Cover not available
Article published In:
Gesture
Vol. 16:3 (2017) ► pp.432–479

Interactional functions of lip funneling gestures

A case study of Northern Kampa Arawaks of Peru

| James Cook University, Australia

Based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork in lowland Peru, this study examines interactional functions of Northern Kampa (Arawak) lip funneling gestures. The study has shown that lip funnels have two functions, spatial deictic and upgrading. Spatial deictic lip funnels orient the addressee to a referential target in acts of direct and deferred ostension and abstract pointing; they are accompanied with aligned gaze and coupled with a variety of lexical items (although they need not be). Spatial deictic lip funnels are intense, sometimes held for the duration of the entire utterance. The second function of lip funnels is to amplify the speaker’s claim to epistemic authority in upgraded responses. In the upgrading function, lip funnels are paired with a limited range of grammatical constructions (negative-interrogative, polar focus and exhaustive focus); the gesturer’s gaze is directed at the recipient, or eyes are shut. Nasalization of vowels is in complementary distribution with eye shutting. ‘Upgrading’ lip funnels are transitory facial actions, normally lasting a split second.

Keywords: lip funneling, upgrading strategy, epistemic stance coding
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Lexicogrammatical resources used for upgrading the speaker’s epistemic status
  • The shape and variation in the intensity of the lip funneling gesture
    • The shape of the lip funneling gesture
    • Interspeaker variation in the lip gesture’s intensity
    • Intraspeaker variation in the lip gesture’s intensity
  • Coordination with gaze, speech, and manual pointing
    • Coordination with gaze
    • Coordination with speech
    • Coordination with manual pointing
    • Lip-Hand sequence
    • Coterminous production of lip and hand pointing
    • Coterminous production of a lip funnel with a depictive hand gesture
  • Functions of lip funnels
    • Spatial deictic uses of lip funnels
    • Deferred ostension
    • Abstract pointing
    • Upgrading function of lip funnels
    • Topic-proffering sequences
    • Assessment sequence
  • Discussion: Linguistic and cultural aspects of lip pointing
  • Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 1 February 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/gest.00004.mih
References
Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y.
(2003) A grammar of Tariana, from Northwest Amazonia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2004) Evidentiality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Barbaresi, Lavinia Merlini
(2015) Evaluative morphology and pragmatics. In Nicola Grandi & Lívia Körtvélyessy (Eds.), The Edinburgh handbook of evaluative morphology (pp. 32–42). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Cooperrider, Kensy & Rafael Núñez
(2012) Nose-pointing. Notes on a facial gesture of Papua New Guinea. Gesture, 12 (2), 103–129. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ekman, Paul, Wallace Friesen, & Joseph C. Hager
(2002) Facial action coding system. Salt Lake City: Research Nexus Division of Network Information Research Corporation.Google Scholar
(2005) The body as a cognitive artifact in kinship representations. Current Anthropology, 46 (1), 51–81. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2009) The anatomy of meaning: Speech, gesture, and composite utterances. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Heritage, John
(2013) Epistemics in conversation. In Jack Sidnell & Tanya Stivers (Eds.), The handbook of conversation analysis (pp. 370–394). Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell.Google Scholar
Heritage, John & Geoffrey Raymond
(2005) The terms of agreement: Indexing epistemic authority and subordination in talk-in-interaction. Social Psychology Quarterly, 681, 15–38. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kamio, Akio
(1994) The theory of territory of information: The case of Japanese. Journal of Pragmatics, 211, 67–100. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kendon, Adam
(2004) Gesture: Visible action as utterance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Marslen-Wilson, William, Elena Levy, & Lorraine K. Tyler
(1982) Producing interpretable discourse: The establishment and maintenance of reference. In Robert J. Jarvella & Wolfgang Klein (Eds.), Speech, place, and action (pp. 339–378). London: Wiley.Google Scholar
McNeill, David, Justine Cassell, & Elena T. Levy
(1993) Abstract deixis. Semiotica, 95 (1/2), 5–19.Google Scholar
Mihas, Elena
(2014a) Expression of information-source meanings in Ashéninka Perené (Arawak). In Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald & Robert M. W. Dixon (Eds.), The grammar of knowledge: A cross-linguistic typology (pp. 209–226). Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2014b) Upper Perené Arawak narratives of history, landscape, and ritual. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2015a) A grammar of Alto Perené (Arawak). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
(2015b) Non-spatial setting in Ashaninka Satipo. DOI logo (September 6 2015).Google Scholar
(2016) Language-specific resources in talk: A study of epistemic stance coding in Alto Perené (Arawak) agreements. Discourse Studies, 18 (2), 165–187. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2017) Conversational structures of Alto Perené (Arawak). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Palmer, Frank R.
(2001) Mood and modality (2nd Ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pomeranz, Anita
(1984) Agreeing and disagreeing with assessments: some features of preferred and dispreferred turn shapes. In J. Maxwell Atkinson & John Heritage (Eds.), Structures of social action (pp. 57–101). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Quine, Willard V. O.
(1971) The inscrutability of reference. In Danny D. Steinberg & Leon A. Jakobovits (Eds.), Semantics: An interdisciplinary reader in philosophy, linguistics, and psychology (pp. 142–154). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Roseano, Paolo, Montserrat González, Joan Boràs-Comes, & Pilar Prieto
(2016) Communicating epistemic stance: How speech and gesture patterns reflect epistemicity and evidentiality. Discourse Processes, 53 (3), 135–174. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schegloff, Emanuel A.
(2007) Sequence organization in interaction: A primer in conversation analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sherzer, Joel
(1973) Verbal and non-verbal deixis: The pointed lip gesture among the San Blas Cuna. Language in Society, 21, 117–131. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sidnell, Jack & Nick J. Enfield
(2012) Language diversity and social action: A third locus of linguistic relativity. Current Anthropology, 531, 302–333. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2016) Deixis and the interactional foundations of reference. In Yan Huang (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of pragmatics (pp. 217–239). Online publication: June 2016 doi:  DOI logo.Google Scholar
Stivers, Tanya, Lorenza Mondada, & Jacob Steensig
(2011) Knowledge, morality and affiliation in social interaction. In Tanya Stivers, Lorenza Mondada, & Jacob Steensig (Eds.), The morality of knowledge in conversation (pp. 3–14). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sutton, Peter
(1978) Wik: Aboriginal society, territory and language at Cape Keerweer, Cape York Peninsula, Australia. Doctoral dissertation, Brisbane: University of Queensland.Google Scholar
Tomasello, Michael
(2006) Why don’t apes point? In Nick J. Enfield & Stephen C. Levinson (Eds.), Roots of human sociality: Culture, cognition and interaction (pp. 506–524). Berg: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Wilkins, David
(2003) Why pointing with the index finger is not a universal (in sociocultural and semiotic terms). In Sotaro Kita (Ed.), Pointing: Where language, culture and cognition meet (pp. 171–215). Mahwah, NJ: Laurence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 4 other publications

Gawne, Lauren, Chelsea Krajcik, Helene N. Andreassen, Andrea L. Berez-Kroeker & Barbara F. Kelly
2019. Data transparency and citation in the journal Gesture . Gesture 18:1 ► pp. 83 ff. DOI logo
Golson, Megan E., Erica Ficklin, Cassity R. Haverkamp, Maryellen Brunson McClain & Bryn Harris
2022. Cultural differences in social communication and interaction: A gap in autism research. Autism Research 15:2 ► pp. 208 ff. DOI logo
Mesh, Kate, Emiliana Cruz & Marianne Gullberg
2023. When Attentional and Politeness Demands Clash: The Case of Mutual Gaze Avoidance and Chin Pointing in Quiahije Chatino. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior 47:2 ► pp. 211 ff. DOI logo
Mesh, Kate, Emiliana Cruz, Joost van de Weijer, Niclas Burenhult & Marianne Gullberg
2021. Effects of Scale on Multimodal Deixis: Evidence From Quiahije Chatino. Frontiers in Psychology 11 DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 30 march 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.