Lecture 2- gestures, sign and language Flashcards
Is language the same as communication, how else might you communicate?
No, you don’t need language to communicate you can use gestures
What conveys shock + confusion?
Emotions, shown in face often move eyes around as if to look for more information
What conveys excitement?
Big movements often wide eyes, jumping/bouncing and hands/arms go up
What is an example of gender influenced excitement?
Jumping up and down giggling more characteristic of girls
What is the relationship between biological and social in terms of facial and body gestures?
There is a cline (gradient) some are purely biological what you instinctively do (raw emotions) while others are learnt gestures to represent things
What is an example of a gesture between biological and social influence?
The fist pump displays genuine human emotion and our tendency to convey excitement in big movements but puts it into a stable-culturally transferred gesture.
What’s clearly an example of a gesture that has no biological influence what so ever?
Raise the roof, its fixed
What’s and example of gesture where you are acting it out?
You just blew my mind
What are the 5 general types of gestures?
- Emotional expression (excited etc.)
- Non-intentional gesture (rubbing shoulders, or touching back of neck when talking) these are related to emotions but not directly giving out information
- Emblems
- Pantomime= acting out a scene
- Illustrative gestures
What are emblems?
- They are fixed, culturally learnt gestures
- They have a history and are not known unless you live in the community
- example include ok, raise the roof, thumbs up
What is the biggest category of gestures? What is it synchronized with?
Illustrative, speech
What are the four sub categories of illustrative gestures?
- Beat gestures
- Deictic
- Iconic
- Metaphoric
What are beat gestures?
They mark rhythm with the person moving their hands on the beat for emphasis
What are deictic gestures?
pointing
What are iconic gestures?
- Represent something in the world with your hands, body
- Examples are up the stairs, directions, back and forth
What are metaphoric gestures?
- Extending physical things into things that aren’t physical (concepts)
- Examples are 3 levels of NCEA, Back and forth but talking about a conversation or something like that NOT physical
Can gestures stand alone?
No (with the exception of iconic) they need speech to accompany them, or at least clearest communication is when a combination of speech and gestures are used
What can gestures add to speech (called mismatches)?
- Show a point of view (this guy)
- Add size manner texture and more
- Word referent with gestural info (spider-tells us stuff by action not having to say
What is a downfall of gestures?
Generally vague+ not precise
Does every culture use gestures?
Yes, in some more prominent than others (Italian)
How does the speed of gesturing compare to talking?
Only use a few a minute whereas we speech 2-3 words per second
What is interesting about people who are blind and gestures?
They still do it despite having never seen it done (suggests it not purely cultural)
When do we use more gestures?
When we are not sure what to say or why trying to be persuasive
Is sign language essentially illustrative gestures?
- Yes in that they you learn them culturally (like emblems), some are iconic representative (But some are not) and dietic you can use pointing
- But overall no as there are some signs that are abstract which you can’t guess, it is sequential not global and discrete (separate words one after the other-do not overlap), it is hierarchical one meaning inside of other words and it is grammatical if you do a gesture different it is just wrong not weird.
Language is…
- arbitrary forms (that map to meanings)
- sequential (not global) and discrete
- hierarchical
- grammatical
- social
- functional
