On Grammar-Gesture Relations : Gestures Associated with Negation

When, how, and why do people gesture? The Cambridge Handbook of Gesture Studies offers many answers to this question from diverse theoretical and methodological perspectives on the relation between language and gesture. The topic introduced in this chapter pulls together several strands of research that have highlighted gesture’s relation to notions and processes that are traditionally seen as ‘grammatical’. In particular, rich observations on gesture’s link with negation have featured in the work of several key thinkers and texts, and can therefore be said to have played a role in shaping contemporary gesture studies. Rather than emphasizing the spontaneity and idiosyncrasy of co-speech gestures, for instance, studies of gesture’s association with negation have shed light on regularities in gesture form, function, and linguistic organization, and in turn, offered evidence for the multimodality of grammar, the embodiment of cognition, and our bodies’ “potential for language” (Müller, 2013, p.202).