Gestures of Joint Attention
| Panel: | P55 - Deixis in Interaction |
| Author: | Streeck, Jürgen |
| Abstract: | |
| This presentation offers examples of hand gestures by which interaction participants structure and elaborate perceptual scenes. While most prior research into "environmentally coupled gestures" (Goodwin, 2007) has focused on pointing gestures and their grounding in cultural systems of spatial cognition (Kita, 2003, Levinson, 2003, Ch.6), it is shown here that indexical gestures often include form components (e.g. hand-shapes) that project aspectual meanings and provide instructions how the target selected by the gesture is to be seen. More complex forms of gestures of joint attention interpret or elaborate the scene at hand and disclose structures and webs of significance unavailable to the uneducated eye. Gestures of joint attention thus are part of the equipment by which humans transform the objective world into a world that is known in common and that can be jointly and intelligibly acted upon. It is not uncommon that gestures of joint attention are derived from or entail tactile and haptic (rather than visual) apperceptions of referents. The presentation centers around video examples from a car-repair shop and an architectural design studio, which present gestures of joint attention within sequences of interaction and collaborative work that are in part mediated by them. The presentation elaborates the account given in Gesturecraft (Streeck, 2009). |
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