In analyzing the use of space in American Sign Language (ASL), Liddell (draft copy) shows that it is difficult if not impossible to come up with a coherent account of the observed data without a discussion of signers’ use of gesture and gradient phenomena. Liddell argues convincingly that no account of ASL can be complete without a discussion of how linguistic signs and non-linguistic gestures and gradient phenomena work together to create meaning. This raises the question of whether these phenomena are peculiar to ASL and other sign languages, or if they also apply to spoken language. In this paper, I will show how Liddell’s approach can be applied to analyze Jack Lemmons’ use of space and gesture in a scene from the movie “Mr. Roberts”.

Two key concepts in Liddell’s analysis are real space and real space blends. Liddell defines real space as a special case of a mental space. Real space consists of our perceptions of the immediate physical environment. Real space is not objective reality, but rather the mental representation we make of reality based on the input we receive from our senses. In a real space blend, we map elements from another space onto elements in real space, to create an emergent blended space. Liddell shows that real space blends are ubiquitous in ASL discourse. I will show in this paper how real space blends can be used in a spoken language.

The action in “Mr. Roberts” takes place on a cargo ship in the Pacific in the waning days of World War 2. In the scene I analyze, Ensign Pulver (played by Jack Lemmon), the laundry and morale officer is explaining to Doc (William Powell) his plans to get revenge for his roommate Mr. Roberts (Henry Fonda) on the tyrannical captain (James Cagney).

Pulver starts the conversation thus:
(1) What does that look like to you Doc?
As he asks the question, he holds up a short cardboard tube from the center of a roll of toilet paper. By asking Doc what the tube looks like, Pulver is inviting him to create a conceptual blend, an invitation which Doc refuses:
(2) Doc: Just what it is--a cardboard center of a roll of toilet paper.
Doc’s response is a pure description of real space: he perceives a cardboard center of a roll of toilet paper, and so he describes it as such.
Pulver then says:
(3) I suppose it doesn’t look like a firecracker.
Pulver’s utterance sets up a supposition space, in which he suggests a conceptual blend to Doc, by asking him to compare the tube to a firecracker. The negative in the supposition space suggests that Pulver does not believe that the tube in fact looks like a firecracker, and thus would seem to negate the possibility of a blend. The pragmatic force of the utterance, however, is that Doc would be foolish not to see the resemblance between the tube and a firecracker. This utterance, then, has the effect of calling up our schema for a firecracker, and trying to make a mapping between the tube and a firecracker. For the moment, the only possible mapping is between the shape of the tube and the shape of a firecracker. Since the tube lacks two key characteristics of firecrackers (a fuse and explosives), the potential blend is rather far-fetched, and so is easy to reject.
Pulver next pulls out a string from inside the tube and says:
(4) And I suppose that doesn’t look like a fuse.
Once again we are invited to map the elements of the tube onto the firecracker space, and to consider a potential blend. However, the firecracker still lacks an explosive. Again, the potential blend is tenuous, and Doc rejects it.
Pulver introduces the one missing ingredient for a firecracker with his next utterance:
(5) You just wait till old Pulver gets through with it. I’m gonna get me some black powder from that gunner’s mate and I’m gonna...
He has not yet created a real space blend of the tube and the firecracker, but he has done all the preparation necessary to make such a blend easily understandable.
He then says:
(7) This is not gonna be any peanut of a firecracker
He has now explicitly mapped the tube onto the firecracker in future space. The elements of this mapping are shown in Figure 1. At this point, the tube maps onto the body of the firecracker, and the string maps onto the fuse. He has not yet created a real space blend, in that there is no evidence that he intends the listener to interpret the tube as being a firecracker in real space.

Before the tube can truly become a firecracker, it is necessary to fill it with explosives. Pulver’s next utterance, then, sets up a new space, still in the future, but somewhat earlier than his previous utterance:
(6) I’m gonna pack that thing solid with the stuff they use to blow up
bridges... fulminate of mercury
As he says “blow up”, he moves his right arm quickly to the right and then up, while looking at the tube that he holds in his left hand. This creates a real space blend in which the movement of his arm depicts the force of the explosion (Figure 2). Note that the only thing that maps into the real space blend from real space is his right arm with its attendant motion.

He then describes what he plans to do with the firecracker:
(7) On the night of Doug’s birthday I’m going to throw that under the old
man’s bunk
As he says “birthday,” he transfers the tube to his right hand, and squats slightly and turns his body to the right while drawing his right arm back. At this point, he has finally created the real space blend in which the tube in real space blends with the firecracker in firecracker space to create a |firecracker| (Figure 3). The cardboard tube maps onto the body of the firecracker, and the string maps onto the fuse. Moreover, the |firecracker| inherits an explosive from the firecracker space, though there is no element in real space which maps onto the explosive. Finally, in the blend, the |fuse| is lit, as it is clear from our background knowledge firecrackers, and from the subsequent explosion, that Pulver intends to throw a lit firecracker under the captain’s bed.

On saying “throw” Pulver flings his right arm forward in a sidearm throwing motion. With this action, he is creating a surrogate blend, in which his whole body in real space blends with his body in future space (Figure 4). In this blend, his body in real space maps onto his body in future space. Thus, Pulver’s words describe his actions in future space, while his movements depict the same actions. The blend inherits its location from the future space: in the blend, |Pulver| is standing in the captain’s cabin. However, not all of the cabin space maps onto elements in real space. Most noticeably, his bed is not matched with the captain’s bed, as the throwing motion depicted by his arm would send the firecracker straight ahead, while his bed in real space is on his left.

Pulver then says:
(10) Bam boy bam ooh bam
Each “bam” gets progressively louder. The first is accompanied by a gesture in which he turns to the right, throws his right arm behind him with his fist clenched, and then swivels quickly back to the center, swinging his right arm forward. He then repeats the motion, but starting from the left, and then a third time, starting on his right and swinging more violently. Pulver’s gesture seems to be depicting the force of the |explosion| blowing out from under the |bunk|. The blend is depicted in Figure 5. Note that nothing in real space maps onto the bunk or the firecracker in future space; only the force and sound of the explosion are mapped.

In this paper, I have shown how a short piece of discourse taken from the movie Mr. Roberts contains many of the phenomena described by Liddell. I have shown how Ensign Pulver uses space and gesture to create real space blends, using himself and objects in his environments as surrogates for elements in other spaces. The presence of several instances of real space blends in a short clip from a movie suggests that they may be prevalent in spoken language, and that a theory of semantics would be incomplete without taking them into account. Nevertheless, several questions remain. First, to what extent are real space blends present in spoken language? Are they as essential to communication in spoken language as they seem to be in ASL? To what extent do we use gestures and real space blends to make our meaning easier to understand, as opposed to using them to aid ourselves in expressing our meaning? These questions require further research, preferably with naturally occurring (as opposed to scripted) language.

References

Fauconnier, G. (1997). Mappings in thought and language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Liddell, S. (Draft copy). Grammar, gesture, and meaning.

Appendix

Transcript of film clip from “Mr. Roberts”