VIII

GESTURE AND SPEECH

Phono-gestural parallelism

The synchronized association of gesture and sound is very common in all types of activity: aesthetic, athletic, technical, linguistic. This very ancient association is attested by ‘the Greek word mousiké which designates dance, vocal and instrumental music, the metrical structures of poetry, and the prosodic elements of speech’ (Fónagy 1983: 149). Why this association? It is because a change in frequency effected by vocal chords or an instrument is pictured in our minds as a spatial movement. The perception of rising corresponds to acceleration, to an increase in the number of vibrations per second. Descent corresponds to slowing, to a decrease in frequency. A waving melody has progressive, periodic changes. A steady tone lacks a change of frequency (op. cit.: 146). Intonation is thus perceived as a spatial projection of laryngeal movement. The German and Hungarian terms for intonation literally signify ‘tonal movement’ and ‘tonal dance’ (op. cit.: 121).

Parallelism in time

Identical vocal and gestural dynamics structure utterances and perform a syntactic, or sometimes syntactic-semantic, function. For example, an abrupt melodic break between the two syllables /Ri/in/3ənvøpamuRiRidjo/allows one to distinguish Je ne veux pas mourir, idiot! (I don’t want to die, you idiot!) from Je ne veux pas mourir idiot (I don’t want to die an idiot). This break would be difficult to perform without a simultaneous, abrupt raising of the eyebrows, or some other facial expression. In addition to being separated by melodic breaks, the different segments of an utterance are marked by movements of the speaker and listener, phenomena known as autosynchronization and intersynchronization.

Condon’s concept of a linguistic-kinesic organizing rhythm postulates that ‘lower order organizations are integrated by circumscribing, simultaneously-occurring, wider organizations’ (Figure 27). The notion is further specified by Kendon (1972) who shows the isomorphism between the hierarchical structures of gesture and speech by placing them in parallel. According to Kendon changes in posture correspond to long verbal periods, while shorter phrases and words are accompanied by brief gestures and facial expressions, respectively.

Tied to intonation, the gestural rhythm divides the verbal chain into segments (Figure 28) and highlights certain elements. Note that contrary to the terminology which distinguishes ‘rhythmic gestures’ from ‘illustrative gestures,’ the latter can simultaneously provide scansion: the raised hand is shaken threateningly in the rhythm of a menacing utterance: If you ever do that! The thumb and forefinger joined in a sign of rigorous precision can mark time: I forbade him to do it! Conversely, rhythmic gestures illustrate their function. They segment by chopping or cutting with the edge of the hand; they emphasize by pounding with the fist or marking with the forefinger or head directed downward; they highlight certain elements through a raising of the eyebrows. Fónagy (1983: 111) points out the aggressive aspect of stress: ‘The Latin ictus and the Russian udarnie, which denote stress (metric or linguistic), signify “a blow.” It seems (Heese 1957) that these stressed syllables are often accompanied by gestures marking a blow: one “beats” the rhythm.’ In short, the segmenting of the sentence and the highlighting of certain elements are indicated prosodically and gesturally in parallel. This phenomenon seems to extend well beyond the context of European languages (Greider 1986). For Bolinger, gesturing is a whole of which facial expression, body gestures, and intonation are components (Bolinger 1986: 198). He does not content himself with pointing out gestural-intonative parallels. His examples show that gesture can also provide a counterpoint to intonation (op. cit.: 199) or serve to distinguish, if only by lifting ambiguity left by the intonation (op. cit.: 208).

Figure 27 - A schema of the ‘rhythm hierarchy’ in speaker behavior. From Condon 1976: 297.

Figure 28 - The unity of speech and body motion in speaker behavior. From Condon 1976: 297.

Certainly, this synchronization is found for gestures that accompany or replace various verbal clichés. To syllabic repetition there corresponds a synchronous, repetitive gesture.

• An exclamation motivated by pain or blows received (literally or figuratively), such as Aïe aïe aïe! or Ouille ouille ouille! is signified by a vertical shaking of the hand. The same holds for the expression Oh là là! an exclamation concerning a large quantity, which applies as much to a negative situation: Oh là là, did he ever get yelled at! as to a positive situation of admiration: Oh là là, the strength he has! The correlation between gesture and sound is found in the rhythm of repetition: a fast or slow rhythm for Oh là là! and a fast rhythm for the reaction to pain Aïe aïe aïe! In an experimental film test (Calbris 1984: 235), a fast shaking of the hand was associated by two-thirds of the subjects with the reaction to pain and by onethird to the exclamation Oh là là! Conversely, a slow shaking of the hand was associated with Oh là là! or with the admirative exclamation Ben mazette! but not to Aïe aïe aïe! (which requires a rapid movement).

• The expression Kif-kif, a colloquial synonym for ‘equivalent,’ is directly borrowed from Arabic. The notion of equality or equilibrium that it implies is evoked as the pans of a balance: the two hands, held horizontally, alternately oscillate up and down. Little by little, we shift from the notion of equality or equilibrium between two elements to that of their mean, and from there to averageness or approximation, ‘More or less.’ A single hand performs the general movement, turning from one side to the other: * Half and half, on the whole it wasn’t bad. One person hesitates to answer, and his partner suggests mediocrity and asks for confirmation: ** Comme-ci, comme-ça? Thus the gestural ‘weighing,’ or seesawing, is answered by the syllabic seesawing of the corresponding expression: Kif-kif; Comme-ci, comme-ça; Couci-couça. More generally, the logical-semantic weighing of pros and cons, D’une part. . . d’autre part (on the one hand . . . on the other), are accompanied by a parallel weighing with the hand placed to one side, then to the other. There are several possible variants: (1) One hand is flipped to one side, then to the other: Depending on agreements that * will be made or * not be made.—Things * that I’d tell X, * that I wouldn’t tell Y. (2) The right hand is opened to the right, the left hand to the left: * Some of them say that. . . ,* the others say. . . . (3) The two hands are held parallel and placed first to one side then the other: * There are remedial measures that should be taken, * and others that should not.

• Children have several ways of expressing derisive irony, mischievous triumph. For the expression Bisque, bisque, rage! the top of the left forefinger, held stiff, is rubbed three times with the underside of the right forefinger; this expression is found especially in eastern France. One person’s triumph causes another to be riled (bisquer) and enraged. As for the cliché Na na na! or the more widespread Na na nère! it is indissociable from a certain sing-song intonation which, applied to any sentence, gives it a character of derisive irony. The cliché is composed of three syllables on three notes, accompanied by the gesture of scraping the underside of the chin three times with the thumb, which is projected outward each time. The same triple rhythm is found on the verbal, vocal, and gestural levels.

Parallelism in form

We have seen that certain perceptual distinctions may be visual, auditive, or both, such as the perception of stable lines vs. unstable ones (chopped or sinusoidal), rising vs. falling (abruptly or gradually), height vs. depth, weightlessness vs. gravity, lightness vs. heaviness, clarity vs. obscurity. The movement of a musical line may recall that of a body in space. Since perception may be interior or exterior (feeling of lightness or movement of a leaf in the wind), the visual, kinesthetic, emotive, and poetic representations overlap or melt into one another. Of course, the temporal components isolated above (duration, repetition, speed, rhythm) interact with one another to enrich or complete the various representations. I will take as an example the phono-gestural variants of enumeration (1) counted, (2) litanized, (3) or rhythmized by a back-and-forth movement:

(1) For a limited number of elements, the voice and fingers count, i.e., the elements are announced in a series of affirmations, counted by the ¹thumb, ²forefinger, ³middle finger, ⁴ring finger, ⁵little finger, successively raised and sometimes touched by the forefinger of the other hand: Her bourgeois education brought her rigor¹ in her feelings,² in her ideas, ³in her career, declares a biographer of Marlene Dietrich.

(2) In contrast, an interminable enumeration which promises to be boring is voluntarily abridged. The reason for this is expressed by the speaker: he sings his enumeration as though it were a litany, which he illustrates gesturally with a sequence of vertical loops. Each new loop corresponds to a new element in the list. Speaking of future television stations, a journalist fears a general repetition, of the same kind of drama, the same kind of TV magazine, the same kind of news broadcast, the same kind of host, with slight differences.

(3) If the list appears to be long, the speaker opts for a phono-gestural kind of cradling, tipping his head to the left and to the right in the rhythm of the stated units. This is what one television host did when speaking of the secret, special, marginal, or parallel service. It seems that the journalist chose an alternating movement because he was proposing several synonymous terms.

The principle behind this parallelism is doubtless general. A Japanese woman told me that to perform the gesture synonymous with ‘He’s crazy!’ the hand repeatedly draws a circle next to the temple and then opens abruptly, with the fingers projected outward. The gesture is accompanied by the verbal cliché /kulukulu pa/. The onomatopoeia /kulukulu/ suggests anything that turns. The turning (cyclic) movement corresponds to the syllabic repetition in /kulukulu/, and the explosion of the fingers accompanies the plosive syllable /pa/.

Parallelism in meaning

To the extent that analysis reveals the isomorphism between signifier and signified in vocal signs (Fónagy 1983) and gestural signs (Chapter 6, Motivation and isomorphism)—i.e., the motivated nature of these signs—it is not surprising that the parallelism indicated above between gesture and sound is also found in motivation. Sounds and gestures are motivated in parallel.

• The interjections Aïe and Ouille cited above express pain and, by extension, an unpleasant surprise or a nuisance. The expression is often vocal and gestural: unexpected pain provokes a cry and an evasive reaction. In particular, to lessen the pain of a burn or a finger caught in a door for example, one quickly shakes one’s hand. This reflex reaction has become a conventional sign. The vertical shaking of the hand is synchronized with the expression Aïe aïe aïe, said very quickly, or with Ouille ouille ouille, which might be pronounced more slowly. It has become an exclamatory expression of pain, blows received, or the prospect of reprimand.

• Landing a blow on an adversary is generally mimed by projecting the fist outward * (Illustration 17). Does the speaker mime both delivering (fist projection) and receiving the punch (perpendicular to the stomach)? We have seen that the gesture accompanies the expression of vengeful repartee Dans le baba! often reduced to the onomatopoeia Et vlan! imitating a strong, sharp noise. One young woman mimes a punch and vocally imitates the sound of it: You’ll see, you’ll be all alone in your bed * there, * paf! Another woman repeats the same gesture several times, synchronized with a repetitive onomatopoeia of her own invention: *^r Andpo po po po po, it looks like they’re hitting below the belt now.

Many intonative patterns have the same vocal and gestural motivation:

• The negative ellipsis Ça . . . ! The gesture, which implies something negative, is characterized by a rising movement of the hand, chin, and eyebrows, abruptly suspended at the moment of the glottal stop (Fónagy 1979). There is a simultaneous abrupt interruption on the vocal and gestural levels. The parallelism appears in the motivation: like the hand raised outward, the glottal stop signifies protection, refusal, negation. The implied negative thus expressed is then specified by a facial expression which may be one of ignorance, prudent reserve, disenchanted modesty, denigration.

Illustration 17. Ambiguous gut-punch: Vengeful repartee or Speed-Strength-Power. From Calbris 1987: 67, by Zaü

• Insistence in the face of doubt. When a listener doubts, one often leans on certain syllables with the voice or head: Mais si, je t’assure (But it is, I assure you). Applying this dynamic between intonation and gesture to any statement gives it a character of insistence: Il est parti (He’s gone), with an implied ‘I assure you.’

• Powerlessness. An intonative-gestural movement which rises then falls, as detailed below, is characteristic of an attitude of resigned powerlessness, the analogy being made with futile physical effort: lifting something up only to have it fall again.

• Incredulous irony. The intonation and facial expression show the ambiguity of the attitude. Irony may be defined as follows: a way of making fun of someone or something by saying the opposite of what one wants to get across. It often consists in repeating a speaker’s affirmation while exaggerating the melodic line: starting higher, stretching out the end, and stopping more abruptly. The attitude is ambiguous. The affirmation is reasserted but is taken lightly, since it is sung. This type of ironic utterance usually starts at a high pitch (almost a falsetto voice) and on the last syllable abruptly drops by nearly an octave (Fónagy 1971a). Thus, one begins by imitating a childish voice in feigned amiability, and the negative intention is revealed only at the end, by a drop in pitch to a lower register. The facial expression is also ambiguous: the knit eyebrows, which indicate suspicion, are raised in a sign of amazement, while the mouth combines a smile (a positive sign) with a smirk (a negative sign).

In these intonation patterns coupled with facial expressions and gestures, there is a parallelism between the vocal and gestural dynamics: the same triple rhythm for derisive irony, the same abrupt interruption for the negative ellipsis, the same emphasis for insistence (in the face of doubt), and the same rise-and-fall movement for powerlessness.

Moreover, intonation and gesture express the same motivation. For the negative ellipsis, the same reflex of rejection or refusal is found in the glottal stop and outwardly raised palm. For powerlessness, the intonative and gestural dynamic of the rising and falling line expresses futile effort. Finally, the notion of ambiguity implicit in irony is found in both gesture and intonation.

The phono-gestural parallelism is present in both sending and receiving. Fónagy (1983: 38–44) notes that the vocal and visual expressions of emotion are the same; there is an analogy between the movements of the speech organs and those of the entire body. Cineradiographic recordings of the tongue, the pharyngeal-buccal cavity, and the vocal chords show that when joy, tenderness, fear, anger, or hatred are expressed, the speech organs perform microscopic and audible gestures similar to the macroscopic and generally visible gestures of the body. Bodily expression is transferred to the speech organs. While glottal motion determines the intonative aspects of the message, emotive pharyngeal-buccal motion, which deforms phonemes, is perceived as a motivated gesture and is decoded as a ‘difference-gesture,’ i.e., with respect to the phonemic norm. For example, the tender puckering of the lips in the presence of a baby, Que c’est mignon, ça! (Isn’t that cute), provokes a labialization of the vowels and modifies the sibilants, transforming /kǝsεmiɲõsa/ into [kɔʃœmǝɲõʃɑ]. The distortion (s → ƒ) is perceived as a facial gesture by native speakers, as verified experimentally (op. cit.: 51). Another relevant distortion is that of vocal gesturing during the recitation of a poem, by which intonation can perform the depictive function generally reserved for bodily gestures. For example the vocal melody differs from the neutral melody to depict, through small successive risings, the flame of a match thrown to the ground, or by sinuous movements, the vengeance of the serpent crawling at the feet of the traitor (op. cit.: 298).

Functional parallelism

Voice and gesture provide what Cosnier and Brossard (1984) have called, borrowing the terms of Petöfi (1975), ‘context’ and ‘co-text.’ Vocal information and visual information define the contextual situation: the age, sex, and socio-cultural background of the speaker. They give indications of his physical and psychological condition and of his mood, emotions, and attitudes. Intonation and body motion (autosynchronization) combine to give form and life to a text—that is, to structure it by appropriate segmentation and emphasis—and to enrich it through secondary messages which modulate, confirm, contradict, or supplement the primary verbal message. As features of nonverbal and co-textual communication, intonation and gesture contribute to the syntax and semantics, in particular to the expressive and esthetic functions. Thus intonation and gesture serve the same functions, probably because both have the same type of encoding.

Parallelism in encoding

The encoding of a nonverbal sign (vocal or gestural) contrasts in general with that of a verbal sign:

As an example, let us consider a single referent signified (1) verbally by the phonemic string /aRεt/ (stop), (2) gesturally by the outward-raised palm, and (3) vocally by an apico-alveolar click [c]. There is no relation between the phonemic string and its signification except an arbitrary association fixed by convention and which thus has the advantage of being invariant. However . . .

• The hand or tongue signal evokes ‘stop’ by effectively stopping something. The nonverbal sign (gestural or vocal) is part of the referent it signifies: it is intrinsic.

• Forcefulness or moderation in the hand or tongue signal expresses an abrupt or progressive ‘stop.’ Modifying the nonverbal signs leads to a modification of the referent; the sign is continuously encoded. On the verbal level, a new phonemic string would be required to specify the type of ‘stop.’

• Finally, two raised hands may be interpreted as an insistent demand to stop, Gentlemen, calm down! or as capitulation in response to Stick ’em up! The sign is coded probabilistically. In short, while the verbal sign is generally arbitrary (extrinsic), analytic (discontinuous), and explicit (invariant), the nonverbal sign is by contrast most often motivated (intrinsic), synthetic and continuous, and ‘probabilistic,’ i.e., uncertain, therefore ideal for expressing the implicit. In fact, the speaker can always propose a physical reason to counter a psychological interpretation: the reproving tone was only a ‘frog in my throat,’ the wink of complicity was only ‘something in my eye.’ Nonverbal expression is probabilistic and secondary with respect to the linguistic textual information—although it structures and can sometimes substitute for the latter (vocal and gestural emblems)—but it often comes first on the level of interactional communication.

While it is analogical, the nonverbal sign is also conventional. This analogical character, generally admitted for gestural signs, is less often accepted for vocal signs. Nonetheless, the vocal sign is an involuntary reproduction of the vocal symptoms of an emotion, and the speech organs can represent other objects (other organs of the human body, external objects) which are associated to them by a functional analogy (Fónagy 1983: 18). For example, ‘a heliotropic movement (upward, outward) of the tongue corresponds in emotive speech to joy or cheerfulness, while the opposite movement, heliophobic (pulled inward and downward), corresponds to sadness or melancholy’ (op. cit.: 164). The vocal sign is part of the referent or presents an isomorphism between the expression and the content, and like the gestural sign, it is motivated. Motivated, symptomatic, and symbolic, nonverbal communication may be the phylogenetic and ontogenetic trace of preverbal language—serving to reduce physiological or mental tension—grafted onto verbal language (Fónagy 1971b, 1980).

Nonverbal communication is also conventional, as we have said. How is this so on the gestural level? The meaning of a given gesture is different from one culture to another. Morris et al. (1979: 147-160) give a good example of this in the ‘fig’ sign, the hand in a fist, with the thumb protruding between the forefinger and middle finger. The gesture is not arbitrary; it is conventional. It is only the choice from the range of possible motivations that is arbitrary. And on the vocal level? Motivated lingual or glottal movements are also conventional because they are perceived only as virtual ‘difference-gestures’ (Fónagy 1983: 153) with respect to a norm, the typical execution of a phoneme or neutral intonation. They consist in motivated distortions of the phonemic or intonative code of the language concerned.

Another characteristic shared by nonverbal signs, in contrast with verbal signs, is that they may be complex, i.e., they may combine several pieces of information at a given instant. This phenomenon is not due, as one might think, to the polysemy by which they combine significations, but rather to their characteristics of continuous, analogical encoding and their secondariness with respect to the text. The superposition of certain signifiers (sometimes truncated) expresses the whole set of corresponding signifieds, to be confronted with the text. This is the case of complex melody and complex gesture, both of which condense several signifieds. The following example of the vocal aspect is taken from Fónagy (op cit.: 293–295). An artistic metaphor is often ‘worked’ so as to condense several messages by a superposition of successively integrated melodies. In a semantic test, a line from the Hungarian poem ‘Old Age,’ Kik oly áldottnak véltetek egy arcot (who believed that a face was a blessing), was attributed a high value in diverse (almost contradictory) semantic dimensions: majesty, despondency, complaint, insistence, gentleness (Figure 29). ‘The impression of sadness probably comes from the progressive fall [d] which characterizes the entire meIodic structure. . . . The rising and falling by a half-tone within the accented syllable [a] is integrated into the melodic pattern of persuasion (or quarreling), which itself is integrated into the melodic curve of sighing [c] (resulting in [b]). This melodic curve, which especially dominates the beginning of the phrase, is resolved in a progressive and slow descent expressing a profound and gentle sadness. The absence of angularity, the very slow changes in pitch, and the clear but relaxed articulation recall caressing movements. They are probably the origin of the sadness attributed to the variant’ (op. cit.: 295). Complex gestures consist in the hybridization of two simple signifiers into a third. To the product (of relevant features) of the signifiers corresponds the sum of the signifieds (Chapter 6, Movement and configuration).

Figure 29 - Schematic illusfrating the superposition of simple melodies. From Fónagy 1983: 294.

Phono-gestural parallelism has numerous consequences. The characteristics shared by vocal music and body movement have been exploited in many ways (redundance, substitution, complementarity, counterpoint, contradiction) in art, and particularly in cinema. However, for psychotherapy the correlation between the vocal and gestural symptoms, which are presently studied separately, might be considered in greater depth. More specifically on the level of linguistic communication, vocal-gestural parallelism in the expression of emotions and attitudes allows them to be transmitted by only one of the channels: auditory or visual. The correlation can be exploited in teaching: in subject matter and approach. Verbal, intonative, and gestural clichés (Fónagy 1982: 40–41) should be used in language teaching (Calbris and Montredon 1980). Just as sound facilitates gestural performance (work or gymnastics accompanied by music), gesturing can help spoken performance. Gesturally rhythmizing a verbal string can help a foreigner to acquire the rhythm of the target language. Moreover, it has been experimentally verified that body attitude and movement have an acoustic influence on phonation (Wuilmart 1972). Certain speech therapists, particularly for the reeducation of the deaf, facilitate the learning of (more or less invisible) phonatory gestures by a systematic, analogical transfer of movements from the mouth to the whole body (Gosponetic 1967; Guberina 1955, 1972) or to the hand (Gladić 1982).

Gesture in discourse

Here, I will not treat (auto)synchronizing gestures, which segment utterances, but those which illustrate, supplement, or replace speech. Since each gesture has its own signified, the order I have adopted for the cases catalogued below is one of decreasing importance of the gesture: replacing an utterance, replacing the end of an utterance, accompanying an utterance as a complement or synonym (Calbris 1985c).

Functions of substitution

Gesture replacing an utterance

I will consider only gestures that substitute for speech in everyday conversation. They can be divided into two subsets, one associated with physical conditions, the other with psychological motives.

PHYSICAL MOTIVE.To understand each other, two people far apart or separated by a car window or in a noisy environment have to use gestures. For example, a driver flashes his headlights and wags his finger at a jaywalker.—A man hails a taxi. From behind the window, the driver shakes his forefinger from side to side. The answer is no; he has finished his workday.—Here is a TV commercial: having taken a Supradyne multivitamin, a young woman decides to walk to work rather than take the bus. As the bus passes her, she gesturally explains to the surprised driver: she raises her hand to her chest (= me?), shakes her finger from side to side in a frontal plane (= no), lowers her hand forward in a sagittal plane (= I’m going there . . . on foot).—At an intersection, the light turns from yellow to red. With two packages in her hands, a woman is preparing to cross as a truck, following a car which snuck through late on the yellow, moves into the intersection. Dumbfounded, the woman indicates the red light with her chin and with the package in her right hand; the truck driver answers by lifting his hand to his temple and stopping the truck. The woman bursts out laughing at this military salute, and the two exchange smiles. The ‘dialog’ might be: ‘Hey, the light’s red, isn’t it?’—‘Whatever you say, Ma’am!’—A taxi driver who boasted of driving fast and well, described to me a gestural dialog with some motorcycle policemen: I was flying. So the motorcycle cops . . . , [he raises his right hand and shakes it along the NE-SW diagonal then, palm facing the ground, makes it oscillate up and down, and finally, with the fingers joined and the palm facing forward, lifts it to his temple]. He thus reproduced the policemen’s warning gesture followed by a suggestion to slow down, to which he had answered with a military salute of obedience.

PSYCHOLOGICAL MOTIVE.Given the number of speech-substitute gestures which are negative reactions to the behavior or opinions of someone else, one is led to think that they are probably a way of denigrating or criticizing someone without much risk. The implicit is expressed while remaining prudently unspoken. The subject can denigrate, express irritation, skepticism, or disagreement, or refuse to believe, without exposing himself to reproach: he hasn’t said anything! Here are several examples. During a televised debate, a clergyman sighs loudly and tips his head to the left to make it clear that the stubbornness of one participant is beginning to tire him seriously. At another moment, and for the same reason, he tips his head and lifts his eyes, to take heaven to witness to the speaker’s exaggeration.—A man decries the idiocy and fussiness of a colleague to a 35-year-old supervisor. The latter agrees entirely by shaking his head from side to side, with his shoulders raised. His head movement is here synonymous with a cliché of disbelieving commiseration: It’s unbelievable!—The denigration of someone else is not always intended to be expressed openly, as shown by this scene on a bus: seeing a drunkard on the sidewalk take a swig of wine, the old man sitting next to me shook his head. Given the situation, I understood that his head movement expressed a denigrating exclamation with a negative verbal form: Si c’est pas malheureux! (If that’s not a real pity!).—The president of a meeting tips her head several times left and right to express sceptical hesitation concerning a hypothesis put forth by one of the members of the assembly.

Thus the head is tipped abruptly to one side to mark someone else’s exaggeration, tipped from side to side for hesitation, shaken laterally to imply something in a negative form, or raised to take heaven to witness to one’s misfortune.

In the film L’Argent des Autres by Christian de Chalonge (1978), there are several unspoken sequences in which gesture replaces speech. In a waiting room, a receptionist enters and looks at the hero. Without saying anything, the latter designates himself with his forefinger, and not receiving a negative answer he stands.—In answer to a taxi driver who asks him Where are we going? the hero, silent, lowers his hand several times in a sagittal plane ( = ‘Straight ahead’).—Later, receiving a visitor, he stretches his hand toward the latter’s shoulders to invite him to take off his coat. Is the absence of speech, bordering on impoliteness in the first two cases, intended to show not only the dryness of the executive or technocrat, but also his sobriety and efficiency? No verbal redundance. Action!

TO AVOID REDUNDANCE. Gesture can often be used to conclude, thus avoiding verbal redundance. A man is having lunch with some colleagues in a café. After an animated discussion, I see him (1) wipe his hands as if to wipe dust off them, then (2) by a symmetrical movement of the two face-down palms, trace a horizontal line, and finally (3) point his thumb behind himself. The gestural sequence might be translated as follows: (1) It’s finished, (2) definitively. (3) Now, it’s up to them.

Mediterranean people have a reputation for expressing themselves through gestures. On a TV news program, a journalist asks a small group of pieds-noirs (Algerian-born French) who stayed in Algeria: It’s no longer the way it was in the good old days of Bab El Oued? One of them answers with a sequence of two gestures: a repeated movement of the palm backward over his shoulder, then lifted open to the side, thus signifying that it’s been a long time since that period ended (backward movement), obviously (hand raised and open to ‘show’).

Gesture replacing the end of an utterance

Here, the first part of the message is verbal, the second part gestural. Serving as a relay, the gesture ends the sentence.

Numerous physical expressions can end utterances, such as those of refusal, rejection, offhand refusal, refusal of responsibility, ignorance, powerlessness, and so forth. The meanings of these gestures predispose them for use as endings. The same is true for the signifieds of ending, suppression, or falling. Gesture communicates these notions much more expressively than does speech. They are therefore found in gestural form at the ends of sentences. A woman, speaking of her depressive mother, points her hand downward: Nothing we can do; she * (= is letting herself sink).—To refuse in an offhand way, one throws one’s hand over the shoulder, with the palm facing it: So I’m starting to get sick of it, * (= I’m going to get rid of it).—To refuse any responsibility prudently, one raises one’s hands outward: I’il leave it like that, O.K., * (= I won’t touch anything).—With the edge of his hand, palm upward, a male nurse cuts sideways through the air as would a scythe: They operated on him, and three months later, * (= he died).—Someone expresses surprise at a particularly small piece of luggage. The person carrying it answers by wiping his hands as if to remove dust: Ah my bag, there are my pyjamas, * (= and that’s it, that’s all I need).—In a gesture synonymous with departure, the left hand slaps the right wrist (several times), with (a) the right hand in profile pointing outward or (b) palm facing down, fingers raised outward: He did it quietly, * (= he left).

Gesture is quite naturally substituted for speech when one prefers not to say something or does not know how to say it. In cases of prudence or impossibility to translate, gesture is there. For example, We were sometimes cleaner than *, and the hand refers behind to others who will remain unnamed. I had flowers, * ! The old woman’s sentence ends with a panoramic gesture by both hands to express in a single movement how she was surrounded by flowers and how she marvelled at the quantity of them. Lastly, for designating or localizing, it is more economical and more logical to show gesturally than to indicate verbally. It stuck there: *. The hand specifies: in my throat.

A message is composed of a topic and a comment. In general, the tension provoked by curiosity concerning the subject (topic) is released by the information given (comment). Note that in the examples cited above the topic is verbal and the comment gestural:

Why is it that gesture, and not speech, supplies the essential information? There are of course several possible reasons. (1) The essential information generally corresponds to the action, and hence implies movement. This is more logically expressed by a gesture. (2) The essential information provides the release. To appreciate this release, the preceding tension must be relatively drawn out. We might say that for maximum effect, the tension and release must contrast temporally. The period of tension is given by speech which is linear (slow), the moment of release by a synthetic movement (fast). (3) The gestural expression, being rapid, has the advantage of being more expressive than the verbal expression and more accessible, since it can be easily decoded by all.

A gesture may be the equivalent of a one-word sentence, i.e., a monoremous comment. It may happen that the gestural monoreme is coupled with a verbal monoreme. It is then the verbal expression which is redundant with respect to the gestural, in contrast with the usual situation. Here are some examples: The wind brrr, * [the edge of the hand ‘mows’] broke them.—Someone is talking about a widow: You’ll see, in two months, Carla will laugh, * [the edge of the hand, palm down, cuts the air transversely in a sign of suppression]: forgotten!—A young woman confides how she liberated herself: Once I got a job, * [a voiceless whistle and hand gesture sweeping forward]: sent packing! These fall into the following pattern: speech (+ onomatopoeia) + gesture + equivalent verbal monoreme.

It would seem that for greater effect, the speaker, like a child, expresses himself through onomatopoeia (Brrr), whistling and gesture. Then, having misgivings about his mode of expression, he feels the need to add a verbal epilogue in the form of a monoreme: broke them, forgotten, sent packing. More exactly, the speaker makes it understood that he has not acted out of ignorance, but for greater expressiveness.

Polysemous gestures as speech substitutes

The lateral head-shake is polysemous and covers three different motivations, revealed through the study of its variants (Chapter 6, Repetition). This head gesture can depict (1) negation; (2) totality (A strange story, * I’ll tell you everything), and through it, acquiescence (Absolutely, * entirely, of course) or perfection, the judgmental derivative of totality (* A very warm welcome, very kind); or (3) approximation (* Over roughly five years.—We will be able to cure * (= roughly) 50,000 cases of different diseases). Of these signifieds, only negation can be expressed without speech.

The rapid transverse movement of the horizontal, prone hand is another polysemous gesture with plural motivation. As such, it illustrates the notions of abundance or totality (and their derivatives: the superlative and perfection), negation, direct consequence (and derivatives) or certainty, and finally a cut or break. Out of context, it signifies an end (‘That’s all,’ ‘Finished’), combining the three notions of totality, stopping or negation, and cutting. Each of the two gestures just mentioned, though polysemous, refers to a single signifier when substituted for speech.

Conversely, let us see if a single gestural substitute corresponds to a given signified. For example, for the French, the gesture synonymous with perfection consists in joining the tips of the thumb and forefinger in a vertical ring. But the two polysemous gestures considered above—the lateral head-shake and the transverse movement of the horizontal, prone hand—may also illustrate the notion of perfection. Similarly, if asked to signify approximation, the French spontaneously perform the gesture synonymous with Couci-couça: the fingers are spread, generally lax and curved, and by rotating the forearm, the hand oscillates about a vertical or horizontal axis (Illustration 18). At the same time, the French unconsciously illustrate approximation in a variety of ways (Chapter 3, Approximation), as shown in Figure 30: (1) the available margin is depicted by a lateral head-shake * which indicates the interval between two given limits, one to the left and one to the right; (2) imperfect adjustment or lack of clarity is depicted by an alternating movement, or more often a rotation, of the forearm which makes the hand oscillate in profile around a vertical axis; (3) certain adverbial expressions are illustrated by sculpting a hemisphere: the equivalent, * roughly, of two hectoliters per hectare. However, it may be noted that the gesture chosen as a substitute (4) is a synthesis of the other variants, each of which illustrates an etymological equivalent: (1) an interval: Entre deux (lit. between two), (2) oscillation: Autour de (about), (3) the global character of something: En gros (around, roughly). It might thus seem that among the gestural variants of a signified, there is only one which may act as a speech substitute. This is not the case if we consider the variants of negation. Of the ten possible variants (Figure 20), the lateral head-shake and the finger shake in a frontal plane signify ‘No’ in isolation. As for the palm raised outward, while in context it may be a sign of polite refusal (‘No thank you’), out of context it is more likely to be understood as ‘Stop.’

Illustration 18. Couci-couça—So-so. Illustration by Zaü for Calbris and Montredon 1986: 19, by permission of CLE International

Figure 30 - The emblem Couci-Couça is a synthesis of other gestural variants.

Complex gestures as speech substitutes

In principle, this situation is unlikely. A complex gesture, composed of features borrowed from other gestures, is understood through confrontation with verbalized signifieds and their usual gestural signifiers. However, here is an example of the combination of two gestures which are common speech substitutes: the phallic forearm jerk and tossing the hand over the shoulder in a sign of offhand refusal. Initially a crude insult, the phallic forearm jerk is becoming a sign of offhand refusal, albeit vulgar. It is therefore logical to find a synthesis of the signifiers corresponding to this synthesis of signifieds. Va te faire foutre (‘Fuck you!’): the forearm is raised, but rather than being closed in a fist, the hand is tossed, with the palm facing backward (Wylie 1977: 72). Of course the left hand on the biceps recalls the phallic forearm jerk. Thus it seems that a synthetic gesture can be a speech substitute only if its components may be substitutes individually.

Economy of information

Complementary gesture accompanying an utterance

Here the utterance is not truncated; the gesture indicates the attitude of the speaker. This attitude may be, among other possibilities, a positive reaction (joy), or a negative reaction, whether active (anger, irritation) or passive (powerlessness, grief). Concerning the listener, the gesture may be a way to ‘soften up’ (to excuse oneself or ask for something), to reassure, or on the contrary, to denigrate, threaten, warn, etc. From attitude, we move to positive or negative commentary, the simplest being the highlighting or minimization of the utterance. The most common sign of emphasis is the gesture corresponding to the exclamation of abundance, Oh là là! Another is the gesture which consists in lifting the prone forearm in front of the chest and jabbing the fist outward. Here, it is a synonym of strength: Fort (strong); Très (very); Super (coll. great, very); Vachement (coll. very), and becomes a superlative. Inversely, a sideways tip of the head, synonym of ‘If you like,’ ‘In a way,’ nuances and restricts the statement, while a lateral head-shake will strengthen it by denying in advance a possible objection of the listener. Several examples corresponding to different types of complementary gestures follow.

ATTITUDE TOWARD AN EVENT. No, no, six o’clock, *she’ll invite me; that way, I’ll eat, and the child rubs her hands with joy at the idea of the meal.—* Nobody talks about it: a man expresses his anger by pounding the table once with his fist.—* Oh là là!: relating someone else’s criticism, a student recalls how she was irritated at the time by tapping her fingers on her satchel and smirking.—* No, it’s been going on for three months: the hands raised to shoulder height and let fall onto the thighs depict powerlessness and imply: ‘There’s nothing I can do.’

ATTITUDE TOWARD THE LISTENER. An actress corrects a talk-show host, tipping her head to the side to indicate ‘Excuse me’: * President of drama programs (= only).—To ‘soften up’ her mother and make her change her mind, a young girl cocks her head: * Even if I put a big sweater under the dress, you can’t tell.—The weatherman pushes his two hands forward, palm down, to reassure the TV viewers: * It will be better tomorrow.—Under seven francs, * she wanted (to buy a present). Is the lateral head-shake, here a synonym of the negative exclamation ‘I can’t believe it,’ intended to denigrate the stinginess of the person in question?—No, * you think the director will accept that?! By touching his temple with his forefinger, the speaker insinuates that the listener is crazy.—The French President delivers a warning, shaking his finger: * But don’t expect more than that from me.

COMMENTING ON SOMETHING. Say the speaker considers a phenomenon to be certain, evident, typical, or doubtful. For certainty, the palm draws a continuous straight line in a transverse movement: M-A, M-I, * his name came before, he had nothing to worry about. Turning the palm up and to the side adds the quality of obviousness: Thirteen years * (= obviously). Lowering the edge of the hand depicts the clarity, the clear-cut nature of something: * And that was typical. On the contrary, oscillating the hand from one side to the other of the sagittal plane represents uncertainty. The vertical shaking of the hand, which is a substitute for the verbal cliché Oh là là! or Aïe aïe aïe, applies to phenomena expected to be or experienced as painful: * I’m going to have a phone bill (= pretty stiff).—* If you get caught (= you’re in trouble).—* On the toe! (= that hurts).

Accompanying or replacing the verbal expression Oh là là!, the vertical shaking of the hand is often a simple augmentative exclamation: * That caused some scandal—That took * a heck of a lot of courage.—Did you see the portal, * wow, isn’t that beautiful?—Oh right, * there’s a really long climb!—* The metro was packed!—But when the police go by, * it starts raining parking tickets.—* If you knew the number of women who have had uterus operations.—Really, old age * is dreadful! The gesture may also replace parts of a sentence. In the following utterances—* I’m going to have a phone bill. . .—The first programmers * entered bits one by one.—* A half hour on the phone.—the gesture evokes the large amount of money, work and time, respectively. An additional gestural expression seems to give the reason for the exclamation, as if the raised hand or head depicted the grandeur or quantity before which one exclaims, (a) The hand is raised in profile at head-level: * It’s excessively expensive now.—* The noise, the disputes, it’s incredible.—* I’ve been hearing that for some time, (b) The head is lifted back, as if to better exclaim: * Oh my, it’s cluttered!—* Ah, major question! Another way to accentuate is to jab the fist outward, symbolizing maximal strength and expressing the idea of the superlative: I didn’t think that * it was as energetic as that.—* Super salty water.

As a sign of attenuation, the lateral tipping of the head, which is synonymous with ‘If you like,’ gesturally nuances an answer: * I’m all right. A lateral head-shake * often serves to refuse a possible objection. It thus strengthens an utterance. For example, Last summer, * we worked a lot: the head movement tacitly contradicts the notion, previously voiced, that business is bad during the summer.

It is interesting to note that the complementarity of gesture with respect to speech already appeared in the study of mismatches during the semantic test based on the presentation of filmed gestures (Chapter 1, Extension of a situation).

Synonymous gesture accompanying an utterance

In the strict sense of the word, one cannot speak of gesture and speech as being ‘synonymous,’ since the two means of communication are coded fun damentally differently. I am here speaking of synonyms in the metaphorical sense: a gesture is said to be synonymous if it can be verbalized in the form of the utterance. This said, I am tempted, given the examples at my disposal, to use the word ‘synonymous’ both (a) in the narrow sense, in which there is no semantic difference between the two terms, and (b) in the weak sense in which a certain number of different semantic traits are accepted. Thus gestures which can be verbalized in the same form as the utterances which they accompany are classified under the heading (a) of equivalent synonyms. There are other cases in which the meaning of the gesture is instead complementary to the textual message communicated verbally. Such gestures will be considered as (b) complementary synonyms. Of course this dichotomy is arbitrary since the distinction is more or less graded. However, it will help me to emphasize this distinction.

Complementary Synonyms

Lastly, the following table provides an example of parallel and complementary gestural communication on the part of a husband to his wife. These examples show that, while synonymous with the utterance, the gesture oscillates, according to its degree of ambivalence, between redundance and complementarity. Of course, it always adds expressiveness. Equivalent synonyms have the advantage of enriching the utterance without prolonging it, or tiring the listener. The same is true for complementary synonyms, which specify the comment.

Simultaneous visual commentary

Certain gestures serve an explanatory function. The speaker shows, through a concrete representation, the movement executed by or on some technical object, or a configuration of features difficult to describe verbally; the visual representation of a spiral quickly makes it clear what a spiral staircase is. Again for clarity, a speaker who feels the need for concrete redundance will visually explain what he is saying. For example, a journalist is talking about the median salary, that is to say, not the average salary, but in the middle. For the mean salary which represents the point of equilibrium between lower and higher salaries, he oscillates his horizontally held palms up and down; to situate the median salary, at the middle of the scale, he joins his hands and pushes them straight out from the middle of the chest.—A scientist establishes a parallel between the operation of certain nuclear particle accelerators and the centrifugal movement of better known machines: Let’s say [forefinger draws a horizontal circle] they are a little like creamers.—Someone is discussing Newton’s law, * that is to say, the law of attraction between two bodies. The gesture of the two face-to-face fists which move apart and then come together becomes the manifestation of this law of attraction. From these examples, it would seem as though ‘that is to say’ sometimes implies a gesture, something ‘that is to be done’ by the speaker.

The gesture sometimes plays an involuntary pedagogical role. In contrast with a foreign language teacher, the speaker does not intend to explain, but the concrete gestural representation of the utterance might allow a less informed listener to guess the meaning of words unknown to him. Such may be the case for a person of modest cultural background who hears words like ‘anachronism,’ ‘logorrhea,’ ‘consolidate,’ ‘dichotomy.’ The following examples were taken from television programs:

In addition to its explanatory function, an illustrative gesture lifts the ambiguity in a polysemous word by specifying the intended meaning. For example: You have to be sort of a medium [eyes upward, the hand is raised above the head and lowered again, depicting inspiration from the heavens or the connection between earth and ‘the beyond’], it happens to you just like that. The gesture indicates the intended signification of the French word médium: someone gifted with the power to communicate with spirits, a meaning which differs from the usage in music (‘middle register’), logic (‘middle term’) or painting (‘thinner’).—One ‘arranges’ (Fr. classer) facts differently from files (put in their place) or business deals (closed). The gesture concretizes the meaning ‘to divide and order’ given to the word ‘arrange’: Because that allowed me to separate and * then to arrange . . .—A good example is the clarification of the word régulier, which has several meanings, each of which can be specified by a gesture (Figure 31). In each of the three cases, the gesture is itself polysemous. The combination of an equivocal word with a polysemous gesture leaves a single meaning (in italics below):

Figure 31 - Specification by gesture.

Combining two polysemous features to yield a single meaning

Here, we find the anchoring function proposed by Roland Barthes for the analysis of figure captions; but the relation is inverted since the anchorage is provided by the visual element. As we have seen, the gesture also relays the utterance, if only by replacing the end of a sentence, thus serving as a complement to the beginning. For example, shaking one’s finger in a sagittal plane while saying, * C’est pas régulier, seems to add, ‘You’re in for trouble!’ Associated with the sentence, the complementary gesture serves as both relay and anchor here, since through the signified warning, it implies the meaning: ‘That’s not allowed.’

Gesture continually supplies remarks which complement speech, whether they concern an attitude or a judgment (positive, shaded, reserved, negative). Finally, it reinforces or attenuates the utterance.

Gesture and the analysis of discourse

Gestural argumentation

We will deal successively with gestures that describe the action of arguing, those that gesturalize arguments, and those that are part of a dialectical strategy.

Certain gestures etymologically describe the action of speaking: several times during a demonstration, one may hold one’s hand out to the side as if to show in space some abstract object. This gestural transfer from concrete designation to abstract designation is, logically, a corollary to the same transfer on the verbal plane. A gesture and the corresponding word are both used literally and figuratively.

These demonstrative gestures accompany different phases of a statement, from the introduction of an example (* Take the Church, for example) to a consequence (Téléfoot 1, * on TF1 naturally [French TV station]) and to the conclusion. Often, to cover the whole of the demonstration, the gesture accompanying the conclusion can be broader or symmetric: ** So, we are going to do some reading comprehension exercises. The symmetric movement is reduced to a spreading of the thumbs outward if the speaker’s hands are joined. To express obviousness, the gesture of opening the hand out to the side, synonymous with ‘You see’ (* Of course.—** Ah yes!) can be substituted for speech. Another expression of obviousness, raising the shoulder(s) and/or eyebrows(s) in exclamation, can be superposed on or substituted for the hand gesture. An example of raising the shoulder: Is it the life of the mind that interests you most? * Obviously, answers a writer. And raising the eyebrows (head tipped to the side, eyelids lowered): * Of course, yes, it has changed.

When the argument is not evident, the listener asks for explanation or elaboration by the gestural depiction of unrolling, i.e., several loops in a vertical plane: * Explain it to me a little. To bring out his reasoning, a speaker often uses antithesis accompanied by a backward semicircle executed in various ways (Illustration 19, 1–3): with one hand *¹, with the thumb and forefinger spread apart rotating sagittally backward 180° *², or with both hands turning one around the other *³: ^*1 However, the success of pornographic movies . . .—*² It’s the inverse phenomenon.—*³ We should be thinking the opposite. Another form of return is the idea taken up again. To return to a point already touched on in a discussion, the speaker moves his hand or forefinger toward himself in a vertical, sagittal *^a, or frontal *^b plane: *^a Well, let’s go back to Vidal de Lablache.,—*^b As for the family. . . . If the speaker returns to a point to reargue it, the backward arc that he draws is extended to the point of starting a forward movement, as if the gesture illustrated the fact of going back to a point only to carry the discussion further forward: And it is from that angle *^a that I wanted to take up the preceding question again. In a way, the gesture returns to various points and resumes in order to conclude: *^b In other words, these people . . .—*^b Therefore, I would say. . . .

Illustration 19. Antithesis. Illustration by Zaü for Calbris and Montredon 1986: 22, by permission of CLE International

On a more conceptual and volitional level of argumentation, we can situate expressions of certainty (Chapter 4, Certainty—Doubt—Disbelief), objection (Chapter 4, Agreement—Disagreement), and restriction. The gestural variants of the latter show that it can be seen as:

• a partial objection. There are two possible forms: the hands partially raised present only a tipped plane in opposition, or the raised index presents a considerably reduced surface.

• a logical opposition. Beginning a backward circular movement typical of antithesis, the speaker goes back to a previous point to contradict it. The gesture might imply ‘Contrary to what you think’: * I’m only saying that you shouldn’t think it’s not possible.—* But if it means questioning the hierarchy. . . .

• a different point of view. The head is either turned or lowered to the side. In one case, it refers to another side, another aspect, of things, thus introducing a restriction or new nuance: There are contradictions that he would not be able to accept, * although one contradiction more or less. . . . In the second case, the lateral tipping of the head, which illustrates the expression ‘from a certain angle,’ depicts a point of view charged with numerous possible meanings, one of which is restriction: Yes, * but that depends how. Gestures of argumentation and judgment in various situations are the subject of a video tape designed for teaching French as a foreign language (Didi and Montredon 1987).

Many gestures are part of a dialectical strategy. For example, they express agreement or disagreement or refusal, a request for an opinion, agreement or confirmation, giving or taking ‘the floor.’ Certain gestures are intended to prompt the speaker to go on, to reassure him, or on the contrary to interrupt him or make him wait before letting him speak. All of these attitudes and intentions are expressed by or accompanied by gestures, classified below according to motivation.

PALM OUTWARD.Though polysemous, this gesture always implies negation and is derived from a defensive reflex that consists in raising the forearms in front of oneself as a shield. This (self-)protection sign, ** That’s all I’m saying (= don’t put words into my mouth), serves, through a role reversal, to reassure the speaker: Calm down, * don’t worry, * it’ll be all right.— * Let me ask you one last question (= don’t worry). This is the gesture used by one politician to mark his disagreement and to try to stop a journalist who is quoting him. Thus the same gesture serves, among other things, to protect oneself, to reassure, or to refuse.

PALM PUSHED FORWARD, LEVEL.Jabbed toward a partner, palm down, the hand interrupts him or makes him wait.

• Interrupting. Sometimes, very cleverly, the listener who gestures and shows his intention in an imperative way softens the speaker verbally by simulating agreement, which is another way to cut someone off and get a word in: Absolutely, absolutely, * but. . . . Another diplomatic way of breaking into the dialog is to declare * Just one remark. . . .

• Continuing to speak. The same gesture is used to break off any attempt at interrupting, in order to go on talking: No wait, * let me finish.—* One last thing so I don’t forget. Parallel to gesture, there are several ways to intimidate vocally. An aggressive way is to speak louder and faster; another way, authoritative and assured, is to slow down and speak in a calm, staid voice. This gesture is often simply a request for someone to wait: * Yes, I’ll be with you right away.

PALM EXTENDED TOWARD PARTNER.A point of agreement is quickly indicated (in passing) with the hand ^*1 or forefinger *², which designates the thing to the partner: Ah there, ^*1 like that, that’s good.— *² Yes, that’s right.—*² Exactly! A remark will generally be introduced by the same gestures, accompanying words like tiens (take this), justement (exactly), à propos, puisqu’on parle de. . . (since we’re talking about . . .). In both cases, the point in question is abruptly pointed out to the speaker. The gestures seem to be strictly equivalent. However, the forefinger better expresses briskness and rapidity in the indication, whereas the hand, despite the abruptness, maintains a certain deference to the speaker, verbally expressed by certain utterances:^*1 Precisely on that point, you need votes. While the forefinger can substitute for the hand to designate or localize, it cannot replace the latter to offer or request. Only the palm may be used when making a proposal, letting someone speak (* Please, go ahead), or asking for confirmation (* You’ll come, of course?).

We have seen that the complementarity of simultaneous gesture and speech saves time and allows an economical exchange of information (Chapter 8, Economy of information). This complementarity often provides for a clever balance or compensation between the verbal and nonverbal information with regard to the listener. A negative gesture might be balanced by a positive utterance, or a negative utterance by a physical sign of respect: a way of being tactful with the listener and improving one’s position. For example, we have just seen that when interrupting, the gestural brutality is often compensated for with verbal politeness. Inversely, one might excuse oneself gesturally for having to correct verbally. Thus, to diplomatically correct a statement by someone else, the speaker might tip his head toward his shoulder. After that, there will be cellular division, and the doctor politely corrects: * No, not right away.

Gesturalizing the implicit

How can form be given to what is unsaid? Several functions of gesture can, as complements to speech (see above), serve this purpose. Here, I will cite several exchanges in which the gesturer, using discretion and playing on the ambiguity of the visual sign, transmits certain impressions at the expense of someone (denigration), or gives information without a third party knowing (connivance).

A pejorative judgment of the intellectual capacities or the behavior of someone must, out of prudence, be tacitly communicated. Several gestural expressions exist (Chapter 8, Psychological motive). The most typical consists of calling on heaven as witness by raising, rolling up, or closing the eyes, and sometimes by raising one or both hands. One can also denigrate using other expressions such as smirking in disagreement, shrugging one’s shoulders in offhand indifference, abruptly lowering the head or tipping it back and forth in a frontal plane to indicate that someone is exaggerating, a prolonged, loose blowing to show tedium, or a lateral head-shake synonymous with certain verbal expressions of denigration. These signs may be combined. For example, a woman bothered by a caustic old lady on a bus discreetly performs several of them in sequence: she first tries to solicit moral support from the person facing her by a symmetric smirk (= She’s hard to put up with), then she shakes her head very slightly (= This can’t be true) and finally lifts her eyes up quickly (= Ah Lord!). The combined smirk, lateral head-shake, glance skyward, and sigh might mean: Oh my goodness, Lord, I might as well give up! Many figurative expressions referring to faults may be illustrated by or replaced by gestures (Didi and Montredon 1986).

On the intellectual level, during an oral presentation for example, disagreement on, doubt about, or adherence to the speaker’s statements are formulated gesturally, not verbally. Here are some examples. The listener refuses to accept an assertion by shaking his head; he hesitates as to the soundness of a thesis by tipping his head from left to right; he expresses a reservation by tipping his head to the side (= if you like, that’s one point of view). The latter gesture will be more marked, closer to doubt, if the speaker lifts an eyebrow (question) and pushes his lips out in a moue or lowers the corners of his mouth in a movement of negative (gustative) judgment, a sign of scepticism. Inversely, he will indicate his agreement with various statements by a slight forward tip of the head, even when listening to a sermon or watching a speaker on television. Are these signs voluntary? We have a malicious tendency to consider them as such whenever they are negative. Indeed, to what extent are they spontaneous reactions to the speaker’s statements or reactions consciously communicated to the other listeners under the hypocritical veil of spontaneity?

However, there exists a typically French vocal-gestural expression for anything implied, and it accompanies or replaces the negative elliptical expression Ça . . . ! (lit. that). Ignorance, indifference, powerlessness, denigration, prudence, warning, rudeness, refusal of responsibility, the derogatory expression of obviousness, etc., may be implied by elliptical sentence fragments in which appear primarily demonstrative pronouns referring to the subject or person in question, Ça . . .! Celui-là . . . ! or personal pronouns, Avec eux . . . ! (With them . . . you have to expect anything), Oh moi . . . ! (Oh me . . . I’m the fifth wheel of the coach), or else the adverb Là . . .! (There . . . I have nothing to say), which may be defined as a context shifter. Differentiated, complementary gestures may be grafted to the basic kinesic expression to specify more precisely what is implied (Chapter 7, Passive refusal).

When you cannot, do not want to, or do not know how to say something, gesture, compensating for verbal expression, is there. On one TV program, two old friends, eighty years old, are recounting their work as miners. One of them explains: * And then the two youngsters, they went to the mine. Her hands turn one around the other, interconnected in a rotary movement to signify that they, like their parents, were caught up in the mechanism and had to go to work in the mine. Here, the speech-complementary gesture expresses an important idea that is perhaps difficult for the woman to formulate. She therefore chooses a gestural formulation of the concept.

Gestural preformulation of verbal information

Gestures help people to make themselves understood, to express themselves; body and mind participate in a single expression. The speaker can use gestural information to anticipate and complement an utterance. This aspect became clear to me as I watched an ethnologist bring each statement of an exposé to life. The beginning of each of the gestures listed below slightly preceded the word or phrase it illustrated.

This gestural anticipation may have several roles: to help the speaker find the word with the appropriate imagery, to serve as communicative compensation if he is afraid of not finding the right term, and to keep the listener interested by inducing him to guess at and verify the words that follow. The following example concerns two professors in a televised round-table discussion in 1978 concerning French professional jargon. Having shown his disagreement with a moue and transverse movement of the head from left to right, participant X intervenes to specify. Note that the context is a spoken one, so that the statements are made hesitatingly, with things left implicit. The gesture described in brackets immediately precedes the part of the sentence concerned:

• [raised forefinger] Unless maybe the question is posed in terms of power, as Louis [designated with the forefinger] suggested posing it at the beginning, because it’s conceivable [forefinger pressing down to insist] that on the contrary there are [with the forearm prone, the fingers sketch a horizontal circle, both to take control and delimit a zone] local cases of power being taken from the kind of intermediate power, a little bit [the hand traces a transverse line to announce the negative effect of the following word] blinding, that, [hesitant wavering of forefinger, which moves to the left and then, ‘decided,’ to the right] well, some of the people [forefinger points down] here were part of, [forefinger points down for localization or scansion?] here [the spread fingers move sideways to cover a certain surface] in a broad sense. But [he designates Louis with his hand in order to let him speak] you wanted. . . .

• The other speaker also marks his sentences with a downward movement of the forefinger, a frequent movement which I did not note down: Though I see clearly [forefinger sketches a regressive circular movement from back to front] what he has in the back of his mind, [movement of taking hold] which is to make the methodology autonomous as a place [movement to the left announcing a two-sided sentence structure] to come to, on the one hand, [encircling movement] that can be circumscribed and from which, then, we can have [the hand traces vertical loops to express the consequential development] a certain number of applications.

• Here, lastly, are two good examples of gestural anticipation of an illustrated utterance. Both sentences were uttered with the gesture (symmetric) of rubbing the tips of the fingers with the thumb: * The audience has to be hooked. It’s a question of feeling—* As time goes on, I ‘feel’ more and more uneasiness. Here, the gestural formulation considerably precedes the verbal formulation.

This phenomenon seems to prove that gestural activity participates in the activity of speech generation. Other observations confirm this conclusion:

• The phenomenon of autosynchronization pointed out by Condon and detailed by Kendon. The latter showed the isomorphism between the hierarchical structures of gesture and speech.

• Gesturing even when one is not visible (on the telephone, with blind people, when hidden), recently demonstrated by Rimé (1983), corroborates the idea that movement is as much associated with the encoding of verbal information as with its transmission, and may even be more so.

• An experiment by Cosnier (1977), along the same lines as one by Dittman (1972), shows that the recitation of a text learned by heart is not accompanied by paraverbal gestural activity, nor are the reading or repetition of sentences, but that coverbal gesturing is especially used in the course of verbal improvisation.

In the same way as vocal expression, gestural expression is a phylogenetic and ontogenetic trace of preverbal language, a useful and complementary trace of nonverbal language in verbal communication. Gestural preformulation of verbal information appears as a phenomenon of the hyperreduction of an acquisition process: the evolution of language through human history, relived by children, is synthetically translated by adults into the process of speaking itself. To the notions of phylogenesis and ontogenesis of language, we can add that of actogenesis. This anticipation of speech by gesture is found in psychoanalysis: Mahl (1976: 219–310) notes that a patient first reveals nonverbally the things in his subconscious that he will subsequently verbalize. Does this preliminary nonverbal manifestation facilitate awareness?

Gesture and language

Gestural metaphor

In a way, gesture attests to the metaphor passing from (a) something concrete to (b) the physical representation of something abstract. The face-to-face palms are moved farther apart to represent either (a) A path * this wide, or (b) A fairly extensive work to be put into images.—The same tracing of superposed lines is appropriate for both of the following sentences: (a) * So they constructed these rows, these rows of berths; (b) . . . * that is, the superposition of a whole series of signifieds.—Raising high the vertically held hand refers to the summit: (a) * So it gets through, so the guys at the top hear; (b) Think of the ’50s when * we carried to the pinnacle. . . .—The scissors movement of the forefinger and middle finger can cut a text as well as cloth: (a) * I had cut the suspenders; (b) * So they cut it (concerning a history textbook in which ‘Muslim fanatics’ was replaced by ‘Muslims’).—A diver and a secretary draw a level at a certain height: (a) There is a rise that ends * in a plateau, a kind of mountain * that levels off at a very high plateau; (b) They climbed very quickly, and now * they’ve reached a plateau in their careers.

More frequently, the gesture recalls the concrete nature of a word taken in a figurative sense. It evokes the image contained virtually in the word. For example, the prone hands symmetrically indicate a single horizontal plane: He ought to be brought down to ** the level of men.—Held parallel and sagittally, they are moved to the other side: Television has become a * parallel power and parallel knowledge.—The horizontal hand is lifted one ‘notch’: The administrative and technical personnel earn less, but they are psychologically * above us.—Or lowered a notch: C. is the sales manager * under F.—The back of the hand pushes forward a decision to be made: I’m so unclear about what comes next that * I admit I’m putting it off.—Or brushes something to the side: They [women] must be integrated and not * rejected.

We often observe an anticipated and apparently contradictory backing off from the metaphor. The speaker announces the approximate nature of his comparison, ‘like that,’ ‘a kind of,’ ‘so to speak,’ while feeling the need to illustrate it. For example, a philosopher slightly rotates his hand held sagittally to depict this hinge, like that, of the century.—A politician mimes jumping over an obstacle: There is a kind of handicap [his hands make two parallel arcs which pass over, frontward] that we have to overcome.—For a personal metaphor, a professor mimes opening an umbrella * : I didn’t agree * with the sort of institutional umbrella that he opened by saying. . . .—A writer admits: I like [his cupped hands close] my shell, so to speak.

These examples seem to me to converge toward the following interpretation. The speaker explains that a given phenomenon presents an analogy or similitude with something concrete. From there, in a way, comes the logical necessity of concretely recalling the thing in question, even though there is apparently a contradiction in using a word abstractly while representing it concretely. In fact, the analogy between the abstract and concrete meanings depends on ‘abstraction’, on pulling the symbol out from the concrete. Hence the need to depict the symbol which insures the link and renders the idea or action abstracted from the concrete. The approach seems very pedagogical: the speaker verbally announces the analogy and gesturally demonstrates the ‘ab-(s)tracted’ relationship.

In the same spirit, many ‘figurative’ expressions are depicted or illustrated concretely: When a smuggler is caught [with spread fingers, the prone hand mimes snatching] ‘la main dans le sac’ (lit. with his hand in the bag = red-handed) so to speak. The expression is not very appropriate since the smuggler was caught with his stomach full of bags of heroin. But the figurative expression cries out for illustration.—[The fingers of the right hand, raised and supine, are opened and closed several times] Young people have a tendency to catch current trends on the fly.—When they bring their discoveries in on a silver platter [simultaneously, the hands, palms up and side-by-side, are offered to the listener].—It’s a case of mythomania [fingers spread, the downward palms move apart to cover a broad surface] that’s spreading (Fr. faire tache d’huile ≡ lit. make an oil spot).—But Great Britain [the hands held sagittally are lowered forward on either side of the eyes] had blinders on; they weren’t realistic.—The forefinger points forward to criticize the way of pointing the finger of public condemnation.—The speaker points down with his forefinger to say: Pierre Salinger put his finger on the prime constraint.—The speaker crosses her fists as though they were tied together by a rope: You’re tied hand and foot to your manager.

Many expressions are personal creations. When they are figurative, they are of course illustrated gesturally. One biographer speaks of Jean-Paul Sartre thus: the man who [palms forward, the cupped hands close for a moment as though squeezing a sponge so that it absorbs better] quickly absorbs whatever you give him. One person comments that industrial society [with the fingers stretched in a horizontal tube—a suction pipe—the hand moves slowly to the right] sucks women into the home.—Someone is criticizing today’s authors who are very picky about their rights: I’ve found a piece of work [the hand closes around an imaginary pole and is abruptly lowered], I plant my flag on it.—While moving to the side, the downward palm is lowered then raised to trace a dip: When we were * in an unspeakable cultural ditch.

Etymological gestures

A gesture often gives the forgotten, concrete origin of a word, i.e., its etymology. Wondering why a particular gesture was associated with a particular word, I have often looked the word up in a dictionary and have found the gesture to be a description of the term’s initial and concrete meaning. The gesture thus reveals the initial passage from concrete to abstract: it is a diachronic gestural metaphor. It remotivates the expression. It appears that the initial gesture is maintained, more or less unconsciously, under the surface, while the polysemous chain of the word is formed, evolves, and is enriched in time. Is the corollary gesture stable because it is concrete and subconscious? There are many examples of this; some have already been given. Here I present only a few samples:

• In accordance with the etymology of the words illustrated, vertical loops with one hand * or intertwined circles with two hands ** depict (a) the course and evolution of things (from L. evolutio: action of unrolling; volvere: to roll): I heard X say that companies * will develop better . . . ; (b) unfolding, the cycle of seasons (from G. kuklos: circle): No, paid programs * for retraining (Fr. se recycler); (c) repetition of events, alternating succession in rounds (by rotation, in turn, etc.): Will somebody * pick up where you left off?—There were 250,000 of them since ** in turns, a lot came and went; (d) the linked chain of events ad infinitum: ** That could go on indefinitely.—When you’re ** caught up in something, you’ve got to go forward.

• Speakers express the idea of opposition contained in the word ‘inverse’ (L. invertere: to return) by a backward or inward circular movement extended to the point of going in the opposite direction, i.e., forward or outward: * Et c’est l’inverse (It’s the other way around).—* Mais par contre (However). The movement may be performed in either a sagittal or frontal plane.

• The palms, held out to the listener—to accompany a proposal, an exposé, a demonstration, an explanation (Fr. explication), or a development—recall the etymology of the corresponding words, the concrete origin of these activities. A proposal is gesturally ‘pro-posed,’ an exposé ‘ex-posed,’ evidence or a demonstration is shown and seen, an explication (L. explicare: to fold out) is unfolded, a development is laid out (see Chapter 8, Gestural argumentation).

• With the fingers spread and curved toward the speaker, the hand seems to take hold of something. It ‘com-prehends,’ ‘grasps’ an idea. The action may apply to oneself or to someone else. The gesture is performed by anyone who wishes to make sure someone else has understood him: * Do you understand; do you see what I’m saying? It may also illustrate the idea of conviction, as the following example shows: We’re wondering if you want to support him [the spread fingers of the right hand are curled inward and very tense] with enthusiasm. Generally used to convince, this gesture represents conviction, the ‘adoption’ of a stance, and reproduces the action of ‘taking upon oneself.’

• Information is manipulated, faith is transformed, a formula is rearranged, music is rendered in a particular manner by a conductor. In each case, spread and curved fingers grasp, transform, and manipulate the abstraction as though it were a material in space, thus recalling the etymology of the words ‘manipulate’ (L. manipule: handful) and ‘manner’ (O. Fr. manier—L.L. manuarius: of the hand, in hand).

The etymological function of gesture is so prevalent that it predominates over its other functions. It gives the initial concrete meaning of a word, (a) It visually explains that to be permanent is to continue, to ‘remain to the last,’ and that to evolve is to ‘(un)roll’ or ‘unfold.’ (b) The signifier of logical opposition gesturally represents the convergent etymology of the adverbial phrases ‘on the contrary,’ ‘inversely,’ which respectively imply the opposite direction and a turning around. These notions are synthesized in a backward semicircular movement performed in various ways (Chapter 8, Gestural argumentation), (c) The gesture corresponding to precision does not portray the etymology of the word ‘precision’ (L. praecidere: to cut off in front; abridge) but depicts and combines the etymological origins of the synonyms strict (L. strictus: drawn tight), minute (L. minutus: reduced), punctual (L. punctum: point), and exact (L. exigere: to weigh strictly, to push to the limit): the thumb and forefinger hold, delicately squeeze, something very thin, almost a point. Mentally and gesturally, we thus associate precision with fineness, minuteness, and punctuality, (d) Gesture may also reveal etymological differences between synonyms. Contrasting a straight-line movement with a curved movement allows one to concretely differentiate between rapid growth and development or between reduction and condensation, for example, (e) In parallel, the gesture often specifies the meaning of the word used. Through an up-down movement that associates the earth with the beyond, the speaker may specify the meaning of the word médium as being a psychic medium rather than the middle register in music, the middle term in logic, or a thinner in painting.

Thus, from an etymological point of view, gesture may serve as (a) a definition or (b) a semantic and synthetic analysis of a notion, or else (c) a parallel definition, (d) differentiating definition, or (e) selective definition of a word.

Gestural and facial idioms

Descriptions of gestures that reveal particular attitudes can be idioms for the attitudes. If an action, movement, or posture is typical of an attitude, reproducing it becomes a gestural sign of the attitude, and describing it becomes a verbal sign. It is then logical to associate the verbal and gestural expressions or to substitute one for the other. The verbalized physical expression may point to the physical, psychological, or symbolic domain.

Physical

Se lécher (pourlécher) les babines (to lick one’s lips): licking the lips in a sign of satisfaction after a good meal.

Se chatouiller pour se faire rire (to tickle oneself to make oneself laugh): forcing oneself to laugh when not in the mood or when the joke is not worth it.

Se taper sur les cuisses (to slap one’s thighs): laugh loudly.

Tirer la langue (to stick out one’s tongue): be thirsty and, by extension, to be in need, to want but not receive.

Avoir la main leste (to have a light hand): to be quick to hit or slap.

Salut à poing levé (hail with raised fist): a sign of brotherhood in a struggle.

Des regards en coin, en coulisse (glances to the corner, to the wings): furtive glances.

Secouer quelqu’un comme un prunier (to shake someone like a plum tree): to shake someone vigorously, to rebuff someone.

Psychological

Airs penchés (tipped airs): affected, plaintive, etc., posture to attract attention.

Bouche bée (gaping): expresses stupefaction.

Bras d’honneur (arm of honor): sign of obscene derision performed by placing one hand inside the bend of the opposite arm and raising—or stretching out—the latter, fist closed, to depict an erect penis (phallic forearm jerk).

Baisser les bras (to lower the arms): to abandon the struggle, to give up.

Lever les bras au ciel (to raise the arms to heaven): a sign of painful surprise, powerless protest, indignation; calling on heaven, God, as witness.

Ouvrir les bras à quelqu’un, tendre les bras (to open the arms to someone, to stretch out the arms): to welcome eagerly, in a burst of emotion.

S’arracher les cheveux (to tear out one’s hair): to be furious or desperate.

Jouer des coudes (to play elbows): to beat a path through a crowd, and abstractly, to push oneself in order to succeed.

Se mordre les doigts (to bite one’s fingers): a sign of impatience, annoyance.

Toucher du doigt (to touch with the finger): figuratively, to see for oneself, to understand intuitively.

Passer la main dans le dos (to rub someone’s back): to flatter with servility.

Hausser les épaules (to shrug the shoulders): to raise them in a sign of indifference, ignorance, discontent, or contempt.

Tomber, se jeter, demander à genoux (to fall, throw oneself, ask on one’s knees): expresses servile submission or unmitigated admiration

Tirer la langue à quelqu’un (to stick the tongue out at someone): to show derision

Se mordre les lèvres (to bite one’s lips): to regret what one has just said (variant of se mordre la langue: to bite one’s tongue).

Faire la lippe (stick out the lower lip): a grimace of disgust or disdain.

Se frotter les mains (to rub one’s hands): to rejoice in, to congratulate oneself on.

Retrousser ses manches (push up one’s sleeves): setting to work with zeal.

Faire la moue (make a moue—pressing the lips together and pushing them out): manifestation of disdain, disapproval, disbelief, discontent, pouting.

Avoir les yeux qui sortent de la tête (to have eyes coming out of one’s head): to be very angry. Protruding eyes (as in les gros yeux) are traditionally considered a sign of rage.

Donner un coup de poing sur la table (to pound the table): to explode, violently showing hostility, disagreement, etc.

Il faut serrer les poings (You have to clench your fists): figuratively, to gather one’s energy or put up with in silence.

Se frapper la poitrine, battre sa coulpe, faire son mea culpa (hit one’s chest [in contrition], do one’s mea culpa): to recognize and admit one’s fault (direct allusion to the Catholic act of contrition: mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa).

Plier, courber la tête (bend, bow the head): to submit.

Se gratter la tête, le front (scratch one’s head, forehead): out of irritation, boredom, or during troublesome reflection.

Symbolic

Etre comme deux doigts de la main (to be like two fingers of the hand): closely united.

Ne pas bouger, remuer, lever le petit doigt (not to move, stir, raise the little finger): to do nothing, to refuse to act, the little finger corresponding to the smallest gesture.

Mettre le doigt sur quelque chose (to put the finger on something): to discover precisely what one has been looking for.

Je m’en lave les mains (I wash my hands of it): I exclude myself, I decline any responsibility (the New Testament allusion to Pontius Pilate’s gesture is still clearly recognized).

Defining an attitude verbally and gesturally

The dictionary definition of an attitude, taken here from Le Robert, gives the semantic components that are found in concrete form in the gesture. The following examples are reduced to a small semantic network which includes the attitudes of repugnance, repulsion, disgust, contempt, disdain, whose origins are partly gestural (word in italics).

It may be seen that contempt—intermediate between disgust and disdain according to the definitions—combines the physical features of each in an attenuated way: a moue of disgust, a haughty eyeing. A blasé attitude, derived from disgust with overtones of weariness, is characterized by a face which, in a way, doesn’t even have the strength to vomit. The same attenuation, the same relaxation is found on the vocal level in the corresponding interjections:

The tension in the face and mouth muscles decreases synergistically: there is a parallel relaxation in the vowel (from /wa/ to /ɔ/) and in the consonant (from /p/ to /b/) in going from Pouah! to Bof! By giving the definition and the etymology of the attitude, the dictionary gives the signifying structure and origin, respectively, of the gesture.

Complex gestures and compound gestures in sign language

By a synthesis of signifiers, complex gestures (Chapter 6, Movement and configuration) express a synthesis of signifieds. The phenomenon is found in a different way in American Sign Language for the deaf (Klima and Bellugi 1979). Here is an example of one kind of sign, said to be ‘opaque,’ produced by combining two mimic signs in succession. Lifting the closed hand to the mouth signifies ‘to eat’; the cheek resting on the hand is ‘to sleep.’ The two signs in succession represent the house, ‘the place where one eats and sleeps.’ Subsequently, the combination has been reduced to a movement of the closed hand from the side of the mouth to the cheek, thus keeping the configuration of the first gesture and the localization of the second. In contrast with gestures that accompany speech, the compound gesture here (op. cit.: Figure 1.14) sketches the passage from sign A to sign B, and with signifying features from two signifieds (eat and sleep), it indicates a third signified (house). The operation can be schematically written as: Sr (a1; b2)→Sd C.

The examples of compound gestures given by the authors are

• reduction of the movements in time, (FACE STRONG): the gesturer begins the second sign (STRONG) while finishing the first (FACE) (op. cit.: Figure 9.11), or (TOMORROW MORNING): he gives the beginning of the first sign (TOMORROW) and the end of the second sign (MORNING), reducing the intermediate movements (op. cit.: Figure 9.15).

• anticipation of the second bodily element: from the start, instead of using the bodily vehicle of Sign 1, the gesturer uses the vehicle of Sign 2 (op. cit.: 222-223).

With economy of time and movement, the mind juxtaposes features in succession to form compound gestures. On the oral or graphic linearity of a sentence, a gestural linearity seems to be superposed.

Why does one never juxtapose two gestural signifiers, in parallel with the utterance, by executing them simultaneously, one with each hand? Is it for reasons of gestural symmetry or muscle coordination? No, since semaphore requires that the arms simultaneously perform different gestures. Note that semaphore is an arbitrary code. In North American Indian sign language, the word ‘beautiful’ is a hybrid of the signs for ‘good’ and ‘looking’: the left hand is held palm down across the chest (‘good’), while the right palm is raised, like a mirror, and looked into (‘looking’) (Morris 1977: 43). These are two examples of gestural signs that involve a different movement by each hand. Each of these is part of a code intended to replace speech. In sign languages, signs seem to be gesturally juxtaposed or sketched in succession. These gestural languages are intended to replace spoken language, which is conceived as a sequence of distinct units. The gestural representation of these units and of their overlapping combination into new compound units takes into account their analytical construction as distinct, juxtaposed features.

When allied with speech, gesture no longer plays the same role. Instead of coding distinct units, it symbolizes notions. This difference is maintained in the combination of gestural signifiers into a new signifier, called ‘hybrid’ by Morris, ‘compound’ by Klima and Bellugi, and which I call ‘complex.’ The spatial or temporal juxtaposition of signifying features in sign languages reveals an analytical conception in terms of distinct features, whereas when gesture is associated with speech, gestural combination is a symbolic operation in which relevant features are integrated and directly expressed in a new global unit.

Visual communication is primary in sign language, but when associated with speech, it is generally secondary, complementary to the primary oral communication. Since understanding is insured, the gesturing speaker has a certain poetic liberty: the gestures are more modulated, less rigid, and their function is essentially illustrative. Moreover, since the basic gestural signs are natural, manipulating them and combining them are motivated acts and hence are understandable to the viewers. Understanding is not threatened even when gestural neologisms are created on the spot. Associated with speech, gesture has a secondary illustrative function. Secondariness and motivation allow individual creativity and comprehension of complex gestures.

Specificity of gesture: link between concrete and abstract

CONCRETIZING THE ABSTRACT.Here I shall simply summarize points elaborated on above: gesture provides the link between the concrete meanings and the figurative or abstract meanings of words, both synchronically (metaphor, figurative expression) and diachronically (concrete etymology of a word become abstract).

SYMBOLIZING THE CONCRETE.We have seen that the mimed reference to a concrete signified involves ‘ab-(s)tracting’ (Chapter 5, Encoding), at the very least in selecting the relevant characteristics of the element under consideration; I call this operation ‘symbolization.’ Miming implies a transfer in time, of person, of element in action, of movement, or of dimension. Here, as a demonstration, is a sample of gestural illustrations of concrete situations.

The gesture does not reproduce the real actions performed, but portrays, in one way or another, the corresponding notion. In Example (1), rather than the use of a drill, the gesture shows its action, i.e., to puncture, to make a hole. In (2), the idea of putting to death (lit. suppressing) is shown, in (3) cutting off or falling (the curtain of night), in (4) reducing or lowering the light, in (5) and (6) the notions of sending and transferring. In short, the gesture is not a mimic one, in which the action is simulated, but one in which abstraction brings new elements into the act of communication.

Gesture is ‘ab-(s)tracted’ from the concrete. In a way, it is the hinge between mind and matter; it provides two-way passage between concrete and abstract: it concretizes the abstract or symbolizes the concrete.

The capacity for abstraction in gesture is not surprising. It is a postulate of theories that attribute to gesture a major role in the genesis of language: ‘Depictive behavior is indissociable from language. It is part of man’s aptitude for thinking about reality in terms of verbal symbols, gestural symbols, or concrete images.’ (Leroi-Gourhan 1964: 216).