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Programme: accepted abstracts

Abstract ID: 836

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

Language as a variably multimodal semiotic system: Variation according to social factors

Authors: Cienki, Alan
Submitted by: Cienki, Alan (Vrije Universiteit (VU), Amsterdam, Netherlands, The)

This presentation will provide a theoretical lens through which the talks in this thematic session on ‘gesture variation’ can be viewed. The intention is to tie the other presentations together by being the last one in this session.

In contrast to the tradition of (Chomskyan) generative grammar, which takes a modular view of language, the present approach builds on cognitive linguistics (Geeraerts & Cuyckens 2007), which is increasingly considering the degree to which gesture should be included in linguistic theory. This stems in part from the view in this theory that meaning is not “contained in” the language, but rather, addressees must construct speakers’ intended meanings from cues that speakers provide in their communicative behavior (Fauconnier & Turner 2002). One question is what the scope of behaviors is that should be taken into account in a theory of language. The model being developed by the Author (2012) is that language can best be considered a category with a flexible boundary. For example, with spoken language, some co-verbal behaviors have a clearer linguistic status (like ‘emblems’, such as the thumbs-up gesture in many Western cultures to indicate positive evaluation), while others are dependent upon accompaniment by spoken words (such as those schematically referring to spatial forms and constituting speech-gesture composite utterances, as discussed in Enfield 2009).

Building on work in Relevance Theory (Sperber & Wilson 1986/1995), the selective activation of meaning (Müller 2008), and the attentional analysis of meaning (Oakley 2009), I argue that while spoken language forms the prototype in the ‘canonical encounter’ (Clark 1973) of face-to-face communication, the scope of relevant behaviors is actually dynamic. It is dynamic in that the focus can shift momentarily from words to gestures (or, for example, to a wordless intonation contour); it is also dynamic in that the scope can be narrower (e.g., when focusing intently on someone’s words) or broader (when being more sensitive to a speaker’s attitude about what s/he is saying). Consistent with the view in cognitive linguistics that semantics and pragmatics form a continuum of meaning-making, the scope of relevant behaviors dynamically moves along this scale moment by moment in the process of interaction.

I will argue that a number of the social variables discussed in this thematic session constitute factors that influence the size and point of focus for the scope of relevant behaviors at any given moment. For example, one study in the session reflects the common use of a wide scope of relevant behaviors by contemporary young male speakers of Zulu, with explicit attention to co-verbal gestural style, versus the narrower focus on the verbal level by female speakers, among whom such use of gesture is socially stigmatized. Other variables to be discussed from the talks in the panel include age (generational variation), gender, identity in social networks, and styles of narration. The model proposed can therefore help with the question of how to theorize gestural variation in relation to language.