Environmentally-Coupled Signs and Gestures

Environmentally-coupled gestures are defined by Goodwin (2007) as gestures that can only be interpreted by taking into account the physical environment of the speaker. Lexical signs, unlike spoken words, can be also be environmentally-coupled because the visual-manual modality allows for signs to be...

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Main Author: Karen Emmorey
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Ubiquity Press 2021-08-01
Series:Journal of Cognition
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.journalofcognition.org/articles/132
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author Karen Emmorey
author_facet Karen Emmorey
author_sort Karen Emmorey
collection DOAJ
description Environmentally-coupled gestures are defined by Goodwin (2007) as gestures that can only be interpreted by taking into account the physical environment of the speaker. Lexical signs, unlike spoken words, can be also be environmentally-coupled because the visual-manual modality allows for signs to be articulated on or near elements in the environment. The speech articulators are largely hidden from view and do not permit environmental coupling. This commentary provides examples of environmentally-coupled signs, which can only be explained within a language-as-situated approach. However, such expressions are also constrained by internal, systematic properties of language, indicating that both language-as-situated and language-as-system approaches are necessary to account for the non-arbitrary (iconic and indexical) properties of language.
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spelling doaj.art-bad6c138a3d6493ead8453f18cc7f78f2022-12-21T18:33:38ZengUbiquity PressJournal of Cognition2514-48202021-08-014110.5334/joc.132189Environmentally-Coupled Signs and GesturesKaren Emmorey0San Diego State University, San DiegoEnvironmentally-coupled gestures are defined by Goodwin (2007) as gestures that can only be interpreted by taking into account the physical environment of the speaker. Lexical signs, unlike spoken words, can be also be environmentally-coupled because the visual-manual modality allows for signs to be articulated on or near elements in the environment. The speech articulators are largely hidden from view and do not permit environmental coupling. This commentary provides examples of environmentally-coupled signs, which can only be explained within a language-as-situated approach. However, such expressions are also constrained by internal, systematic properties of language, indicating that both language-as-situated and language-as-system approaches are necessary to account for the non-arbitrary (iconic and indexical) properties of language.https://www.journalofcognition.org/articles/132embodied cognitionlanguage productionsemantics
spellingShingle Karen Emmorey
Environmentally-Coupled Signs and Gestures
Journal of Cognition
embodied cognition
language production
semantics
title Environmentally-Coupled Signs and Gestures
title_full Environmentally-Coupled Signs and Gestures
title_fullStr Environmentally-Coupled Signs and Gestures
title_full_unstemmed Environmentally-Coupled Signs and Gestures
title_short Environmentally-Coupled Signs and Gestures
title_sort environmentally coupled signs and gestures
topic embodied cognition
language production
semantics
url https://www.journalofcognition.org/articles/132
work_keys_str_mv AT karenemmorey environmentallycoupledsignsandgestures