–180.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Engberg-Pedersen, E. (1993). Space in Danish sign language: the semantics and morphosyntax of the use of space in a visual language. Hamburg: Signum.Google Scholar
Engberg-Pedersen, E. (1995). Point of view expressed through shifters. In Emmorey, K. & Reilly, J. (Eds.), Language, gesture and space (pp. 133–154). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Engberg-Pedersen, E. (1999). Eye gaze in Danish Sign Language monologues: forms, functions, notation issues. Paper presented at the 3rd Intersign Workshop, Siena.Google Scholar
Engberg-Pedersen, E. (2015). Perspective in signed discourse: the privileged status of the signer’s locus and gaze. Open Linguistics, 1(1), online <10.1515/opli-2015-0010>.Google Scholar
Fridlund, A. (1997). The new ethology of human facial expression. In Russell, J. & Fernández-Dols, J. (Eds.), The psychology of facial expression (pp. 334–346). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Gibbs, R. W. J. (2006). Embodiment and cognitive science, 1st ed. Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Glenberg, A. M., & Kaschak, M. P. (2002). Grounding language in action. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 9(3), 558–565.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hostetter, A., & Alibali, M. (2008). Visible embodiment: gesture as simulated action. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 15(3), 495–514.Google Scholar
Hostetter, A., & Alibali, M. (2010). Language, gesture, action! A test of the Gesture as Simulated Action framework. Journal of Memory and Language, 63, 245–257.Google Scholar
Kaschak, M. P., & Glenberg, A. M. (2000). Constructing meaning: the role of affordances and grammatical constructions in sentence comprehension. Journal of Memory and Language, 43(3), 508–529.Google Scholar
Kendon, A. (2004). Gesture: visible action as utterance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kita, S., & Özyürek, A. (2003). What does cross-linguistic variation in semantic coordination of speech and gesture reveal? Evidence for an interface representation of spatial thinking and speaking. Journal of Memory and Language, 48(1), 16–32.Google Scholar
Liddell, S. (1998). Grounded blends, gestures, and conceptual shifts. Cognitive Linguistics, 9(3), 283–314.Google Scholar
Liddell, S. (2003). Grammar, gesture, and meaning in American Sign Language. Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Lieberman, A., Hatrak, M., & Mayberry, R. (2014). Learning to look for language: development of joint attention in young deaf children. Language Learning and Development, 10, 19–35.Google Scholar
Lillo-Martin, D. (1995). The point of view predicate in American Sign Language. In Emmorey, K. & Reilly, J. (Eds.), Language, gesture and space (pp. 155–170). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Lillo-Martin, D. (2012). Utterance reports and constructed action in sign and spoken languages. In Pfau, R., Steinbach, M. & Woll, B. (Eds.), Sign language: an international handbook (pp. 365–387). Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter Mouton.Google Scholar
Loew, R. (1984). Roles and references in ASL: a developmental perspective. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Minnesota.Google Scholar
Masson, M. E. J., Bub, D. N., & Warren, C. M. (2008). Kicking calculators: contribution of embodied representations to sentence comprehension. Journal of Memory and Language, 59(3), 256–265.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McNeill, D. (1992). Hand and mind: what gestures reveal about thought. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
McNeill, D. (2005). Gesture and thought. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Metzger, M. (1998). Eye gaze and pronominal reference in American Sign Language. In Lucas, C. (Ed.), Pinky extension and eye gaze: language use in deaf communities (pp. 170–181). Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press.Google Scholar
Morgan, G., & Woll, B. (2003). The development of reference switching encoded through body classifiers in British Sign Language. In Emmorey, K. (Ed.), Perspectives on classifier constructions in sign language (pp. 297–310). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Müller, C. (1998). Iconicity and gesture. In: Santi, S. (Ed.), Oralité et Gestualité: Communication Multimodale, Interaction (pp. 321–328). Montréal/Paris: L’Harmattan.Google Scholar
Müller, C. (2014). Gestural modes of representation as techniques of depiction. In Müller, C., Cienki, A., Fricke, E., Ladewig, S., McNeill, D., & Bressem, J. (Eds.), Body – language – communication: an international handbook on multimodality in human interaction. (Handbooks of Linguistics and Communication Science 38.2) (pp. 1687–1702). Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter Mouton.Google Scholar
Padden, C. (1986). Verbs and role shifting in American Sign Language. In Padden, C. (Ed.), Proceedings of the Fourth National Symposium on Sign Language Research and Teaching, Sign (pp. 44–57). Silver Spring, MD: NAD.Google Scholar
Parrill, F. (2009). Dual viewpoint gestures. Gesture, 9(3), 271–289.Google Scholar
Parrill, F. (2010). Viewpoint in speech–gesture integration: linguistic structure, discourse structure, and event structure. Language and Cognitive Processes, 25(5), 650–668.Google Scholar
Parrill, F. (2012). Interactions between discourse status and viewpoint in co-speech gesture. In Dancygier, B. & Sweetser, E. (Eds.), Viewpoint in language: a multimodal perspective (pp. 97–112). Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Perniss, P. (2007). Achieving spatial coherence in German Sign Language narratives: the use of classifiers and perspective. Lingua, 117(7), 1315–1338.Google Scholar
Perniss, P. M., & Özyürek, A. (2008). Representations of action, motion, and location in sign space: a comparison of German (DGS) and Turkish (TID) Sign Language narratives. In Quer, J. (Ed.), Signs of the time: selected papers from TISLR 8 (pp. 353–378). Hamburg: Signum.Google Scholar
Sandler, W., & Lillo-Martin, D. C. (2006). Sign language and linguistic universals. Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Sidnell, J. (2006). Coordinating gesture, talk, and gaze in reenactments. Research on Language & Social Interaction, 39(4), 377–409.Google Scholar
Stanfield, R. A., & Zwaan, R. A. (2001). The effect of implied orientation derived from verbal context on picture recognition. Psychological Science, 12(2), 153–156.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Stec, K. (2012). Meaningful shifts: a review of viewpoint markers in co-speech gesture and sign language. Gesture, 12(3), 327–360.Google Scholar
Streeck, J. (1993) Gesture as communication I: its coordination with gaze and speech. Communication Monographs, 60(4), 275–299.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Streeck, J. (2009). Gesturecraft: the manu-facture of meaning. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Stukenbrock, A. (2014). Pointing to an ‘empty’ space: Deixis am Phantasma in face-to-face interaction. Journal of Pragmatics, 74, 70–93.Google Scholar
Sweetser, E. (2012). Introduction: viewpoint and perspective in language and gesture, from the ground up. In Dancygier, B. & Sweetser, E. (Eds.), Viewpoint in language: a multimodal perspective (pp. 1–24). Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Sweetser, E., & Stec, K. (2016). Maintaining multiple viewpoints with gaze. In Dancygier, Barbara, Lu, Wei-lun, & Verhagen, Arie (Eds.), Viewpoint and the fabric of meaning: form and use of viewpoint tools across languages and modalities (Vol. 55, pp. 237–258). Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter Mouton.Google Scholar
Thompson, S. A., & Suzuki, R. (2014). Reenactments in conversation: gaze and recipiency. Discourse Studies, 16(6), 816–846.Google Scholar
Zwaan, R. A. (1999). Situation models: the mental leap into imagined worlds. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 8(1), 15–18.Google Scholar
Zwaan, R. A., Stanfield, R. A., & Yaxley, R. H. (2002). Language comprehenders mentally represent the shapes of objects. Psychological Science, 13(2), 168–171.Google Scholar
Zwaan, R. A., & Taylor, L. J. (2006). Seeing, acting, understanding: motor resonance in language comprehension. Journal of Experimental Psychology. General, 135(1), 1–11.Google Scholar