Linguistics 373
Gesture
Full course for one semester. Speech is normally accompanied by
movements and attitudes of the body that seem transparently to
relate to aspects of the speech itself: its rhythm, its
construction, and/or its meaning. The course will critically
examine research on gesticulation to consider two general sets of
questions, one linguistic and the other ethnographic. First, are
the cognitive processes that produce spoken language and those that
produce gesture related? Is the semiotic structure of gesture
language-like or distinct? In general, is gesture part of language
or something apart? Second, does gesture present or presuppose
knowledge of the world and the surroundings in a way parallel to or
distinct from that characteristic of spoken language and other
communicative modalities? How does it enter into communicative
action? The course will move from typologies of gesture, and
proposals about cognitive mechanisms underlying gesticulation,
through a variety of descriptive studies, to more detailed
examination of different kinds of gestures (their origins and
nature), and finally to interactive studies in which the
interpretability of gestures is the central issue. The course will
require original research by participants. Prerequisite:
Linguistics 311, Anthropology 211, or consent of the instructor.
Conference. Cross-listed as Anthropology 373. Not offered 2005-06.
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