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Programme: accepted abstracts

Abstract ID: 500

Part of Session 126: Gesture variation (Other abstracts in this session)

Gesture variation in narrative behaviour: gesture style or narrative style?

Authors: Colletta, Jean-Marc
Submitted by: Colletta, Jean-Marc (Université de Grenoble 3, France)

Although a different medium, gesture varies in the same way as language varies: gesture production varies from one culture to another (Kita, 2009), according to social variables such as age, gender and social class (Brookes, 2004), and according to the language task itself (Colletta, 2004). A far less documented issue is that of cross-individual variability. An investigation on a single controlled narrative task revealed huge cross-individual variation among the subjects: from 0 gesture per narrative up to 155 gestures per narrative, with the rate of gesture per clause extending from 0.00 up to 1.98. What makes so large cross-individual differences? Are there any “gesture styles”? Does gesture production co-vary with linguistic production? Are there any “narrative styles” that incorporate gesture styles? Our present contribution to the panel aims at investigating these questions.

The empirical data was collected in 2008 for a study on the development of multimodal narratives in French children and adults (Colletta, Pellenq & Guidetti, 2010). In order to elicit narrative production, a 2’45 video clip extracted from a Tom & Jerry cartoon was shown to 122 subjects among which 38 adults. All narratives were transcribed and annotated using the ELAN software (http://www.mpi.nl/tools/) and a coding scheme designed to code both for speech and gesture (http://www.lat-mpi.eu/tools/elan/thirdparty). The annotation provided information on syntax, discourse coherence, discourse structure, the processing of the event frame, narratives acts, co-speech gesture, gesture categories, relationship between gesture and speech and over subtle distinctions regarding representational gestures (Colletta & al, 2009).

Our study on cross-individual differences is empirically based on the 38 filmed narratives that were produced by the adults. Our first goal was to check for correlations between gesture variables and other variables. It was based on the quantitative analysis of the coded data. Our results showed that gesture production co-varies with the narrative content and the pragmatic aspects of narrative behaviour, whereas we did not find any evidence for co-variation between gesture and syntax.

The second goal was to look for gesture styles vs narrative styles. We showed a selection of adults’ narratives to a panel of 30 subjects who have previously seen the cartoon story clip. The narratives were presented in random order and in two modalities (auditory + visual / auditory only) to each subject who had to score them on four dimensions: 1. completeness and accuracy of the story; 2. discourse coherence of the narrative; 3. diction and elocution; 4. liveliness of the narrative behaviour. We postulate that differences in the scorings between the two modalities plead for the existence of proper gesture styles across individuals, whereas similar results in the two modalities plead in favour of narrative styles across individuals. The results are discussed within the theoretical frameworks of multimodal speech production and sociolinguistic variation in speech.