Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dlnhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T14:36:52.553Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A new approach to analysing static locative expressions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 March 2014

Mark Tutton
Mark Tutton*
Affiliation:
Département d'Études Anglaises, Université de Nantes, France, E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

As speakers, we are frequently called upon to specify the locations of objects and landmarks in our environment. However, despite the considerable body of work on spatial cognition and semantics (i.e. Levinson 1992, 1996, 2003; Tyler and Evans 2003; Herskovits 1986; Vandeloise 1986), there has been almost no research on the expression of location from a multimodal viewpoint: that is, how do speakers use gesture, as well as speech, to express object location? This paper reports on a filmed study of 10 English speakers and 10 French speakers who were asked to express the locations of 28 objects in two spatial scenes. On the basis of our results we argue that a functional, as opposed to a grammatical, approach to the segmentation and analysis of these sorts of expressions is crucial. Such an approach reflects the fact that different Figures (i.e. objects to be located) can exist simultaneously across speech and gesture. Using filmed examples from our data set, we propose a new definition of static locative expressions and outline a multimodal approach for their analysis in oral discourse.

Keywords

speechgestureEnglishFrenchFigureGroundstatic locative expressions
Type
Research Article
Information
Language and Cognition , Volume 5 , Issue 1 , March 2013 , pp. 25 - 60
Copyright
Copyright © UK Cognitive Linguistics Association 2013

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

Ameka, F. K. & Levinson, S. C.. 2007. Introduction. The typology and semantics of locative predicates: posturals, positionals, and other beasts. Linguistics 45(5). 847–872.Google Scholar
Arik, E. 2009. Spatial language: Insights from sign and spoken languages. West Lafayette, Indiana: Purdue University doctoral dissertation.Google Scholar
Ashley, A. & Carlson, L. A.. 2007. Encoding direction when interpreting proximal terms. Language and Cognitive Processes 22(7). 1021–1024.Google Scholar
Beattie, G. & Shovelton, H.. 2006. When size really matters: How a single semantic feature is represented in the speech and gesture modalities. Gesture 6(1). 63–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beavers, J., Levin, B. & Tham, S. W.. 2010. The typology of motion expressions revisited. Journal of Linguistics 46. 331–377.Google Scholar
Borillo, A. 1998. L'espace et son expression en français. Paris: Editions Ophrys.Google Scholar
Carlson, L. A. & Covey, E. S.. 2005. How far is near? Inferring distance from spatial descriptions Language and Cognitive Processes 20. 617–631.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Costello, F. J. & Kelleher, J. D.. 2006. Spatial prepositions in context: The semantics of near in the presence of distractor objects. In Arsenijevic, B., Baldwin, T. & Trawinski, B. (eds.), Proceedings of the Third ACL-SIGSEM Workshop on Prepositions, 1–8. Stroudsburg, PA: Association for Computational Linguistics.Google Scholar
Coventry, K. R. & Garrod, S. C.. 2004. Saying, seeing, and acting: The psychological semantics of spatial prepositions. Hove: Psychology Press.Google Scholar
Coventry, K. R., Tenbrink, T. & Bateman, J. (eds.) 2009. Spatial language and dialogue. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Emmorey, K. & Casey, S.. 2001. Gesture, thought and spatial language. Gesture 1(1). 35–50.Google Scholar
Fillmore, C. J. 1975. Santa Cruz lectures on deixis 1971. Indiana: Indiana University Linguistics Club.Google Scholar
Franckel, J. -J. & Paillard, D.. 2007. Grammaire des prépositions: Tome 1. Paris: Éditions Ophrys.Google Scholar
Gullberg, M. 2011. Language-specific encoding of placement events in gestures. In Bohnemeyer, J. & Pederson, E. (eds.), Event representation in language and cognition, 166–188. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hendriks, H., Watorek, M. & Giuliano, P.. 2004. L'expression de la localisation et du mouvement dans les descriptions et les récits en L1 et L2. Langage 155. 106–126.Google Scholar
Herskovits, A. 1986. Language and spatial cognition: An interdisciplinary study of the prepositions in English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Holler, J. & Beattie, G.. 2002. A micro-analytic investigation of how iconic gestures and speech represent core semantic features in talk. Semiotica 142. 31–69.Google Scholar
Hörberg, T. 2007. Influences of form and function on spatial relations: Establishing functional and geometric influences on projective prepositions in Swedish. Stockholm: Stockholm University MA dissertation.Google Scholar
Kendon, A. 1980. Gesticulation and speech: Two aspects of the process of utterance. In Key, M. -R. (ed.), The relationship of verbal and nonverbal communication, 207–227. The Hague: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Kendon, A. 1994. Do gestures communicate?: A review. Research on Language and Social Interaction 27(3). 175–200.Google Scholar
Kendon, A. 2004. Gesture: Visible action as utterance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kita, S. & Davies, T. S.. 2009. Competing conceptual representations trigger co-speech representational gestures. Language and Cognitive Processes 24(5). 761–775.Google Scholar
Kita, S. & Özyürek, A.. 2003. What does cross-linguistic variation in semantic coordination of speech and gesture reveal?: Evidence for an interface representation of spatial thinking and speaking. Journal of Memory and Language 48. 16–32.Google Scholar
Kopecka, A. 2004. Etude typologique de l'expression de l'espace: Localisation et déplacement en français et en polonais. Lyon: Université Lumière Lyon 2 doctoral dissertation.Google Scholar
Kopecka, A. 2006. The semantic structure of motion verbs in French: Typological perspectives. In Hickmann, M. & Robert, S. (eds.), Space in languages: Linguistic systems and cognitive categories, 83–101. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Kopecka, A. & Pourcel, S.. 2005. Motion expressions in French: Typological diversity. Durham and Newcastle Working Papers in Linguistics 11. 139–153.Google Scholar
Landau, B. 2003. Axes and direction in spatial language and spatial cognition. In van der Zee, E. & Slack, J. (eds.), Representing direction in language and space, 18–38. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Landau, B. & Jackendoff, R.. 1993. “What” and “Where” in spatial language and spatial cognition. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 16. 217–265.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lautenschütz, A.-K., Davies, C., Raubal, M., Schwering, A. & Pederson, E.. 2007. The influence of scale, context and spatial preposition in linguistic topology. In Barkowsky, T., Knauff, M., Ligozat, G. & Montello, D. R. (eds.), Spatial cognition V, LNAI4387, 439–452. Berlin: Springer-Verlag.Google Scholar
Lemmens, M. 2005. Motion and location: Toward a cognitive typology. In Girard-Gillet, G. (ed.), Parcours linguistiques: Domaine anglais [CIEREC Travaux 122], 223–244. Saint-Etienne: Publications de l'Université St.-Etienne.Google Scholar
Lemmens, M. & Slobin, D. I.. 2008. Positie- en bewegingswerkwoorden in het Nederlands, het Engels en het Frans [Position and movement verbs in Dutch, English and French]. In Hiligsmann, P. (ed.), Verslagen en Medelingen van de Handelingen van de Koninklijke Academie voor Taal- en letterkunde [Reports and Communications of the Acts of the Royal Academy for Linguistics and Literature]. [Special issue] 118(1). 17–32.Google Scholar
Levinson, S. C. 1992. Primer for the field investigation of spatial description and conception. Pragmatics 2(1). 5–47.Google Scholar
Levinson, S. C. 1996. Language and space. Annual Review of Anthropology 25. 353–382.Google Scholar
Levinson, S. C. 2003. Space in language and cognition: Explorations in cognitive diversity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Levinson, S. & Meira, S.. 2003. ‘Natural concepts' in the spatial topological domain – adpositional meanings in crosslinguistic perspective: An exercise in semantic typology. Language 79(3). 485–516.Google Scholar
McNeill, D. 1992. Hand and mind. What the hands reveal about thought. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
McNeill, D. 2000. Analogic/analytic representations and cross-linguistic differences in thinking for speaking. Cognitive Linguistics 11(1/2). 43–60.Google Scholar
McNeill, D. 2005. Gesture and thought. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Rauscher, F., Krauss, R. & Chen, Y.. 1996. Gesture, speech and lexical access. Psychological Science 7(4). 226–230.Google Scholar
Schober, M. F. 1998. How addressees affect spatial perspective choice in dialogue. In Oliver, P. & Gapp, K. -P. (eds.), Representation and processing of spatial expressions, 231–245. Mahwah NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Sinha, C. & Kuteva, T.. 1995. Distributed spatial semantics. Nordic Journal of Linguistics 18. 167–199.Google Scholar
Slobin, D. I. 1997. Mind, code, and text. In Bybee, J., Haiman, J. & Thompson, S. A. (eds.), Essays on language function and language type, 437–465. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Slobin, D. I. 2004. The many ways to search for a frog: Linguistic typology and the expression of motion events. In Stromqvist, S. & Verhoeven, L. (eds.), Relating events in narrative: Topological & contextual perspectives, 219–257. Mahwah, NJ: LEA Publishers.Google Scholar
Slobin, D. I. 2006. What makes manner of motion salient? Explorations in linguistic typology, discourse, and cognition. In Hickmann, M. & Robert, S. (eds.), Space in languages: Linguistic systems and cognitive categories, 59–81. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Striegnitz, K., Tepper, P., Lovett, A. & Cassell, J.. 2009. Knowledge representation for generating locating gestures in route descriptions. In Coventry, K. R., Tenbrink, T. & Bateman, J. (eds.), Spatial language and dialogue, 147–165. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Talmy, L. 1991. Path to realization: A typology of event conflation. In Sutton, L. A., Johnson, C. & Shields, R. (eds.), Proceedings of the seventeenth annual meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, 480–520. Berkeley: Berkeley Linguistics Society.Google Scholar
Talmy, L. 2000. Toward a cognitive semantics. Cambridge MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Tutton, M. 2009. When in means into: Towards an understanding of boundary-crossing in. Journal of English Linguistics 37(1). 5–27.Google Scholar
Tutton, M. 2011. How speakers gesture when encoding location with English on and French sur. Journal of Pragmatics 43. 3431–3454.Google Scholar
Tyler, A. & Evans, V.. 2003. The semantics of English prepositions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Vandeloise, C. 1986. L'espace en français. Paris: Éditions du Seuil.Google Scholar
Vandeloise, C. 2006. Are there spatial prepositions? In Hickmann, M. & Robert, S. (eds.), Space in languages: Linguistic systems and cognitive categories, 139–154. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar