The Varieties of Composite Reference
Posted: 20 Nov 2008
Date Written: October 19, 2008
Abstract
Pointing is a common accompaniment to adult speech. Yet researchers in the cognitive sciences have focused more on the pointing behaviors of primates and infants than in how pointing is used in fully adult, human discourse. This lack of empirical attention may be related to the assumption that most adult pointing is canonical pointing. In the canonical pointing gesture, a speaker extends an index finger toward a present, concrete target in order to redirect the listener's attention to that target. Drawing on both naturalistic and controlled observational data, we will discuss six types of pointing gestures that deviate -- sometimes substantially -- from this canonical case: 1) palm-up points; 2) points to self; 3) points to listener; 4) phantom points; 5) temporal points; and 6) portal points. Such non-canonical cases challenge the assumption that the primary function of pointing is to redirect a listener's attention to an object. We discuss the implications of this data for research on two issues: first, the interplay of cognitive and pragmatic functions in multimodal discourse; and, second, the centrality of perspective-taking and deictic anchoring in thinking for speaking.
Keywords: gesture, reference, cognitive linguistics
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