Johann van der Merwe wrote:
> Keith wrote: "in that gesture transcends, it is of language"
Not sure where this is going but there's a very important relationship
between language and gesture. I'd like to use it to illustrate my
interest in the value of artefacts and actions in social inquiry and
collaboration.
Explicit gesture languages - mainly the sign language used by deaf
people, have structures that closely match spoken language. There is a
famous case, of Nicaraguan Sign Language, where unusual circumstances
led to the language emerging over quite a short period among a deaf
community whose members had been kept apart previously. This not only
demonstrated the close relationship between spoken and gestural language
but provided a unique opportunity for linguists to observe a new
language emerging in "hothouse" conditions. The essence of these gesture
languages is that the gestures are components, like words and
punctuation, and can be combined according to rules to make many
possible meanings, the sense of the message being formed over a whole
sequence of gestures, each with an explicit agreed meaning and place in
the scheme.
On the other hand, there are gestures that are complete in themselves,
that have a timeline that includes preparation, starting, making and
finishing and they can be neither divided nor combined. They are not
like spoken language and I tend to think that they have a similar nature
to images or other artworks. They act on a visceral or tacit level and I
feel the two classes of gesture relate to the differently useful schemes
of text and image (I tend to use cave paintings as my example). Text, in
its routine form tends to be atomistic and tame. It has precision and
potential to express a huge range of ideas. Images, by contrast, are
holistic and wicked, capable of many interpretations but revealing their
content in a single "gesture".
best wishes from Sheffield
Chris
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