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Article published In:
Recurrent Gestures
Edited by Simon Harrison, Silva H. Ladewig and Jana Bressem
[Gesture 20:2] 2021
► pp. 153–179

Recurrent gestures throughout bodies, languages, and cultural practices

 | City University of Hong Kong
 | European University ViadrinaFrankfurt-Oder
In gesture studies, the adjective ‘recurrent’ has developed to distinguish a range of semiotic and conceptual phenomena concerning the nature of meaningful bodily movements. This article begins with a brief and recent history of recurrent gesture studies. We raise ongoing debates concerning the position of recurrent gestures on the so-called Kendon’s continuum, the relation between gestures and practical actions, and the interplay between gesture’s cultural specificity and universality. A selection of findings from previous research on recurrent gestures then acquaints readers with characteristics of these gestures: their form-function pairings and context-variation, linguistic organization and multimodal constructions, and community-specific typologies (from cultural, situational, as well as individual perspectives). Proposing to help build recurrent gesture theory, the paper then recognizes that recurrency goes hand-in-hand with diversity – both in the ways these gestures exist for members of a community and their role in the styles, habits, and creations of individuals.
Keywords: recurrent gestures, diversity, Kendon’s continuum, practical actions
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Recurrent gesture study: A brief and recent history
    • 2.1Gestures with pragmatic functions
    • 2.2Recurrent gestures, singular gestures, and ‘Kendon’s continuum’
  • 3.Examples and findings from recurrent gesture study
    • 3.1‘Cyclic’ gestures and the notion of context-variants
    • 3.2Gestures associated with negation and the grammar-gesture nexus
    • 3.3Relations with ‘practical/instrumental’ manual actions
    • 3.4Typologies of recurrent gestures
  • 4.The diversity of recurrency
  • 5.Concluding remarks
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 30 May 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/gest.21014.har
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