Gesture And Thought - Rilegato

McNeill, David

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 0226514625 ISBN 13: 9780226514628

Casa editrice: Univ of Chicago Pr, 2005

Riassunto

Gesturing is such an integral yet unconscious part of communication that we are mostly oblivious to it. But if you observe anyone in conversation, you are likely to see his or her fingers, hands, and arms in some form of spontaneous motion. Why? David McNeill, a pioneer in the ongoing study of the relationship between gesture and language, set about answering this question over twenty-five years ago. InGesture and Thought he brings together years of this research, arguing that gesturing, an act which has been popularly understood as an accessory to speech, is actually a dialectical component of language.
Gesture and Thought expands on McNeill’s acclaimed classic Hand and Mind. While that earlier work demonstrated what gestures reveal about thought, here gestures are shown to be active participants in both speaking and thinking. Expanding on an approach introduced by Lev Vygotsky in the 1930s, McNeill posits that gestures are key ingredients in an “imagery-language dialectic” that fuels both speechand thought. Gestures are both the “imagery” and components of “language.” The smallest element of this dialectic is the “growth point,” a snapshot of an utterance at its beginning psychological stage. Utilizing several innovative experiments he created and administered with subjects spanning several different age, gender, and language groups, McNeill shows how growth points organize themselves into utterances and extend to discourse at the moment of speaking.
An ambitious project in the ongoing study of the relationship of human communication and thought,Gesture and Thought is a work of such consequence that it will influence all subsequent theory on the subject.

Su questo libro

L'autore:

David McNeill is professor emeritus of linguistics and psychology at the University of Chicago and director of the Center for Gesture and Speech. He is the author of four previous books, includingHand and Mind, also published by the University of Chicago Press, and the editor ofLanguage and Gesture. 

Product Description:

Gesturing is such an integral yet unconscious part of communication that we are mostly oblivious to it. But if you observe anyone in conversation, you are likely to see his or her fingers, hands, and arms in some form of spontaneous motion. Why? David McNeill, a pioneer in the ongoing study of the relationship between gesture and language, set about answering this question in "Gesture and Thought" with an unlikely accomplice - Tweety Bird. McNeill argues that gestures are active participants in both speaking and thinking. He posits that gestures are key ingredients in an "imagery-language dialectic" that fuels speech and thought; gestures are the "imagery" and also the components of "language," rather than mere consequences. The smallest unit of this dialectic is the "growth point," a snapshot of an utterance at its beginning psychological stage. Enter Tweety Bird. In "Gesture and Thought", the central growth point comes from a cartoon. In his quest to eat Tweety Bird, Sylvester the cat first scales the outside of a rain gutter to reach his prey. Unsuccessful, he makes a second attempt by climbing up the inside of the gutter. Tweety, however, drops a bowling ball down the gutter; Sylvester swallows the ball. Over the course of twenty-five years, McNeill showed this cartoon to numerous subjects who spoke a variety of languages. A fascinating pattern emerged. Those who remembered the exact sequence of the cartoon while retelling it all used the same gesture to describe Sylvester's position inside the gutter. Those who forgot, in the retelling, that Sylvester had first climbed the outside of the gutter did not use this gesture at all. Thus that gesture becomes part of the "growth point" - the building block of language and thought. An ambitious project in the ongoing study of the relationship of how we communicate and its connection to thought, "Gesture and Thought" is a work of such consequence that it will influence all subsequent linguistic and evolutionary theory

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Univ of Chicago Pr
• Data di pubblicazione: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0226514625
• ISBN 13: 9780226514628
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Numero di pagine: 318