Gesture: Visible Action as Utterance
Cambridge University Press
Edition: Illustrated, 9/23/2004
EAN 9780521835251, ISBN10: 0521835259
Hardcover, 412 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 2.7 cm
Language: English
Gesture, or visible bodily action that is seen as intimately involved in the activity of speaking, has long fascinated scholars and laymen alike. Written by a leading authority on the subject, this 2004 study provides a comprehensive treatment of gesture and its use in interaction, drawing on the analysis of everyday conversations to demonstrate its varied role in the construction of utterances. Adam Kendon accompanies his analyses with an extended discussion of the history of the study of gesture - a topic not dealt with in any previous publication - as well as exploring the relationship between gesture and sign language, and how the use of gesture varies according to cultural and language differences. Set to become the definitive account of the topic, Gesture will be invaluable to all those interested in human communication. Its publication marks a major development, both in semiotics and in the emerging field of gesture studies.
1. The domain of gesture
2. Visible action as gesture
3. Western interest in gesture from classical antiquity to the eighteenth century
4. Four contributions from the nineteenth century
Andrea de Jorio, Edward Tylor, Garrick Mallery and Wilhelm Wundt
5. Gesture studies in the twentieth century
recession and return
6. Classifying gestures
7. Gesture units, gesture phrases and speech
8. Deployments of gesture in the utterance
9. Gesture and speech in semantic interaction
10. Gesture and referential meaning
11. On pointing
12. Gestures of the 'precision-grip'
topic, comment and question markers
13. Two gesture families of the open hand
14. Gesture without speech
the emergence of kinesic codes
15. Gesture and sign on common ground
16. Gesture, culture and the communication economy
17. The status of gesture
Appendix I. Transcription conventions
Appendix II. The recordings.