Language in the Body: Multimodality in Grammar and Discourse (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9783110794618)

Gestures are integral to spoken language. However, much of modern linguistic enquiry has been based on analyses of language as text. This book is situated in the turn towards face-to-face interaction as the primary source of linguistic data. Taking a cognitive and usage-based approach, it provides data-driven investigations of the conventions of spontaneous conversation, going beyond linguistic features of utterances to include manual gestures, head movements, shoulder shrugs, postural shifts, eye-gaze and brow movements, collectively known as co-speech behaviour. The volume marshals evidence for the coordinated and recurrent bodily enactment of grammatical and discourse-level expressions, thus contributing to a more robust understanding of the role of the body in natural discourse.