What co-speech gestures do : investigating the communicative role of visual behaviour accompanying language use during reference in interaction
Language and gesture are thought to be tightly interrelated and co-expressive behaviours (McNeill, 1992; 2005) that, when used in communication, are often referred to as composite signals/utterances (Clark, 1996; Enfield, 2009). Linguistic research has typically focussed on the structure of language, largely ignoring the effect gesture can have on the production and comprehension of utterances. In the linguistic literature, gesture is shoehorned into the communicative process rather than being an integral part of it (Wilson and Wharton, 2006; Wharton, 2009), which is at odds with the fact that gesture regularly plays a role that is directly connected to the semantic content of, in Gricean terms, âwhat is saidâ (Kendon, 2004; Grice, 1989). In order to explore these issues, this thesis investigates the effect of manual gestures on interaction at several different points during production and comprehension, based on the Clarkian Action Ladder (Clark, 1996). It focusses on the top two levels of the ladder: Level 3 signaling and recognising and level 4 proposing and considering. In doing so, it explores gestureâs local effect on how utterances are composed and comprehended, but also its more global effect
Wilson, Jack J.
What co-speech gestures do : investigating the communicative role of visual behaviour accompanying language use during reference in interaction. Language and gesture are thought to be tightly interrelated and co-expressive behaviours (McNeill, 1992; 2005) that, when used in communication, are often referred to as composite signals/utterances (Clark, 1996; Enfield, 2009). Linguistic research has typically focussed on the structure of language, largely ignoring the effect gesture can have on the production and comprehension of utterances. In the linguistic literature, gesture is shoehorned into the communicative process rather than being an integral part of it (Wilson and Wharton, 2006; Wharton, 2009), which is at odds with the fact that gesture regularly plays a role that is directly connected to the semantic content of, in Gricean terms, âwhat is saidâ (Kendon, 2004; Grice, 1989). In order to explore these issues, this thesis investigates the effect of manual gestures on interaction at several different points during production and comprehension, based on the Clarkian Action Ladder (Clark, 1996). It focusses on the top two levels of the ladder: Level 3 signaling and recognising and level 4 proposing and considering. In doing so, it explores gestureâs local effect on how utterances are composed and comprehended, but also its more global effect
speech gesture investigate communicative role visual behaviour accompany language_use reference interaction language gesture think tightly interrelate expressive behaviour person use communication often_refer composite utterances clark linguistic typically focus structure language largely_ignore effect gesture production comprehension utterance linguistic literature gesture communicative process rather integral_part wilson odds fact gesture regularly play_role directly connect semantic_content gricean term say grice order_explore issue investigates_effect manual gesture interaction several_different point production comprehension base action clark focus top two_level level signal recognise level propose consider explore gesture local effect utterance compose comprehend also global effect