Gesture: Difference between revisions

The first way to distinguish between categories of gesture is to differentiate between communicative gesture and informative gesture. While most gestures can be defined as possibly happening during the course of spoken utterances, the informative-communicative dichotomy focuses on intentionalityintentional of meaning and communication in co-speech gesture.<ref name=":1" />

Informative gestures are passive gestures that provide information about the speaker as a beingperson and not about what the speaker is trying to communicate.Some Examplesmovements ofare informativenot gesturespurely couldconsidered include such actions as scratching an itchgestures, adjustinghowever clothing,a orperson accessories,could orperform interactingthese withadapters objectin such asway takinglike ascratching, drinkadjusting orclothing, twirlingand atapping.'''<ref>Krauss, penR.M.; TheseChen, gesturesY. can& occur during speechChawla, butP. they(2000). may"Nonverbal alsobehavior occurand independently ofnonverbal communication,: asWhat theydo areconversational nothand agestures parttell of activeus?" communication(PDF). While''Advances informativein gesturesExperimental maySocial communicatePsychology''. information'''1''' about(2): the person speaking (e.g389–450. itchy,[[Digital uncomfortable,object etcidentifier|doi]]:10.1016/S0065-2601(08), this communication is not engaged with any language being produced by the person gesturing60241-5.</ref name=":1" />'''

Communicative gestures are gestures that are not informative. These are gestures that are produced intentionally and meaningfully by a person as a way of intensifying or modifying speech produced in the vocal tract (or with the hands in the case of sign languages), even though a speaker may not be actively aware that they are producing communicative gestures. The<ref previousname=":13">{{Cite examplesjournal|last=Abner et. al.|first=Natasha|year=2015|title=Gesture for Linguists: A Handy Primer|url=https://goldin-meadow-lab.uchicago.edu/sites/goldin-meadow-lab.uchicago.edu/files/uploads/PDFs/2015_Abner,%20Cooperrider,%20Goldin-Meadow%20-%20Gesture%20for%20Linguists%20A%20Handy%20Primer.pdf|journal=Language and Linguistics Compass|volume=9|pages=437–449|doi=10.1111/lnc3.12168|via=Wiley & Sons}}</ref> For instance, on the picture above of informativeUncle gesturesSam, canhe becomeis communicativepointing whenand sending a speakernon-verbal consciouslyform usesof themgesture by implying he wants you to communicatejoin somethingthe aboutU.S. themselvesArmy. orThis is a form of symbolic gesture, usually used in the absence of speech.  <ref name=":52">''Gesture, sign and language: The coming of age of sign language and gesture studies''. Available from: <nowiki>https://www.researchgate.net/publication/282760416_Gesture_sign_and_language_The_coming_of_age_of_sign_language_and_gesture_studies</nowiki> [accessed Nov someone04 else2018].</ref>

A gesture that is a form of communication in which bodily actions communicate particular messages. Manual gestures are most commonly broken down into four distinct categories: Symbolic (Emblematic), [[Deixis|Deictic]] (Indexical), Motor (Beat), and Lexical (Iconic)<ref name=":0" />It is important to note that manual gesture in the sense of communicative co-speech gesture does not include the gesture-signs of [[Sign language|Sign Language]]<nowiki/>s, even though sign language is communicative and primarily produced using the hands, because the gestures in [[Sign language|Sign Language]] are not used to intensify or modify the speech produced by the vocal tract, rather they communicate fully productive language through a method alternative to the [[vocal tract]].

Gestural languages such as [[American Sign Language]] and its regional siblings operate as complete natural languages that are gestural in modality. They should not be confused with [[finger spelling]], in which a set of emblematic gestures are used to represent a written alphabet. American sign language is different from gesturing in that concepts are modeled by certain hand motions or expressions and has a specific established structure while gesturing is more malleable and has no specific structure rather it supplements speech. We should note, that before an established sign language was created in Nicaragua after the 1970s, deaf communities would use "home signs" in order to communicate with each other. These home signs were not part of a unified language but were still used as familiar motions and expressions used within their family—still closely related to language rather than gestures with no specific structure.<ref>{{cite book|last=Fernandez|first=Eva M.|title=Fundamentals of Psycholinguistics|year=2011|publisher=Wiley-Blackwell|isbn=9781405191470|page=77|author2=Helen Smith Cairns}}</ref> This is similar to what has been observed in the gestural actions of chimpanzees. Gestures are used by these animals in place of verbal language, which is restricted in animals due to their lacking certain physiological and articulatoryarticulation abilities that humans have for speech. Corballis (2009) asserts that "our homininhominid ancestors were better pre-adapted to acquire language-like competence using manual gestures than using vocal sounds."<ref>Corballis, M. C. (2010), The gestural origins of language. WIREs Cogn Sci, 1: 2–7. {{DOI|10.1002/wcs.2}}</ref> This leads to a debate about whether humans, too, looked to gestures first as their modality of language in the early existence of the species. The function of gestures may have been a significant player in the evolution of language.