Gestural Ways of Depicting Metaphors and Abstract Concepts

Izabela Kraśnicka

doi:10.2478/slgr-2024-0008

.blurhash-client-img { display: none !important; }

Gestural Ways of Depicting Metaphors and Abstract Concepts

Studies in Logic, Grammar and Rhetoric

Volume 69 (2024): Issue 1 (December 2024)

By: Izabela Kraśnicka

Open Access

|Dec 2024

Abstract

The aim of the article is to present ways in which gestures combine with the verbal layer of an utterance, thus reflecting embodied thinking and the rooting of abstract concepts in human bodily experience. The article discusses two different ways in which gestures, described in the literature as metaphoric, illustrate both linguistically expressed metaphors and abstract concepts that are not verbally expressed as metaphors. The data analyzed in this paper have been taken from speeches of politicians and other public figures.

References

Antas, J. (2013). Semantyczność ciała. Gesty jako znaki myślenia. Łódź: Primum Verbum.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Antas, J., Gembalczyk S. (2018). Człowiek negujący – multimodalne studium cielesnych wyrazów negacji towarzyszących mowie. In: Winiarska J., Zała-zińska, A. (Eds.). Multimodalność komunikacji. Kraków: Księgarnia Akademicka.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Body – Language – Communication, vol. I 2013, vol. II 2014, Müller, C., Cienki, A., Fricke, E., Ladewig, S., McNeill, D., Teßendorf, S. (Eds.). Berlin: de Gruyter.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Calbris, G. (2011). Elements of Meaning in Gestures. Amsterdam–Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Cienki, A. (2008). Why study metaphor and gesture? In: Cienki, A., Müller, C. (Eds.). Metaphor and Gesture, 5–25. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Cienki, A. (2013). Conceptual metaphor theory in light of research on speakers’ gestures. Journal of Cognitive Semiotics, 5(1–2), 349–366. https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/cogsem.2013.5.12.349/html.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Cienki, A. (2015). Image schemas and mimetic schemas in cognitive linguistics and gesture studies. In: Pinar Sanz, M.J. (Ed.), Multimodality and Cognitive Linguistic, Amsterdam–Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 195–209.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Cienki, A. (2016). Analysing metaphor in gesture. A set of metaphor identification guidelines for gesture (MIG-G). In: Semino, E., Demjén, Z. (Eds.). The Routledge Handbook of Metaphor and Language. London: Routledge.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Cienki, A., Müller C. (2008). Metaphor, gestures, and thought. In: Gibbs, R.W. (Ed.). The Cambridge Handbook of Metaphor and Thought, Cambridge University Press.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Evans, V. (2009). Leksykon językoznawstwa kognitywnego. Kraków: Universitas.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Gibbs, R.W. (Ed.). 2008, The Cambridge Handbook of Metaphor and Thought, Cambridge University Press.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Grady, J.E. (1997). Foundations of meaning: Primary metaphors and primary scenes, https://escholarship.org/content/qt3g9427m2/qt3g9427m2_noSplash_87927e5c56786241d4df549fe0a0b4b4.pdf?t=p3dkmc.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Jarmołowicz-Nowikow, E. (2019). Intencjonalność komunikacyjna gestów wskazujących. Poznań: Wydawnictwo Naukowe UAM.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Jarząbek, K. (2016). Słownik mowy ciała Polaków. Katowice: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Jelec, A., Fabiszak, M. (2019). Micronarrative: Unit of Analysis for Quantitative Studies of Gesture in Focus Interviews. Lingua 229: 102710.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Jelec, A., Kraśnicka, I. (2022). Co jest metaforycznego w geście metaforycznym? “Socjolingwistyka” 36, nr 1, s. 281–299, DOI: 10.17651/SOCJOLING.36.16, https://socjolingwistyka.ijp.pan.pl/index.php/SOCJO/article/view/352/304.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Johnson, M. (1990). The Body in the Mind. The Bodily Basis of Meaning, Imagination, and Reason, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Kraśnicka, I. (2020). Meaning in multisemiotic messages: functions of gestures accompanying speech as elements of utterance structure, “Crossroads. A Journal of English Studies”, (31), pp. 7–22. DOI: 10.15290/CR.2020.31.4.01; https://czasopisma.filologia.uwb.edu.pl/index.php/c/article/view/1531.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Kraśnicka, I. (2021). Gdzie jest metafora? Sposoby reprezentowania gestów metaforycznych w dialogu, “Polonica” 41 (1), s. 23–37, DOI: https://doi.org/10.17651/POLON.41.2.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Kraśnicka, I. (2023). Mówiące ręce. Interakcyjna funkcja gestów towarzyszących mowie. In: Przestrzenie komunikacji. Tom jubileuszowy dedykowany Profesor Jolancie Antas, red. J. Winiarska, A. Załazińska, s. 209–224.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Karpiński, M. (2007). Selected quasi-lexical and non-lexical units in Polish map task dialogues. Archives of Acoustics 32, 1, 51–65.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Karpiński, M., Jarmołowicz-Nowikow, E. (2023). Dzielenie gestu na czworo. Intuicyjne i eksperckie określanie granic frazy gestowej. In: Przestrzenie komunikacji. Tom jubileuszowy dedykowany Profesor Jolancie Antas. Kraków: Wydawnictwo akademickie, s. 147–164, https://doi.org/10.12797/9788381388351.09.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Kendon, A. (1980). Gesticulation and speech: Two aspects of the process of utterance, https://(15) (PDF) Gesticulation and speech: Two aspects of the process of utterance in M (researchgate.net).
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Kendon, A. (2005). Gestures: Visible Action as Utterance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Lakoff, G., Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors We Live By. Chicago.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Langacker, R. (2008). Metaphoric gesture and cognitive linguistic. In: Cienki A., Müller, C. (Eds.). Metaphor and Gesture, 219–245. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Lhommet, M., Marsela, S. (2016). From embodied metaphors to metaphoric gestures, https://www.ccs.neu.edu/˜marsella/publications/pdf/16-Cogsci-Lhommet.pdf.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Libura, A. (2019). Metafora multimodalna. Interakcje słowa i obrazu. In: J. Winiarska, A. Załazińska (Eds.). Widzieć – rozumieć – komunikować. Kraków: Księgarnia Akademicka.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
McNeill, D. (1992). Hand and Mind. What Gestures Reveal about Thought. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
McNeill, D. (2005). Gesture and Thought. Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
McNeill, D. (2013). The growth point hypothesis of language and gesture as a dynamic and integrated system. In: Müller, C., Cienki, A., Fricke E. et al. (Eds.). Body, Language, Communication. An International Handbook on Multimodality in Human Interaction, vol. 1 (38.1), 135–155, Berlin/Boston: Walter de Gruyter.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
McNeill, D. (2013a). The co-evolution of gesture and speech, and downstream consequences. In: Müller, C., Cienki, A., Fricke E., et al. (Eds.). Body, Language, Communication. An International Handbook on Multimodality in Human Interaction, vol. 1 (38.1), 480–512. Berlin/Boston: Walter de Gruyter.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
McNeill, D. (2014). The emblem as metaphor. In: Seyfeddinipur M., Gullberg M. (Eds.). From Gesture in Conversation to Visible Action as Utterance. Essays in honor of Adam Kendon. Amsterdam–Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
McNeill, D. (2016). Why We Gesture: The Surprising Role of Hand Movements in Communication. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
McNeill, D., Duncan, S. (2000). Growth points in thinking-for-speaking. In: McNeill, D. (Ed.). Language and Gesture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 141–161.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Mittelberg, I., (2014). Gesture and iconicity, In: Müller, C., Cienki, A., Fricke E., et al. (Eds.). Body, Language, Communication. An International Handbook on Multimodality in Human Interaction, vol. 2 (38.2), 1712–1732, Berlin/Boston: Walter de Gruyter.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Mittelberg, I., Waugh L.R. (2009). Metonymy first, metaphor second: A cognitive-semiotic approach to multimodal figures of thought in co-speech gesture. In: Forceville, Ch., Urios-Aparisi, E. (Eds.), Multimodal Metaphor. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 329–356.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Müller, C. (2008). What gestures reveal about the nature of metaphor. In: Cienki, A., Müller, C. (Eds.), Metaphor and Gesture, 219–245. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Müller, C. (2014). Gesture as “deliberate expressive movement”. In: Seyfeddinipur M., Gullberg, M. (Eds.). From Gesture in Conversation to Visible Action as Utterance, 127–151. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Müller, C., Cienki, A. (2009). Words, gestures, and beyond: Forms of multimodal metaphor in the use of spoken language. In: Forceville, Ch.J., Urios-Aparisi, E. (Eds.). Multimodal Metaphor. Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 2009, https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110215366.5.297, 297–328.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Slobin, D. (1987). Thinking for Speaking. Proceedings of the Thirteenth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistic Society, 435–445, (PDF) Thinking for Speaking | Dan Slobin – Academia.edu.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Streeck, J. (2009). Gesturecraft. The Manu-facture of Meaning. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Załazińska, A. (2001). Schematy myśli wyrażane w gestach: gesty metaforyczne obrazujące abstrakcyjne relacje i zasoby podmiotu mówiącego. Kraków: Universitas.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Zlatev, J. (2007). Intersubjectivity, mimetic schemas and the emergence of language, “Intellectica” 2–3, 46–48, 123–152.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Zlatev, J. (2014). Image schema, mimetic schema and children’s gestures, “Cognitive Semiotics” 7(1), 3–29.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article