Gestures and Speech Psychological Investigations [Hardcover]

This 1991 book surveys research on gestures carried out from various perspectives: psycho- and sociolinguistic, ethological, social, cognitive, and developmental psychological, and neuropsychological.Why do people gesture while speaking? What role does this activity play in verbal exchanges? Which kind of relationship does it exhibit between the verbal and the gestural domains? This 1991 book attempts to answer these questions by surveying research on gestures carried out from various perspectives.Why do people gesture while speaking? What role does this activity play in verbal exchanges? Which kind of relationship does it exhibit between the verbal and the gestural domains? This 1991 book attempts to answer these questions by surveying research on gestures carried out from various perspectives.Why do people gesture while speaking? What role does this activity play in verbal exchanges? Which kind of relationship does it exhibit between the verbal and the gestural domains? This book attempts to answer these questions by surveying research on gestures done from various perspectives: psycho- and sociolinguistics, ethology, social, cognitive, and developmental psychology, and neuropsychology. This large coverage makes it unique in the field. Furthermore, the delineation of several approaches to the topic yields a clearer picture of their respective contributions than a commitment to a single view.Achnowledgements; Introduction; 1. Body language; 2. Language as gesture: an ethnological approach; 3. Autonomy of gestures and speech: the notion of nonverbal communication; 4. Cognitive approaches; 5. Developmental perspectives; 6. Gestures and speech in neuropsychology and psychopathology; References; Subject index.