On the lower limit of gesture

Mats Andrén

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingBook chapterResearchpeer-review

Abstract

Where, if, and how, should researchers draw the limit between gesture proper and semiotically less complex forms of bodily conduct that do not quite qualify as gesture? This is the question of a lower limit of gesture (Andrén 2010). In accord with a comparative semiotic approach (Kendon 2008) I suggest that the question is best understood, not as a binary distinction between gesture and non-gesture, but as a matter of several different semiotic properties that can vary independently of each other. This involves, in particular, different levels of representational complexity and communicative explicitness. These semiotic properties are both conceptually explicated and applied to empirical examples in this paper, eventually leading me to propose a family resemblance conception of gesture.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationVisible Utterance in Action
EditorsMandana Seyfeddinipur, Marianne Gullberg
PublisherJohn Benjamins Publishing Company
Publication statusAccepted/In press - 2014

Subject classification (UKÄ)

  • Comparative Language Studies and Linguistics

Free keywords

  • semiotics
  • language
  • gesture

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