Research on hand gestures and their roles in social interaction and cognition has fairly exploded in the last two decades. A non-entity to most linguists during the 20th century (among the exceptions: Sapir 1991; Pike 1967), the advent of video technology enabled psychologists, beginning with David McNeill (1985), to investigate what gestures reveal about thought processes or ‘thinking-for-speaking’ (Slobin 1987), and interaction researchers to examine in detail how gestures are coordinated with speech and what functions they serve in everyday communication in the material world. This account of gesture studies is shaped by a pragmatic or praxeological perspective (Streeck 2013, 2017a) which sees gestures as a diverse and evolving set of embodied communicative practices.

References

Aarsleff, H.

1974 “The tradition of Condillac: The problem of the origin of language in the eighteenth century and the debate in the Berlin Academy before Herder.” In Studies in the History of Linguistics, ed. by D. Hymes, 93–156. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Andrén, M.

2014 “On the lower limit of gesture.” In From Gesture in Conversation to Visible Action as Utterance, ed. by M. Seyfeddinipur and M. Gullberg, 153–167. Amsterdam: Benjamins.

Barash, M.

(1987) Giotto and the Language of Gesture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Bateson, G.

1972 [1956] “A theory of play and fantasy.” In Steps to an Ecology of Mind, 177–193. New York: Ballantine.

Baxandall, M.

1972 Painting and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Birdwhistell, R. L.

1970 Kinesics and Context. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Birdwhistell, R. L.

1979 “Toward analyzing American movement.” In Nonverbal Communication: Readings with Commentary, ed. by S. Weitz. New York: Oxford University Press.

Blom, P.

2010 A Wicked Company : The Forgotten Radicalism of the European Enlightenment. New York: Basic Books.

Boas, F.

1932 “Rasse und Charakter.” Anthropologischer Anzeiger 8: 280–284.

Bressem, J. and C. Mueller

2014 “The family of away gestures: Negation, refusal, and negative assessment.” In Body Language Communication: An International Handbook on Multimodality in Human Interaction (Vol. 2), ed. by C. Müller, A. Cienki, E. Fricke, S. H. Ladewig, D. McNeill and J. Bressem 1592–1604 Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Brilliant, R.

1963 Gesture and Rank in Roman Art (Vol. XIV). New Haven, CT: Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Bybee, J. L.

1998 “Cognitive processes in grammaticalization.” In The New Psychology of Language (Vol. 2), ed. by M. Tomasello, 145–168. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Calbris, G.

2011 Elements of Meaning in Gesture. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Cienki, A.

2008 “Why study metaphor and gesture?” In Metaphor and Gesture, ed. by A. Cienki and C. Müller, 5–26. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Condillac, E.

1746 An Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge, Being a Supplement to Mr. Locke’s Essay on Human Understanding. London: J. Noursse.

Cooperrider, K. and R. Nuñez

2012 “Nose-pointing: Notes on a facial gesture in Papua New Guinea.” Gesture 12(2): 103–129.

Copple, M.

2003 “Gesture and Speech: André Leroi-Gourhan’s theory of the co-evolution of manual and intellectual activities.” Gesture 3(1): 47–94.

Cuffari, E. and Streeck, J.

2017 “Taking the world by hand: How (some) hand gestures mean.” In Intercorporeality: Emerging Socialities in Interaction, ed. by C. Meyer, J. Streeck and J. S. Jordan, 173–202. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Day, D. & J. Wagner

(Eds.) 2019 Objects, Bodies, and Work Practice. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.

de Jorio, A.

2000 [1832] Gesture in Naples and Gesture in Classical Antiquity. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Donald, M.

1991 Origins of the Modern Mind. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Efron, D.

1972 [1941] Gesture, Race and Culture. The Hague: Mouton.

Enfield, N. J.

2001 “’Lip-pointing’: A discussion of form and function with reference to data from Laos.” Gesture 1(2): 185–212.

Enfield, N. J.

2003 “Demonstratives in space and interaction: data from Lao speakers and implications for semantic analysis.” Language 79(1): 82–117.

Enfield, N. J.

2004 “On linear segmentation and combinatorics in co-speech gesture: A symmetry-dominance construction in Lao fish trap descriptions.” Semiotica 149 (1): 57–123.

Enfield, N. J.

2009 The Anatomy of Meaning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Fischer, J.

2006 Philosophische Anthropologie: Eine Denkrichtung des 20. Jahrhunderts. Stuttgart: Karl Alber.

Fuchs, T. and H. De Jaeger

2009 “Enactive intersubjectivity: Participatory sense-making and mutual incorporation.” Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 8: 465–486.

Gehlen, A.

1988 [1958] Man: His Nature and Place in the World. New York: Columbia University Press.

Gibson, J. J.

1966 The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Goffman, E.

1963 Behavior in Public Places. New York: The Free Press.

Goffman, E.

1971 Relations in Public: Microstudies of the Public Order. New York: Basic Books.

Goldin-Meadow, S.

2003 Hearing Gesture: How our Hands Help us Think. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

Gombrich, E. H.

1982 The Image and the Eye. London: Phaidon.

Goodwin, C.

1986 “Gesture as a resource for the organization of mutual orientation.” Semiotica 62(1–2): 29–49.

Goodwin, C.

1994 “Professional vision.” American Anthropologist 96(3): 606–633.

Goodwin, C.

2003 “Pointing as situated practice.” In Pointing: Where Language, Culture and Cognition Meet, ed. by S. Kita, 217–242. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Goodwin, C.

2007 “Environmentally coupled gestures.” In Gesture and the dynamic dimension of language: Essays in honor of David McNeill, ed. by S. D. Duncan, J. Cassell and E. T. Levy, 195–212. Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Goodwin, C.

2018 Co-Operative Action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Goodwin, C. and M. H. Goodwin

1986 “Gesture and coparticipation in the activity of searching for a word.” Semiotica 62(1–2): 51–75.

Harrison, S.

2014 “The organisation of kinesic ensembles associated with negation.” Gesture 14(2): 117–140.

Haviland, J. B.

1993 “Anchoring, iconicity, and orientation in Guugu Yimidhirr pointing gestures.” Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 3: 3–45.

Heath, C.

1982 “The display of recipiency: an instance of a sequential relationship in speech and body movement.” Semiotica 42(2–4): 147–167.

Heath, C.

1992 “Gesture’s discreet tasks: Multiple relevancies in visual conduct and in the contextualisation of language.” In The Contextualization of Language, ed. by P. Auer and A. di Luzio, 101–128. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Heidegger, M.

1962 [1926] Being and Time. New York: Harper and Row.

Humboldt, W. v.

1988 [1836] On Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Keller, R.

1994 On Language Change : The Invisible Hand in Language. London: Routledge.

Kendon, A.

1967 “Some functions of gaze direction in two-person conversation.” Acta Psychologica 26: 22–63.

Kendon, A.

1972 “Some relationships between body motion and speech.” In Studies in Dyadic Communication, ed. by A. Seigmann, 177–210. Elmsford, N.Y.: Pergamon Press.

Kendon, A.

1980 “Gesticulation and speech: Two aspects of the process of utterance.” In The Relationship between Verbal and Nonverbal Behavior, ed. by M. R. Kay. The Hague: Mouton.

Kendon, A.

1981 “The organization of behavior in face-to-face interaction: Observations on the development of a methodology.” In Handbook of Research Methods in Nonverbal Behavior, ed. by P. Ekman and K. Scherer, 440–505. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Kendon, A.

1983 “Gesture and speech: How they interact.” In (Eds.), Nonverbal Interaction, ed. by J. M. Wiemann and R. P. Harrison, 13–45. Beverly Hills: Sage.

Kendon, A.

1990 Conducting Interaction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Kendon, A.

1993 “Gesture and Environment in Naples.” Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Washington, D.C.

Kendon, A.

1995 “Andrea de Jorio  – The first ethnographer of gesture?” Visual Anthropology 7: 371–390.

Kendon, A.

2004 Gesture: Visible Action as Utterance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Kendon, A.

2017 “Pragmatic functions of gestures: Some observations on the history of their study and their nature.” Gesture 16(2): 157–175.

Kita, S.

2003 Pointing: Where Language, Culture, and Cognition Meet. Mahwah, N.J.: L. Erlbaum Associates.

Kita, S., M. W. Alibali and M. Chu

2017 “How do gestures influence thinking and speaking? The gesture-for-conceptualization hypothesis.” Psychological Review 124(3): 245–266.

Lakoff, G. and M. Johnson

1980 Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Lane, H. L.

1976 The Wild Boy of Aveyron. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Leroi-Gourhan, A.

1993 [1964] Gesture and Speech. Cambridge MA: MIT Press.

Levinson, S. C.

2003 Space in Language and Cognition: Explorations in Cognitive Diversity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Mallery, G.

1978 [1880] “Introduction to the study of sign language among the North American Indians as illustrating the gesture speech of mankind.” In Aboriginal Sign Languages of the Americas and Australia, ed. by D. J. Umiker-Sebeok and T. A. Sebeok, 291–31). New York: Plenum Press.

McNeill, D.

1985 “So you think gestures are nonverbal?” Psychological Review 92(3): 350–371.

McNeill, D.

1992 Hand and Mind: What Gestures Reveal about Thought. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Mead, G. H.

1934 Mind, Self and Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Merleau-Ponty, M.

1962 Phenomenology of Perception. London: Routledge.

Merleau-Ponty, M.

1964 “The philosopher and his shadow.” In Signs, ed. by M. Merleau-Ponty Evanston. IL: Northwestern University Press.

Meyer, C., J. Streeck and J. S. Jordan

(Eds.) 2017 Intercorporeality: Emerging Socialities in Interaction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Morris, D., P. Collet, P. Marsh and M. O’Shaugnessy

1979 Gestures: Their Origin and Distribution. London: Cape.

Müller, C.

2003 “Forms and uses of the Palm Up Open Hand.” In The Semantics and Pragmatics of Everyday Gestures: The Berlin Conference, ed. by C. Müller and R. Posner, 234–256. Berlin: Weidler.

Müller, C.

2017 “How recurrent gestures mean: Conventionalized contexts-of-use and embodied motivation.” Gesture 16(2): 276–303.

Nuñez, R. and E. Sweetser

2006 “With the future behind them: Convergent evidence from language and gesture in the crosslinguistic comparison of spatial construals of time.” Cognitive Science 30: 401–450.

Olson, D.

1994 The World on Paper. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Peirce, C. S.

1995 [1940] Philosophical Writings. New York: Dover.

Pike, K.

1967 Language in relation to a unified theory of the structure of human behavior. The Hague: Mouton.

Plessner, H.

1975 Die Stufen des Organischen und der Mensch. Berlin: de Gruyter.

Quintilianus, M. F.

1922 [100] The Institutio Oratoria of Quintilian (H. E. Butler, Trans., Vol. IV). London: Heinemann.

Rahaim, M.

2012 Musicking Bodies: Gesture and Voice in Hindustani Music. Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press.

Ryle, G.

1949 The Concept of Mind. London.

Sacks, H., E. A. Schegloff and G. Jefferson

1974 “A simplest systematics for the organization of turn-taking for conversation.” Language 50: 696–735.

Sapir, E.

1991 [1927] “The unconscious patterning of behavior in society.” In Selected Writings of Edward Sapir, ed. by D. Mandelbaum. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Scheflen, A. E.

1964 “The significance of posture in communication system.” Psychiatry 27(4): 316–331.

Scheflen, A. E.

1973 Communicational Structure. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Schmitt, J.-C.

1991 “The rationale of gestures in the West: third to thirteenth centuries.” In A Cultural History of Gesture, ed. by J. Bremmer and H. Roodenburg, 59–70. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.

Schütz, A.

1945 “On multiple realities.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 5(4): 533–576.

Sheets-Johnstone, M.

2012 The Primacy of Movement (2nd ed.). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Sinclair, N. & E. de Freitas

2014 “The haptic nature of gesture: Rethinking gesture with new multitouch digital technologies.” Gesture 14(3): 351–374.

Sittl, C.

1890 Die Gebärden der Griechen und Römer. Leipzig: Teubner.

Slobin, D. I.

1987 “Thinking for speaking.” In Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistic Society, ed. by J. Aske et al., 435–445. Berkeley: University of California.

Steinberg, L.

2001 Leonardo’s Incessant Last Supper. New York: Zone Books.

Streeck, J.

1988 “The significance of gesture: How it is established.” Papers in Pragmatics 2(1/2): 60–83.

Streeck, J.

1993 “Gesture as communication I: Its coordination with gaze and speech.” Communication Monographs 60(4): 275–299.

Streeck, J.

2003 “A moment and its gestures: Leonardo’s Incessant Last Supper by Leo Steinberg.” Gesture 3(2): 213–236.

Streeck, J.

2008 “Gesture in political communication: A case study of the democratic presidential candidates during the 2004 primary campaign.” Research on Language & Social Interaction 41(2): 154–186.

Streeck, J.

2009 Gesturecraft: The Manu-facture of Meaning. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Streeck, J.

2013 “Praxeology of gesture.” In Handbook Body Laguage Communication: An International Handbook on Multimodality in Human Interaction (Vol. 10), ed. by C. Müller, A. Cienki, E. Fricke, S. Ladewig, D. McNeill and S. Tessendorf, 674–685. Berlin: de Gruyter.

Streeck, J.

2015 “Embodiment in human communication.” Annual Review of Anthropology 44: 419–438.

Streeck, J.

2017 Self-Making Man: A Day of Action, Life, and Language. Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press.

Streeck, J.

forthcoming). “Gesture, mimesis, and the linguistics of time.” In Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics (GURT 2018) ed. by C. Gordon Washington, DC Georgetown University

Streeck, J. and U. Hartge

1992 “Previews: Gestures at the transition place.” In The Contextualization of Language, ed. by P. Auer and A. di Luzio, 138–158. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Streeck, J. and W. Kallmeyer

2001 “Interaction by inscription.” Journal of Pragmatics 33(4): 465–490.

Thompson, E.

2007 Mind in Life. Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

Tomlinson, G.

2015 A Million Years of Music: The Emergence of Human Modernity. New York: Zone Books.

Tylor, E.

1856 Researches into the Early History of Mankind. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Wehling, E.

2017 “Discourse management gestures.” Gesture 16(2): 245–275.

Wilkins, D.

2003 “Why pointing with the index finger is not a universal (in sociocultural and semiotic terms).” In Pointing : Where Language, Culture, and Cognition Meet, ed. by S. Kita, 171–216. Mahwah, N.J.: L. Erlbaum Associates.

Wittgenstein, L.

1953 Philosophical Investigations. Oxford: Blackwell.

Wollheim, R.

1987 Painting as an Art. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Wundt, W.

1975 [1911] Völkerpsychologie: Eine Untersuchung der Entwicklungsgesetze von Sprache, Mythus und Sitte. Aalen: Scientia Verlag.