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Programme: accepted abstracts

Abstract ID: 573

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

The impact of gender on gestural behaviour in oral narratives and spontaneous conversations

Authors: Kunene, Ramona (1); Brookes, Heather (2)
Submitted by: Brookes, Heather Jean (University of Cape Town, South Africa)

This paper focuses on the influence of gender in the deployment of co-speech gesture. We investigate differences in gestural behaviour between male and female speakers of Zulu and Southern Sotho. We also examine how children are socialized into gendered gestural behaviour.

Our investigation is based on a two-pronged approach: ethnographic and experimental. In the ethnographic method, data was collected from observations, interviews and recordings of spontaneous conversations among male and female adults ranging from 18 to 35 years. In the experimental condition, narratives were solicited from 32 children between the ages of 5 and 12 years as well as 12 adults. All participants were Zulu speakers. Each subject was shown a two-minute extract of an animated cartoon. They were then requested to recount what they had seen to an interviewer.

Results from analysis of spontaneous interactions show that males make more frequent use of gesture per speech clause and utilize a wider gestural space than females in interactions with their peers. Males also make more use of a larger repertoire of quotable gestures and know significantly more of the quotable repertoire than their female counterparts. Users modify their gestural behaviour in terms of frequency and gestural space according to interlocutor’s gender and age, familiarity and formality of social situation. Gestural behaviour is a key aspect of indexing a male urban streetwise youth identity. Social norms dictate that women should not gesticulate in the same manner nor make frequent and extensive use of the quotable repertoire. Such communicative behaviour among females indexes disrespectability. Results from the experimental condition, showed no significant difference on the effect of gender on the use of co-speech gesture. However from a qualitative analysis, we note a marked difference in the deployment of gesture space (McNeill, 1992) between genders. Boys, from 12 years of age, and adult males use a bigger region of space around the body whereas girls and adult females restrict themselves to a smaller and frontal region of physical space when using spontaneous gesture.

Differences in gestural development and use appear to be related to age, gender, language task and cultural norms of interaction. We consider to what extent gesture variation and speech index similar aspects of identity or whether the different status and values or the two modalities lead them to mark different ones.