PREFACE

The present study concerns coverbal gesturing—the set of expressive gestures and facial expressions that accompany or replace spoken language. This work is more semantic than pragmatic, addressing the signification of gestures more than their interactive role. It aims to establish the structural semantics of coverbal gesturing through a semiotic analysis of the French gestural system. To this end, gestures are studied from within (that is, in the way they work, in their symbolic mechanisms) rather than in their functions in interpersonal interaction. This study is original in its semiotic objective and its material—an extensive collection of utterances together with spontaneous gestures, collected by a native speaker in real-life situations.

This study complements those heretofore performed on coverbal gesturing. It examines neither the segmentation and kinesic organization of discourse (rhythmic autosynchronizing and intersynchronizing gestures) nor the practical bodily aspects of interaction (interpersonal distance, posture, eye contact), for a number of authors have already studied these elements of the syntactic and interactive infrastructures, as much on the psychological level as on the sociological and cultural levels. On the semantic level, researchers have already compiled lists of culture-specific gestures that can substitute for speech (emblematic or quasi-linguistic gestures), and the role of substitution has already been distinguished from that of illustration (of configurations or movements) in the semantic function of such gestures. But no one had yet examined the full range of coverbal gestures to study the structure of their system of signification.

Chapter 1 describes and gives results from a preliminary experimental study. French subjects were shown a film involving a limited number of French gestures that illustrate verbal clichés and may be substituted for them. A test was used to verify the comprehension of the gestures and facial expressions out of context; the results helped elucidate the signifying structure of the gestures. A second test, with foreigners, discussed in Chapter 2, demonstrates the conventional—and nonetheless analogical—nature of coverbal gestures. The analysis of the subjects’ errors yields valuable semiotic data, which are confirmed by the analysis of the French gestural system.

How can we arrive at a complete inventory of French gestures? Physical classification (treated in Chapter 3) is the only way to conduct a relatively exhaustive study. Of itself, such a classification becomes physico-semantic to the extent that the physical movement carries a signifying intention. We find it necessary to distinguish gestures touching or brushing against the body (for which the localization of contact on the body is the most relevant feature) from detached gestures (those not directed at the body). Among detached gestures, linear or planar gestures are distinguished from curved ones, the relevant physical features being different for these two classes. Finally, the systematic search for signs uncovers the very important category of ‘head gestures’—signs constituted of various head movements, independent of facial expression.

Samples of the outline of the resulting dictionary—arranged according to relevant physical features—are given in appendixes, while the symbolic corollaries to these features are discussed within Chapter 3. Taking fully into account the physical characteristics of a gesture as well as its signification (which is indicated by the associated utterance), the physico-semantic classification can help us reconstruct the semiotic system of coverbal gesturing.

Following this study of physical components, we consider (in Chapter 4) the semantic fields of the gestural signifier, that is, signifieds specifically illustrated or expressed bodily. Three particularly rich areas are presented as examples and are examined in detail: spatial representations of time, numerous abstract and stylized expressions of aggressiveness, and various contrasting pairs of judgmental notions, the signs of which seem to derive from the essential primitive expressions of well-being or discomfort.

Having considered the physical and semantic sides of the gestural sign separately, we examine their relationship, ranging from the most obvious connections between the signifier and the signified to the least obvious. We begin, in Chapter 5, with the most clearly iconic representation—mimic gestures—the study of which nonetheless reveals many forms of abstraction. In Chapter 6, we will see that analogy, manifest in mimic gestures, remains in nonmimic gestures as well. It is in comparing the gestural variants (of body part, plane, axis, and so forth) which associate a signifier with a signified that one can unravel these multiple forms.

Even though analysis reveals that a gestural sign is analogous, it nonetheless varies from one culture to another and may have several meanings within a given culture. The two principles explaining this polysemy are also used to explain the case of a dual analogical link. Motivation¹ is then studied as a function of the information carried, that is, for gestural redundancy as well as for gestural economy, in which a gesture simultaneously illustrates several signifieds.

In Chapter 7, the motivation of refusal and its associated gestures are studied in an application of the principles set forth in the preceding chapter.

Finally (in Chapter 8), having examined the signifying structure of coverbal gesturing, we consider gesture in relation to speech—first with respect to the vocal sign (phono-gestural parallelism) and then as it relates to the verbal sign (in discourse or in language).

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1. The word ‘motivation’ is used in its semiotic and not psychological meaning. It designates the analogical link between the signifier and signified, i.e., between the physical manifestation of a sign and its signification