|
Title:
|
Grammar, Gesture, and Cognition: The case of negation in English
|
|
Author:
|
Simon Harrison
|
|
Email:
|
click here to access email
|
|
Degree Awarded:
|
Université Michel de Montaigne Bordeaux 3
, English linguistics
|
|
Degree Date:
|
2009
|
|
Linguistic Subfield(s):
|
Syntax
Cognitive Science
|
|
Subject Language(s):
|
English
|
|
Director(s):
|
Jean-Rémi Lapaire
|
|
|
Abstract:
|
|
In this thesis, I examine the way English speakers gesture when they negate
and I argue that grammar and gesture are linked.
With an audiovisual corpus of conversations among Anglophones, I identify
nine recurrent gestures of negation and analyse their forms, their
contexts-of-use, their relation to grammatical negation, and their
organisation with speech.
In negative speech acts, I show how gestures of negation are entwined with
grammatical, semantic, and pragmatic phenomena, such as node and scope of
negation, inherent negation, and cumulative negation. I argue that
discourse context and type of grammatical negation determine which gestures
of negation speakers use and how they use them. I also show that gesture
exhibits the universal tendencies in language to express negation early and
frequently in a negative sentence. On a broader level, I use tools from
cognitive linguistics to account for the how speakers integrate grammatical
and gestural aspects of negation into multimodal negative speech acts.
By establishing that negation receives multimodal expression and by drawing
parallels between conventional forms and structures across modalities, this
thesis builds on previous investigations of gestural negation, challenges
traditional understandings of negation, and takes a step toward
establishing a multimodal grammar.
A preliminary chapter provides a methodology for collecting, transcribing,
and analysing multimodal data, while a final chapter supports the thesis by
addressing the grammar and gesture of three other linguistic notions:
progressivity, epistemic modality, and focus.
Overall, this thesis offers an in-depth multimodal analysis of grammatical
notions in English, with a focus on negation, and establishes a link
between grammar, gesture, and cognition.
|
|
|
|
|
E-mail this message to a friend
