Marcus Perlman
List of John Benjamins publications for which Marcus Perlman plays a role.
Journal
ISSN 1568-1475 | E-ISSN 1569-9773
2017 Debunking two myths against vocal origins of language: Language is iconic and multimodal to the core Interaction and Iconicity in the Evolution of Language, Hartmann, Stefan, Michael Pleyer, James Winters and Jordan Zlatev (eds.), pp. 376–401 | Article
Gesture-first theories of language origins often raise two unsubstantiated arguments against vocal origins. First, they argue that great ape vocal behavior is highly constrained, limited to a fixed, species-typical repertoire of reflexive calls. Second, they argue that vocalizations lack any… read more
2017 Which words are most iconic? Iconicity in English sensory words Interaction and Iconicity in the Evolution of Language, Hartmann, Stefan, Michael Pleyer, James Winters and Jordan Zlatev (eds.), pp. 443–464 | Article
Some spoken words are iconic, exhibiting a resemblance between form and meaning. We used native speaker ratings to assess the iconicity of 3001 English words, analyzing their iconicity in relation to part-of-speech differences and differences between the sensory domain they relate to (sight,… read more
2014 Iconicity in vocalization, comparisons with gesture, and implications for theories on the evolution of language Gesture 14:3, pp. 320–350 | Article
Scholars have often reasoned that vocalizations are extremely limited in their potential for iconic expression, especially in comparison to manual gestures (e.g., Armstrong & Wilcox, 2007; Tomasello, 2008). As evidence for an alternative view, we first review the growing body of research related to… read more
2013 Using space to talk and gesture about numbers: Evidence from the TV News Archive Where do nouns come from?, Haviland, John B. (ed.), pp. 377–408 | Article
This paper examines naturally occurring gestures produced in descriptions of numbers and quantities in television newscasts. The results of our analysis show that gestures reveal the metaphorical and spatial nature of numerical thinking. That is, speakers’ hands mimic known spatial mappings… read more
2012 A mother gorilla’s variable use of touch to guide her infant: Insights into iconicity and the relationship between gesture and action Developments in Primate Gesture Research, Pika, Simone and Katja Liebal (eds.), pp. 55–72 | Article
This chapter examines how gestures of the great apes are created from instrumental actions. Ape gestures are generally believed to form through phylogenetic or ontogenetic ritualization, or – at least in humans – “iconic” gestures are created spontaneously during online interaction. These… read more