Streeck2021
| Streeck2021 | |
|---|---|
| BibType | ARTICLE |
| Key | Streeck2021 |
| Author(s) | Jurgen Streeck |
| Title | The emancipation of gestures |
| Editor(s) | |
| Tag(s) | EMCA, gesture, conceptualization, grammaticalization, interaction, evolution |
| Publisher | |
| Year | 2021 |
| Language | English |
| City | |
| Month | |
| Journal | Interactional Linguistics |
| Volume | 1 |
| Number | 1 |
| Pages | 90–122 |
| URL | Link |
| DOI | 10.1075/il.20013.str |
| ISBN | |
| Organization | |
| Institution | |
| School | |
| Type | |
| Edition | |
| Series | |
| Howpublished | |
| Book title | |
| Chapter | |
Abstract
Interactional linguists are interested in ways in which communicative resources emerge from interactional practice. This paper defines a place for the study of gesture within interactional linguistics, conceived as ‘linguistics of time’ (Hopper, 2015). It shows how hand gestures of a certain kind – conceptual gestures – emerge from ‘hands-on’ instrumental actions, are repeated and habitualized, and are taken to other communicative contexts where they enable displaced reference and conceptual representation of experiences.The data for this study is a video-recording of one work-day of an auto-shop owner (Streeck, 2017). The corpus includes auto-repair sequences in which he spontaneously improvises new gestures in response to situated communication needs, and subsequent narrative sequences during which he re-enacts them as he explains his prior actions. He also makes numerous ‘pre-fabricated’ gestures, gestures that circulate in the society at large and that are acquired by copying other conversationalists. They are ready-made manual concepts. The paper explains the life-cycle of conceptual gestures from spontaneous invention to social sedimentation and thereby sheds light on the ongoing emergence of symbolic forms in corporeal practice and intercorporeal communication.
Notes
