Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T20:21:04.342Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Languages as semiotically heterogenous systems

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 April 2017

Adam Kendon*
Affiliation:
Division of Biological Anthropology, Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge University, Cambridge, CB1 3JP, England, United Kingdom; 2, Orchard Estate, Cherry Hinton, Cambridge CB1 3JP, United Kingdom. [email protected]

Abstract

The target article is consistent with seeing languages as semiotically heterogenous, using categorial, depictive, and analogic semiotic signs. “Gesture,” used in the target article, is shown to be vague and not useful. Kendon's view, criticised in the target, is restated. His proposal for comparative semiotic analyses of how visible bodily action is used in utterance production is reexplained.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

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

Duncan, S. (2005) Gesture in signing: A case study from Taiwan sign language. Language and Linguistics 6(2):279318.Google Scholar
Kendon, A. (1980a) A description of a deaf-mute sign language from the Enga Province of Papua New Guinea with some comparative discussion. Part I, Semiotica 32:132; Part II, Semiotica 32:81–117; Part III, Semiotica 32:245–313.Google Scholar
Kendon, A. (1988a) How gestures can become like words. In: Cross-cultural perspectives in nonverbal communication, ed. Poyatos, F., pp. 131–41. C. J. Hogrefe.Google Scholar
Kendon, A. (1988c) Sign languages of aboriginal Australia: Cultural, semiotic and communicative perspectives. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kendon, A. (2004) Gesture: Visible action as utterance. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kendon, A. (2008) Some reflections on the relationship between “gesture” and “sign.Gesture 8(3):348–66.Google Scholar
Kendon, A. (2012) Language and kinesic complexity. Reflections on “Dedicated gestures and the emergence of sign language” by Wendy Sandler. Gesture 12(3):308–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kendon, A. (2014) Semiotic diversity in utterance production and the concept of “language.Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 369(1651):20130293. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2013.0293.Google Scholar
Kendon, A. (2015) Gesture and sign: Utterance uses of visible bodily action. In: The Routledge handbook of linguistics, ed. Allen, K., pp. 3346. Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group.Google Scholar
Liddell, S. K. (2003) Grammar, gesture and meaning in American Sign Language. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Schembri, A., Jones, C. & Burnham, D. (2005) Comparing action gestures and classifier verbs of motion: Evidence from Australian Sign Language, Taiwan Sign Language and Nonsigners’ gestures without speech. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education 10(3):272–90.Google Scholar
Vermeerbergen, M., Leeson, L. & Crasborn, O., eds. (2007) Simultaneity in signed languages: Form and function. John Benjamins.Google Scholar