Streeck2021
| Streeck2021 | |
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| BibType | ARTICLE |
| Key | Streeck2021 |
| Author(s) | Jurgen Streeck |
| Title | The emancipation of gestures |
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| Tag(s) | EMCA, In Press, gesture, conceptualization, grammaticalization, interaction, evolution |
| Publisher | John Benjamins Publishing |
| Year | 2021 |
| Language | English |
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| Journal | Interactional Linguistics |
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| URL | Link |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1075/il.20013.str |
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Abstract
Interactional linguists are interested in ways in which communicative resources emerge from interactional practice. This paper defines a place for the study of gesture within interactional linguistics, conceived as ‘linguistics of time’ (Hopper, 2015). It shows how hand gestures of a certain kind – conceptual gestures – emerge from ‘hands-on’ instrumental actions, are repeated and habitualized, and are taken to other communicative contexts where they enable displaced reference and conceptual representation of experiences.The data for this study is a video-recording of one work-day of an auto-shop owner (Streeck, 2017). The corpus includes auto-repair sequences in which he spontaneously improvises new gestures in response to situated communication needs, and subsequent narrative sequences during which he re-enacts them as he explains his prior actions. He also makes numerous ‘pre-fabricated’ gestures, gestures that circulate in the society at large and that are acquired by copying other conversationalists. They are ready-made manual concepts. The paper explains the life-cycle of conceptual gestures from spontaneous invention to social sedimentation and thereby sheds light on the ongoing emergence of symbolic forms in corporeal practice and intercorporeal communication.
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