The Impulse to Gesture

Based on the phenomenon of negation, this book combines gesture studies and cognitive linguistics to illustrate the multimodality of grammar in language use in social and professional interactions. It explains not only when and how we gesture, but also why we gesture. Ideal for researchers and graduate students in linguistics and cognitive science.

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Gestures are central to the way people use language when they interact. This book places our impulse to gesture at the very heart of linguistic structure: grammar. Based on the phenomenon of negation - a linguistic universal with clear grammatical and gestural manifestations - Simon Harrison argues that linguistic concepts are fundamentally multi modal and shows how they lead to recurrent bindings between grammar and gesture when people speak. Studying how speakers express negation multi modally in a range of social and professional contexts, Harrison explores how and when people gesture, what people achieve linguistically and discursively with their gestures, and why we find similar uses of gesture in different languages (including spoken and signed language). Establishing the inseparability of grammar and gesture, this book is an important reference for any researcher interested in the relation between language, gesture, and cognition.