Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dsjbd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T22:36:35.072Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

23 - Gesture and Intersubjectivity

from Part V - Gestures in Relation to Interaction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 May 2024

By
Elena Clare Cuffari
Edited by
Alan Cienki
Alan Cienki
Affiliation:
Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam
Get access

Summary

Research in conversational hand gesturing shows an array of philosophical senses of intersubjectivity. Gesturing is interpersonally rational, as demonstrated in studies linking gesturing to common ground achievements and effects and to markings of communicative intent. Gesturing is an ecological and interactional activity through which copresent interlocutors codetermine their own social and environmental relatings, building as well as attending to a shared world. Gesturing is an intercorporeal experience central to what it means to live as linguistic bodies. Taken together, research indicates that hand gesturing even as a variegated phenomenon offers insight into how language works. The full story of intersubjectivity and attendant features of recognition, interpretation, normativity, conventionality, and reference begins and ends with actual bodies interacting. As these matters concern the core of pragmatic philosophy, gesture research has radical relevance for all language theorists. An enactive approach to intersubjectivity and language offers a framework for making this case.

Keywords

intersubjectivitylinguistic bodiesparticipatory sense-makingconventionnormativityinteractiongesture ecologiesenactive approachautopoiesisrecognitioninterpretation
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Gesture Studies , pp. 599 - 615
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bavelas, J. B., Chovil, N., Lawrie, D. A., & Wade, A. (1992). Interactive gestures. Discourse Processes, 15(4), 469–489. https://doi.org/10.1080/01638539209544823CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Belhiah, H. (2013). Gesture as a resource for intersubjectivity in second-language learning situations. Classroom Discourse, 4(2), 111–129. https://doi.org/10.1080/19463014.2012.671273CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brandom, R. (1994). Making it explicit: Reasoning, representing, and discursive commitment. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Brinck, I. (2008). The role of intersubjectivity in the development of intentional communication. In Zlatev, J., Racine, T. R., & Sinha, C. (Eds.), The shared mind: Perspectives on intersubjectivity (pp. 115–140). Amsterdam, the Netherlands: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bruner, J. (1983). Child’s talk: Learning to use language. New York, NY: W. W. Norton.Google Scholar
Cassell, J., & Tartaro, A. (2007). Intersubjectivity in human–agent interaction. Interaction Studies, 8(3), 391–410. https://doi.org/10.1075/is.8.3.05casCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cooperrider, K. (2011). Review of Tim Wharton (2009). Pragmatics and non-verbal communication. Gesture, 11(1), 81–88. https://doi.org/10.1075/gest.11.1.05cooCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cooperrider, K. (2017). Foreground gesture, background gesture. Gesture, 16(2), 176–202. https://doi.org/10.1075/gest.16.2.02cooCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Csordas, T. J. (2008). Intersubjectivity and intercorporeality. Subjectivity, 22(1), 110–121. https://doi.org/10.1057/sub.2008.5CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cuffari, E. (2011). Mining the mismatch: An essay review. Gesture, 11(2), 219–231. https://doi.org/10.1075/gest.11.2.06cufCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cuffari, E. (2012). Gestural sense-making: hand gestures as intersubjective linguistic enactments. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 11(4), 599–622. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-011-9244-9CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cuffari, E. C., Di Paolo, E., & De Jaegher, H. (2015). From participatory sense-making to language: There and back again. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 14(4), 1089–1125. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-014-9404-9CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cuffari, E., & Streeck, J. (2017). Taking the world by hand. In Meyer, C., Streeck, J., & Jordan, J. S. (Eds.), Intercorporeality: Beyond the body (pp. 173–201). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
De Jaegher, H. (2018). The intersubjective turn. In Newen, A., De Bruin, L., & Gallagher, S. (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of 4E cognition (pp. 453–467). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
De Jaegher, H., & Di Paolo, E. (2007). Participatory sense-making. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 6(4), 485–507. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-007-9076-9CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Di Paolo, E. (2015). Interactive time-travel: On the intersubjective retro-modulation of intentions. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 22(1–2), 49–74.Google Scholar
Di Paolo, E. A., Cuffari, E. C., & De Jaegher, H. (2018). Linguistic bodies: The continuity between life and language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Di Paolo, E. A., & De Jaegher, H. (2012). The interactive brain hypothesis. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 6, 163. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2012.00163CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Donovan, J., Heinemann, T., Matthews, B., & Buur, J. (2011). Getting the point: The role of gesture in managing intersubjectivity in a design activity. Artificial Intelligence for Engineering Design, Analysis and Manufacturing: AIEDAM, 25(3), 221–235. http://eprints.qut.edu.au/56683/CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Enfield, N. J. (2009). The anatomy of meaning: Speech, gesture, and composite utterances. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fuchs, T., & De Jaegher, H. (2009). Enactive intersubjectivity: Participatory sense-making and mutual incorporation. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 8(4), 465–486. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-009-9136-4CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gallagher, S. (2006). How the body shapes the mind. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Gallagher, S. (2013). The socially extended mind. Cognitive Systems Research, 25–26, 4–12. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogsys.2013.03.008CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gerwing, J., & Bavelas, J. (2004). Linguistic influences on gesture’s form. Gesture, 4(2), 157–195. https://doi.org/10.1075/gest.4.2.04gerCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Glock, H. J. (2018). Critical note: Language and learning from the 4e perspective. In Newen, A., De Bruin, L., & Gallagher, S. (Eds.), Oxford handbook of 4E cognition (pp. 706–716). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Gómez, J. C. (2003). Are apes persons? The case for primate intersubjectivity. In Armstrong, S. J. & Botzler, R. G. (Eds.), The animal ethics reader (pp. 138–143). New York, NY: Routledge.Google Scholar
Gómez, J. C. (2010). The ontogeny of triadic cooperative interactions with humans in an infant gorilla. Interaction Studies, 11(3), 353–379. https://doi.org/10.1075/is.11.3.02gomCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goodwin, C. (1981). Conversational organization: Interaction between speakers and hearers. New York, NY: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Goodwin, C. (2006). Human sociality as mutual orientation in a rich interactive environment: Multimodal utterances and pointing in aphasia. In Goodwin, C., Enfield, N. J., & Levinson, S. C. (Eds.), Roots of human sociality: Culture, cognition and interaction (pp. 97–125). New York, NY: Berg Publishers.Google Scholar
Grice, P. (1989). Studies in the way of words. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Habermas, J. (1984). The theory of communicative action. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Harrison, S. (2021). The feel of a recurrent gesture: Embedding the Vertical Palm within a gift-giving episode in China (aka the “seesaw battle”). Gesture, 20(2), 254–284. https://doi.org/10.1075/gest.21003.harCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holler, J., & Bavelas, J. (2017). Multi-modal communication of common ground. In Breckinridge Church, R., Alibali, M., & Kelly, S. (Eds.), Why gesture? How the hands function in speaking, thinking and communicating (pp. 213–240). Amsterdam, the Netherlands: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holler, J., & Stevens, R. (2007). The effect of common ground on how speakers use gesture and speech to represent size information. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 26(1), 4–27. https://doi.org/10.1177/0261927X06296428CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hostetter, A. B., & Alibali, M. W. (2019). Gesture as simulated action: Revisiting the framework. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 26(3), 721–752. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-018-1548-0CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hostetter, A. B., Alibali, M. W., & Schrager, S. M. (2011). If you don’t already know, I’m certainly not going to show you! In Stam, G. & Ishino, M. (Eds.), Integrating gestures: The interdisciplinary nature of gesture (pp. 61–75). Amsterdam, the Netherlands: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hougaard, A. R., & Rasmussen, G. (2013). Fused bodies: On the interrelatedness of cognition and interaction. In Müller, C., Cienki, A., Fricke, E., Ladewig, S., McNeill, D., & Teßendorf, S. (Eds.), Body - language - communication: An international handbook on multimodality in human interaction (Vol. 1, pp. 564–577). Berlin, Germany: De Gruyter Mouton.Google Scholar
Ishino, M. (2007). Intersubjectivity in gestures: the speaker’s perspective towards the addressee. In Duncan, S. D., Cassell, J., & Levy, E. T. (Eds.), Gesture and the dynamic dimension of language: Essays in honor of David McNeill (pp. 243–250). Amsterdam, the Netherlands: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jacobs, N., & Garnham, A. (2007). The role of conversational hand gestures in a narrative task. Journal of Memory and Language, 56(2), 291–303. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jml.2006.07.011CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kendon, A. (2013). Exploring the utterance roles of visible bodily action: A personal account. In Müller, C., Cienki, A., Fricke, E., Ladewig, S., McNeill, D., & Teßendorf, S. (Eds.), Body - language - communication: An international handbook on multimodality in human interaction (Vol. 1, pp. 7–28). Berlin, Germany: De Gruyter Mouton.Google Scholar
Krueger, J. (2012). Seeing mind in action. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 11(2), 149–173. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-011-9226-yCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ladewig, S. H., & Bressem, J. (2013). New insights into the medium hand: Discovering recurrent structures in gestures. Semiotica, 2013(197), 203–231. https://doi.org/10.1515/sem-2013-0088CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Loenhoff, J. (2017). Intercorporeality as a foundational dimension of human communication. In Meyer, C., Streeck, J., & Jordan, J. S. (Eds.), Intercorporeality: Emerging socialities in interaction (pp. 25–50). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Maclaren, K. (2002). Intercorporeality, intersubjectivity and the problem of “Letting others be”. Chiasmi International, 4, 187–208. http://digital.casalini.it/5063051CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McNeill, D. (1992). Hand and mind: What gestures reveal about thought. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
McNeill, D. (2013). Gesture as a window onto mind and brain, and the relationship to linguistic relativity and ontogenesis. In Müller, C., Cienki, A., Fricke, E., Ladewig, S., McNeill, D., & Teßendorf, S. (Eds.), Body - language - communication: An international handbook on multimodality in human interaction (Vol. 1, pp. 28–54). Berlin, Germany: De Gruyter Mouton.Google Scholar
Majlesi, A. R. (2015). Matching gestures: Teachers’ repetitions of students’ gestures in second language learning classrooms. Journal of Pragmatics, 76, 30–45. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2014.11.006CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mondada, L., & Oloff, F. (2011). Gesture in overlap: the situated establishment of speakership. In Stam, G. & Ishino, M. (Eds.), Integrating gestures: The interdisciplinary nature of gesture (pp. 321–337). Amsterdam, the Netherlands: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nathan, M. J., & Alibali, M. W. (2011). How gesture use enables intersubjectivity in the classroom. In Stam, G. & Ishino, M. (Eds.), Integrating gestures: The interdisciplinary nature of gesture (pp. 257–266). Amsterdam, the Netherlands: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nathan, M. J., Alibali, M. W., & Breckinridge Church, R. (2017). Making and breaking common ground. In Church, R. Breckinridge, Alibali, M., & Kelly, S. (Eds.), Why gesture? How the hands function in speaking, thinking and communicating (pp. 285–316). Amsterdam, the Netherlands: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Özyürek, A. (2002). Do speakers design their cospeech gestures for their addressees? The effects of addressee location on representational gestures. Journal of Memory and Language, 46(4), 688–704. https://doi.org/10.1006/jmla.2001.2826CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pika, S., Liebal, K., Call, J., & Tomasello, M. (2005). Gestural communication of apes. Gesture, 5(1–2), 41–56. https://doi.org/10.1075/gest.5.1.05pikCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Putnam, H. (1974). Meaning and reference. The Journal of Philosophy, 70(19), 699–711. https://doi.org/10.2307/2025079CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ratcliffe, M. (2006). Rethinking commonsense psychology: A critique of folk psychology, theory of mind and simulation. London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schubotz, L., Özyürek, A., & Holler, J. (2019). Age-related differences in multimodal recipient design: Younger, but not older adults, adapt speech and co-speech gestures to common ground. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 34(2), 254–271. https://doi.org/10.1080/23273798.2018.1527377CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sikveland, R. O., & Ogden, R. (2012). Holding gestures across turns: Moments to generate shared understanding. Gesture, 12(2), 166–199. https://doi.org/10.1075/gest.12.2.03sikCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Streeck, J. (1993). Gesture as communication I: Its coordination with gaze and speech. Communications Monographs, 60(4), 275–299. https://doi.org/10.1080/03637759309376314CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Streeck, J. (1994). Gesture as communication II: The audience as co-author. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 27(3), 239–267. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327973rlsi2703_5CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Streeck, J. (2002). A body and its gestures. Gesture, 2(1), 19–44. https://doi.org/10.1075/gest.2.1.03strCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Streeck, J. (2009). Gesturecraft: The manu-facture of meaning. Amsterdam, the Netherlands: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Streeck, J. (2010). Ecologies of gesture. In Streeck, J. (Ed.), New adventures in language and interaction (pp. 223–242). Amsterdam, the Netherlands: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Streeck, J. (2017). Self-making man: A day of action, life, and language. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tomasello, M. (1996). The gestural communication of apes and human infants. Infant Behavior and Development, 19, 248. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0163-6383(96)90302-1CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Trevarthen, C. (2011). What is it like to be a person who knows nothing? Defining the active intersubjective mind of a newborn human being. Infant and Child Development, 20(1), 119–135. https://doi.org/10.1002/icd.689CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vajrabhaya, P., & Pederson, E. (2018). Teasing apart listener-sensitivity: The role of interaction. Gesture, 17(1), 65–97. https://doi.org/10.1075/gest.00011.vajCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wakefield, E. M., Novack, M. A., Congdon, E. L., & Howard, L. H. (2021). Individual differences in gesture interpretation predict children’s propensity to pick a gesturer as a good informant. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 205, 105069. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2020.105069CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weiss, G. (1999). The abject borders of the body image. In Weiss, G. & Haber, H. (Eds.), Perspectives on embodiment: The intersections of nature and culture (pp. 41–59). New York, NY: Routledge.Google Scholar
Wharton, T. (2009). Pragmatics and non-verbal communication. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×