Gesture Centers around the world

The Center for Gesture, Sign, and Language is located at the University of Chicago and explores the interplay among gesture, sign, and language and in so doing, addresses some of the most basic questions about human language and development. The Center provides a home for the collaborations between members of the Departments of Psychology, Linguistics, and Comparative Human Development, as well as providing fertile ground for new collaborations.

Contact: Susan Goldin-Meadow, profile

For more information, announcements and publications see the website of the center.

The Center for Gesture Studies and Speech Sciences is located at the TU Chemnitz and brings together research and teaching from gesture studies and speech sciences. The center offers courses in di!erent BA and MA programs, training for researchers at the TU Chemnitz in different scientific fields as well as teachers, external researchers and interested parties from industry. Gesture research at the TU Chemnitz covers a range of phenomena in describing gesture-speech relations to the description of gestures in indigenous speech communities. A new branch of research focuses on Human-Machine-Interaction.

Contact: Jana Bressem, profile – Ellen Fricke, profile

For more information, announcements and publications see the website of the center.

The Competence Centre for Sign Language and Gesture is engaged in various courses of studies inside and outside of the RWTH Aachen. It offers courses for teacher trainees in the field of schools and inclusion as well as sign language courses and courses for speech therapists, kindergarten teacher, deaf children in schools and specialists at the Uniklinik RWTH Aachen raising the awareness for deaf interests and needs.

Contact person: Klaudia Grote, profile

For more information, announcements and publications see the website of the center.

The Goldin-Meadow Laboratory is a research lab at the University of Chicago in the Department of Psychology headed by Susan Goldin-Meadow. The lab is composed of graduate students and researchers pursuing independent topics related to cognition, development, education, linguistics, and various other fields, but interrelated by the lab’s main focus – the study of non-verbal communication, specifically gestures.

Contact: Susan Goldin-Meadow, profile

For more information, announcements and publications see the website of the center.

The Multimodal Language and Cognition Lab is located at the Radbound University and investigates the relationship between meaningful bodily actions, language and cognition in face-to-face communication. Research particularly explores two specific domains of human communicative behavior in which body and language are closely related, that is gestures used by speakers with co-occurring speech and sign languages used by Deaf communities.

Contact: Asli Ozyurek, profile – Mark Dingemase, profile

For more information, announcements and publications see the website of the center.

The Multimodal Communication and Cognition Laboratory is located at Moscow State Linguistic University and focuses on face-to-face communication as not just verbal but also visual to varying degrees. Speakers integrate the use of hand gestures, head movements, eye gaze, etc. with their speech in complex ways, often without even being aware of it. Research projects in the lab have considered the use of verb tense and aspect cross-linguistically in relation to gesture movement quality, the functions of gestures used by simultaneous interpreters, and the types of recurrent gestures used in conversation in different cultures.

Contact: Alan Cienki, profile

For more information, announcements and publications see the website of the center.

The Nijmegen Gesture Centre (NGC), co-ordinated by prof. Asli Ozyurek and dr. Judith Holler, brings together the interests of researchers concerned with the study of gestures at the MPI and across the campus of Radboud University Nijmegen. The purpose of the Nijmegen Gesture Centre is to conduct and promote basic research on gestures, to facilitate interactions and intellectual exchange among gesture researchers through lecture series, workshops, etc., and ultimately to help put gesture on the research agendas in other disciplines.

Contact: Asli Ozyurek, profile – Judith Holler, profile

For more information, announcements and publications see the website of the center.

The Viadrina Center for Gesture and Multimodality Studies promotes international research on gesture and language, on the multimodality of speaking and audiovisual multimodality. We offer training in methods of gesture and audiovisual analysis and host visiting international PhD students.

Since 2023 we host an International Lecture Series (ILS) which takes place in a hybrid format – on site, in our Language and Media Lab at the European University Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder), a 50min. train ride east of Berlin – and online in our Zoom Meeting Room. The lectures take place during the German teaching terms (Oct-Feb and April-July). Guests on site and online are warmly welcomed.

For more information please contact vcgms@listserv.dfn.de or subscribe to our newsletter on upcoming events of the VCGMS.

Contact: vcgms@listserv.dfn.de

The Amsterdam Gesture Center is based at the Vrije Universiteit/VU. While the focus of the center is on manual gesture with speech, other bodily movements are also taken into consideration, such as bodily position, eye gaze, etc. The approaches of the researchers often integrate the psychological with the social, draw on include cognitive linguistics (e.g., conceptual metaphor theory, conceptual integration or blending theory, fictive interaction), cognitive and functional theories of grammar, memory studies, and critical discourse analysis.

For more information, announcements and publications see the website of the center.

The Berlin Gesture Center is a cross-disciplinary academic network bringing together neuropsychological, semiotic and linguistic

research on gestures. The Center is a hub for academic exchange, training and consulting and is currently spread over three locations: German Sport University in Köln, Chemnitz University of Technology and European University Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder).

For more information see the Archive.org version of the website of the center.

The research team at the University of Victoria specializes in the study of face-to-face dialogue in both the experimental lab and applied settings. The lab’s research focuses on identifying the unique features of face-to-face dialogue, especially (a) reciprocal influence and collaboration and (b) visible actions that are integrated with speech (e.g., hand and facial gestures).

For more information see the Archive.org version of website of the centre.