Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t8hqh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T21:31:55.403Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

What is a gesture? A lesson from comparative gesture research

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 April 2017

Katja Liebal
Katja Liebal*
Affiliation:
Department of Education and Psychology, Freie Universität Berlin, 14195 Berlin, Germany. [email protected]://www.ewi-psy.fu-berlin.de
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Research into nonhuman primates’ gestures is often limited by the lack of clear criteria to define a gesture and by studying gestures separately from other communicative means. Despite the fundamental differences between the gestural communication of humans and other primates, I argue that sign language research might benefit from the lessons learned from these drawbacks and the current developments in primate communication research.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 40 , 2017 , e62
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Arbib, M. A., Liebal, K. & Pika, S. (2008) Primate vocalization, gesture, and the evolution of human language. Current Anthropology 49(6):1053–76.Google Scholar
Call, J. & Tomasello, M., eds. (2007) The gestural communication of apes and monkeys. Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Dachkovsky, S. & Sandler, W. (2009) Visual intonation in the prosody of a sign language. Language and Speech 52(2–3):287–314.Google Scholar
Hewes, G. W. (1973) Primate communication and the gestural origin of language. Current Anthropology 12(1–2):5–24.Google Scholar
Hobaiter, C. & Byrne, R. W. (2011) The gestural repertoire of the wild chimpanzee. Animal Cognition 14(5):745–67.Google Scholar
Hobaiter, C. & Byrne, R. W. (2014) The meanings of chimpanzee gestures. Current Biology 24(14):1596–600.Google Scholar
Liddell, S. K. & Metzger, M. (1998) Gesture in sign language discourse. Journal of Pragmatics 30:657–97.Google Scholar
Liebal, K. & Call, J. (2012) The origins of non-human primates’ manual gestures. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 367(1585):118–28.Google Scholar
Liebal, K., Waller, B. M., Burrows, A. & Slocombe, K. (2013) Primate communication: A multimodal approach. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
MacNeilage, P. F. (1998) The frame/content theory of evolution of speech production. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 21:499–511.Google Scholar
Maestripieri, D. (1999) Primate social organization, gestural repetoire size, and communication dynamics. In: The origins of language: What nonhuman primates can tell us, ed. King, B., pp. 55–77. School of American Research Press.Google Scholar
Nespor, M. & Sandler, W. (1999) Prosody in Israeli sign language. Language and Speech 42(2–3):143–76.Google Scholar
Pika, S., Liebal, K. & Tomasello, M. (2003) Gestural communication in young gorillas (Gorilla gorilla): Gestural repertoire, learning, and use. American Journal of Primatology 60(3):95–111.Google Scholar
Sandler, W. (2009) Symbiotic symbolization by hand and mouth in sign language. Semiotica 174:241–75.Google Scholar
Sandler, W. (2012a) Dedicated gestures and the emergence of sign language. Gesture 12(3):265–307.Google Scholar
Slocombe, K. E., Waller, B. M. & Liebal, K. (2011) The language void: The need for multimodality in primate communication research. Animal Behaviour 81(5):919–24.Google Scholar
Taglialatela, J. P., Russell, J. L., Pope, S. M., Morton, T., Bogart, S., Reamer, L. A. & Hopkins, W. D. (2015) Multimodal communication in chimpanzees. American Journal of Primatology 77(11):1143–48.Google Scholar
Tomasello, M. (2008) Origins of human communication. The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Zuberbühler, K. (2005) The phylogenetic roots of language: Evidence from primate communication and cognition. Current Directions in the Psychological Science 14(3):126–30.Google Scholar