GESTURAL MODES OF REPRESENTATION — A MULTI-DISCIPLINARY APPROACH

摘要

This talk will present first results of an interdisciplinary project which investigates the structural properties of gestures from a linguistic, aneurocognitive, and an evolutionary perspective. The focus is on onefundamental aspect of these structures, namely the techniques underlyinggesture creation, termed gestural modes of representation (Muller 1998a,b). Fourbasic modes of representation are distinguished: the hands model a three-dimensional shape of an object, the hands outline the two-dimensional form ofan object, or the hands embody the object (a flat hand embodies a piece of paperor a window), or the hands reenact an everyday activity such as opening awindow or turning a car key. In studies on patients with brain lesions, similarcategories (pantomime, body-part-as-object) have been found to be generated indifferent brain regions (Lausberg, Cruz, Kita, Zaidel, & Ptito, 2003). On thisbasis, neuroscientific studies contribute to identifying formal and semanticstructures of gestures. Comparative studies of gestural structures in human andnonhuman primates will investigate more closely which of the linguisticallyidentified structures in human gestures are present in our closest relatives, thenonhuman great apes including orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzeees and bonobos (Liebal, Muller & Pika, 2007).