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 long-awaited 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.
Linguistic Field(s):
Discourse Analysis
History of Linguistics
Pragmatics
Semantics
Sociolinguistics
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