The forms of gesture

Adam Kendon defines a gesture as ‘phases of bodily action that have those characteristics that permit them to be ‘recognized’ as components of willing communicative action’ (Kendon, 1996: 8). He explains that a prototypical gesture passes through three phases - the preparation, the stroke, and retraction. The stroke phase is the only obligatory element in a gesture. McNeill (1992: 375) describes the stroke phase as ‘the phase carried out with the quality of “effort” a gesture in kin-esics term’. He argues that ‘[sjemantically, it is the content-bearing part of the gesture’ (McNeill, 1992: 376).

The definition of a gesture as being ‘“recognised” as components of willing communicative action’ is not unproblematic. In particular, the subjectivity of recognition, be it by the audience, or the analyst, can be contested. Alan Cienki, Professor of English Linguistics, at Amsterdam University, however, defines a gesture from the perspective of the communicator. He describes gestures as ‘any wilful bodily movement’ (Cienki, 2008: 6). Notwithstanding, the question of the subjectivity involved in determining what is recognised as ‘wilful’ remains.

In this light, this chapter proposes an inclusive approach where all bodily movements made with the arms and hands are described as gestures, and coded as either Performative Gestures or Communicative Gestures. This is because at the preliminary stage of data annotation and transcription, it may be premature, and difficult, without the context to conclude certain movements as simply performative and non-communicative without imposing a certain degree of researcher’s interpretive subjectivity.

From the SFMDA perspective, the principle of stratification can be applied to the analysis of gestures, where gestures possess both an expression stratum and a content stratum, and where the expression expresses the content. Gestures, as a semiotic mode, also expresses metafunctional meanings through the formal and functional systems described in the following sections. The expression stratum of gesture is the form of the gesture, that is the physical enactment of the movement with the arms and hands. The content stratum of the gestures has a ‘grammatics’ that can be represented through a system network of choices. The content stratum is also afforded and constrained by the musculoskeletal physiology of the human being. This determines what movements, and thereby what meanings can or cannot be realised. The content stratum expresses the metafunctional meanings as either sonovergent or semovergent resources.

Also from the SFMDA perspective, the principle of constituency can be applied to the study of gestures. Analogous to the ranks of word, group, phrase, and clause in language, gestures are organised according to the ranks of the finger, hand, arm, and upper body. The formal features of the gestures are described and the various selections, such as Direction, Level, and involvement of Arms, Hands, and Palms, can be annotated.

Other systems include those such as the dynamic aspects of frequency, speed, force, and muscular tension. Altogether, they operate to produce rhythm, gradation, and tempo. These dynamic aspects can be explored through proxy indicators such as the system of Beat in Indexical Action.This is discussed in the section on textual meaning in gestures.

The form of gestures used by the teacher in the classroom can be identified and analysed according to the coding categories in Figure 4.2. The form of gestures include the movement of the hand, the direction of the gesture, the palm direction,

FIGURE 4.2 Coding categories for gesture Reproduced front Lint (2019: 89).

the level of the gesture, the use of hand, and the object with which the hands are in direct contact. With the codes for the forms of gestures made, it is productive to co-relate them with the functions of these gestures, so as to identify usage patterns and trends of the teacher’s use of gestures in specific lesson microgenres.

The functions of gestures to be coded include the Types of Action, the Representations in Indexical Actions, the Entities in Representing Actions, and the Processes in Presenting Actions, and are also represented in Figure 4.2. Interpersonal meanings coded in the aspects of Attitude, Engagement, and Graduation were annotated as well.Textual meanings coded in the aspects of Specificity, Directionality, and Beat were also annotated.This is discussed more fully in the next section.

The functions of gesture

Ideational meanings in performative gestures

The ideational meanings in gestures are expressed differently in different types of gestures. Following Martinec’s (2000) proposal for ideational meanings in presenting action, the ideational meanings in performative gestures are expressed through the transitivity processes analogous to language. Representing Action, which involves communicative gestures that are speech independent, as well as communicative gestures that are speech correspondent, expresses ideational meanings through Congruent Entities and Metaphorical Concepts. Indexical Action, which involves Communicative Gestures that are speech dependent, expresses ideational meaning in relation to the accompanying speech. Specifically, it adds another layer of semantics such as the representations of importance, receptivity, or relation to it in the multimodal discourse.

According to Martinec (2000: 247), Presenting Action can be ‘seen as part of our experience of reality, formed in our interaction with it by means of our perceptions and motor actions’. Of the transitivity processes identified for language, Martinec (2000) argues that only the Material process. Behavioural process. State process, and Verbal process are relevant for action. Given that verbal processes are realised both visually and auditorily through lip movement and speech sounds (Martinec, 2000: 248), they are not considered as part of gestures. As such, only the Material process, Behavioural process, State process, are identified for Performative Gestures. This is represented in Figure 4.3.

Material processes in performative gestures are identified through an obvious expansion of effort. In the classroom context, this includes the teacher’s act of writing on the whiteboard, handing out forms to the students and re-arranging the tables and chairs. A high amount of material processes in performative gestures in the classroom suggests dynamism and action, although it can potentially be distracting for the learning, if too many performative gestures are used, as they are primarily non-communicative movements.

Behavioural processes in performative gestures are similar to material processes as they also involve an expenditure of energy. Martinec (2000) describes the acts of holding a weight and kicking a ball as Material processes and the acts of grooming such as combing, shaving, and washing as Behavioural processes, which are mainly actions directed to self. Other types of behavioural processes are related to affect. Examples of Behavioural process can include the gestures accompanying crying, laughing, moaning, and physiological processes like coughing, that might involve the use of gestures. In the classroom context, the teacher’s use of her hand to cover her mouth as she laughs at the antics of the students could be coded as a performative gesture expressed through a behavioural process.

State processes describe processes that have no significant movement and have no obvious expenditure of energy. This can be used to describe the person’s arms and hands at rest. The arms may be hanging by the sides if the person is standing or resting on the legs if the person is sitting. Martinec (2000) argues that the human experience of exerting and not exerting effort in action is ultimately the difference

FIGURE 4.3 Ideational meanings in performative gesturesbetween material and state processes. State processes can arguably be categorised as not a gesture as there is no movement involved. However, it can be useful to analysts to identify and code them as such. State processes can be identified when there is a conspicuous absence of movement, and when the arms and hands are in a still and dormant position. A high amount of state processes identified in the teacher may suggest that the teacher is not using many gestures as a semiotic mode for meaningmaking in the lesson.