THE SEMANTIC STRUCTURE OF GESTURES
We are going to give a brief survey of the kinds, characteristics
and symbolic functioning of gestures. Act-derived sign, the gestural sign which
is both analogical and ambiguous, differs from the verbal sign.
A cultural body: acts and signs
Acts. - With our body, we act and signify. As M.Mauss said: The most physical
and intimate acts are culturally determined. Walking, swimming, sleeping, washing,
eating, making love, giving birth are cultural (Techniques du corps 1935)
Signs. - Communication implies a same code of behaviour which varies according
to the culture and in a given culture, to the context, according to the status,
age, gender and the situation itself. The inter & intracultural variants
of salutations are well known.
Act-derived signs. - The gestural sign derives from action. It mimes object
handling, its configuration or its movement. The gesture shows a natural link
of contiguity or resemblance with what it signifies. The gesture is an analogical
sign, and isomorphic because we often see a parallel attenuation on physical
and semantic levels. For instance, the four gestures of Threat, Threatening
warning, Warning and Advice: as the signified of threat weakens, the signifier
of threat decreased in parallel. The hand shaken at first, then simply raised
is replaced by the forefinger shaken, or raised. Isomorphy confirms analogy.
Kinds of signs
Concerning to the referent, gestures either indicate or represent the referent.
The real or abstract referent is indicated by a deictic gesture or represented
by a figurative gesture.
Concerning speech, gestures either replace or accompany speech. Emblems are
speech substitutes. Conscious, known by the group (deliberately sent, so received),
they can be replaced by a word. In a cultural group, they are unequivocal, understood
out of context and constitute a limited series. On the contrary, coverbal gestures
are spontaneous (non conscious for locutor and interlocutor, but functional).
They are ambiguous, understood only in the context and constitute an unlimited
series.
Sign characteristics
The finger ring is used to show that a same gesture is an inter and intracultural
sign.
An intercultural sign (Figure 1: creasing diagonal). - In Malta, it's an obscene
insult: because the form is circular, the meaning is basically anal. In France,
it's a symbol of perfection, synonymous of 'Perfect" or 'Delicious'. In
Japan, it signifies 'money': money means coins and coins are circular. The meaning
of the circle changes with the cultural group. Always it shows an analogical
link between its form and its meaning.
A contextual sign (Figure 1: decreasing diagonal). - In a given culture, in
France, the meaning of the circle changes with the context. As emblem, it signifies
either 'Zero' or 'Perfect'. The facial expression changes it from positive to
negative appreciation. The other body movements, the kinesic context, influence
the meaning. The verbal context, too. Accompanying a sentence such as "It
concerns 0,25% of families", it expresses precision. It figures no more
a circular form but a digital pincers. Cultural and contextual, the gestural
sign is both polysemous and analogical .
Figure 1 An analogical sign
Units and subunits
A temporal unit covers several simultaneous gestures and each one is a composite
unit. Gestural components are: segment, configuration, orientation, localisation
and movement. Can each component constitute a gestural sign ?
Relations between notions and gestures
A gesture figures several notions, either successively, or simultaneously. As
we saw with the finger ring, the same gesture figures either a notion or another
one according to the situation, it's a polysemous gesture. In the second case,
the gesture figures simultaneously several notions, it's a polysign. Every example
corresponding to this section is with the fist.
It's the same for a notion. Several gestures figure a notion, either successively
or simultaneously. To express a notion, we have the choice between several gestures
(gestural variants.). We can also cumulate several gestures made by different
body segments (a cumulative variant ). In Figure 2, the hand represents a gesture
and the balloon, a notion.
Figure 2 Gestures & Notions
Several gestures figure a notion. - Figure 3, from the left to the right, we
saw a gesture of stopping or repulsion, of avoiding and of drawing back. Each
variant reproduces a protection reflex. And below, the hand stops, the head
avoids, the trunk draws back, the man grimaces in disgust from the vomiting
reflex, closes his eyes, knits his brows in an ocular protection reflex. This
variant cumulates every kind of protection reflex.
Figure 3 Gestural variants
A gesture figures several notions. - A polysemous gesture figures several notions
successively. Figure 4, some French locutors - a pianist, an ethnologist, a
management teacher, a philosopher, the management teacher again, an engineer
and a psychologist - speak with the fist to express several different meanings.
How to explain this fact if the fist is always an analogical sign? The fist
is strong. Its strength is the analogical link and the context determines if
the strength is physical, psychological or the strength of a value (first line).
So, an analogical link (strength) with semantic shifts produces several contextual
meanings.
This configuration presents several links. The fist handles and figures by contiguity
any handled physical object, a weapon or a dagger and, by metaphor, a killer
mentality (second line). The fist encloses a rubber for instance. It can express
the enclosing either of the cold water in tanks or of a secret, a real or abstract
enclosed object (third line). The polysemy is explained. According to the motor
or perceptive experience, the gesture contains several possible analogical links
and each link is subject to semantic shifts.
Figure 4 Polysemy: Several links & semantic shifts
A polysign figures several notions simultaneously. Figure 4, photography 7,
the fist up accompanying "It was such a closely guarded secret" is,
in fact, a polysign. The fist configuration figures enclosing and refers to
"a closely guarded secret". The upwards movement figures 'More is
up' and expresses an exclamative augmentation, "such a...". Each component
is a sign and the gesture, a polysign. In another situation, a fist up could
be a mimetic gesture referring to a halberd.
A polysemous polysign. - Until now, we saw a fist to be polysemous and a fist
up to be a polysign. Can a polysign be polysemous? Here is the example of the
forwards fist. We know the fist configuration figures a physical or psychological
strength. The forwards movement is very ambiguous because we advance towards
or against something and the progression is spatial or temporal. So the possible
combinations are multiple:
A
POLYSEMOUS POLYSIGN
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Forwards fist polysemy
CONFIGURATION MOVEMENT CONFIGURATION
& MOVEMENT
Fist Forwards
Forwards
fist
Physical, Towards
or against,
psychological spatial or temporal
strength progression
Will Forwards
Will
to go forward
Effort Advancing
towards Efort
towards a goal
Strength Temporal
progression Strength
& Modernism
Strength Advancing
against Strength
to attack
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Many contextual meanings are based on few physical elements which carry analogical
links, themselves subject to semantic shifts.
Interaction between variation and polysemy phenomenons
The semantic construction game is not finished. On one hand, we saw the polysemy
of a gesture Figure 4) and on the other hand, the gestural variants of a notion
(Figure 3). But there is an interaction between polysemy and variation. This
interaction allows the discovery of the analogical link (Figure 5).
In France, headshake is polysemous: as emblem, it expresses negation and as
coverbal gesture, either totality or approximation. How to discover the analogical
link between the headshake and its three meanings? By comparing gestural variants
of each notion. For instance, totality is expressed by a head and/or hand or
digits transverse movement, repeated or not. The analogical link between this
common transverse movement and totality is probably the horizon transverse line,
‘everywhere’.
Figure 5 Polysemy & Variation
The analogical link will be confirmed on paradigmatic and syntagmatic axis.
Gestural syntax. – Here are two examples where gesture 2 depends on gesture
1 in each utterance:
- [Gesture 1: digital pincers for rigour] Systematically against a proportional
system and that [Gesture 2: in a transverse movement for totality] for every
kind of election.
- [Gesture 1: sagittal hands for a definite object] To promote this pedagogic
method which is both theorical and practical teaching parallel [Gesture 2: in
a transverse movement for totality] for all the young generation.
Digital pincers are maintained because rigorous opposition concerns every election.
Sagittal hands also, because all the young generation is concerned by the pedagogic
method. The configuration is maintained during the idea unit that it figures.
Only the new element, transverse movement, is linkable with the notion of totality.
VARIANTS
Common
Element
|
|
|
ANALOGICAL Relevant -------------------------------------------------------New
SEQUENCED
LINK feature
element
GESTURES
We find the analogical link thanks to the relevant feature which is the common
element of variants (head, hand, digits transverse movement) and the new element
(transverse movement) in sequenced gestures.
In conclusion, we are in front of a holistic interactive system. The semiotic
analysis of gestures shows that our symbolic world, our concepts, are predetermined
by our perceptive experience which itself is generated by interaction between
our modes of perception and the environment we live in.