Gestures Offer Insight
Hand and arm movements do much more than accent words; they provide context
for understanding
By Ipke Wachsmuth
Scientific American, October 04, 2006
1. Our body movements always convey something about us to other people. The body
"speaks" whether we are sitting or standing, talking or just listening. On a blind date, how
the two individuals position themselves tells a great deal about how the evening will unfold:
Is she leaning in to him or away? Is his smile genuine or forced?
2. The same is true of gestures. Almost always involuntary, they tip us off to love, hate,
humility and deceit. Yet for years, scientists spent surprisingly little time studying them,
because the researchers presumed that hand and arm movements were mere by-products
of verbal communication. That view changed during the 1990s, in part because of the
influential work of psycholinguist David McNeill at the University of Chicago. For him,
gestures are "windows into thought processes." McNeill's work, and numerous studies
since then, have shown that the body can underscore, undermine or even contradict what a
person says. Experts increasingly agree that gestures and speech spring from a common
cognitive process to become inextricably interwoven. Understanding the relationship is
crucial to understanding how people communicate overall.
The Visual Information Channel
3. Most of us would find it difficult and uncomfortable to converse for any extended period
without using our hands and arms. Gestures play a role whenever we attempt to explain
something. At the very least, such motions are co-verbal; they accompany our speech,
conveying information that is hard to get across with words. Hand movements can display
complex spatial relations, directions, the shape of objects. They enable us to draw maps in
the air that tell a puzzled motorist how to reach the main road. People who do not gesture
rob themselves and their listeners of an important informational channel.
4. Neurological findings on individuals with communication disorders also demonstrate a
fundamental connection between speech and gestures. Brain damage that leads to the loss
of mobility in limbs can compromise verbal communication. Patients with aphasia--who do
not have the ability to speak or to understand speech--also find it difficult to gesture or
understand signs by others. These cases and others suggest that the very brain regions
responsible for speech control gestures.
Which Came First?
5.
Observing young children can provide clues to the common development of oral and
visual communication. Up to the age of nine to 12 months, babies reach out with all the
fingers of their open hand for whatever object they want--similar to the chimpanzee begging
for food. A neuronal maturational shift occurs at about 10 or 11 months in girls, somewhat
later in boys: babies begin to point with one finger rather than all the fingers. The effort to
get hold of an object is transformed into directed pointing, usually to get the attention of a
caregiver. The pointing also usually accompanies a baby's initial attempts at verbal
symbolization ("da," "wawa"), even though the early attempts frequently fail. A more
nuanced gesturing vocabulary begins to develop as fine-motor finger control improves,
between nine and 14 months, yet the spoken word continues to lag behind.
6. Synchronized word-gesture combinations begin to be seen in parallel with the child's
developing word usage at 16 to 18 months, ultimately leading to children and adults who
"embody" with their hands and arms the shape of an object, how people in a group exercise
are positioned relative to one another in space, even abstract and metaphorical thoughts.
Put your two palms together, lay them aside your right ear, close your eyes, and lean your
head to the side--most people will understand that posture as a symbol for "sleep."
Orators know that a well-placed gesture can be the best way to make a point hit
home.
7. These conventionalized gestures can work without our having to say anything. But
McNeill is particularly interested in the connection between spontaneous gestures and the
spoken word. Adam Kendon, a cognitive scientist and founder of gesture research,
hypothesized that both might stem from the same thought. He observed that the so-called
gesture stroke of a co-verbal hand sign--the actual conveyor of meaning, such as mopping
one's brow--is enacted shortly before or at the latest when its verbal affiliate is enunciated.
8. According to McNeill's theory, the process of speech production and the process of
gesture production have a common mental source. This mental source includes a mixture
of preverbal symbols and mental images and serves as a point of origin for the thought that
is to be expressed. This growth point, as McNeill calls it, represents a kind of seed out of
which words and gestures develop.
Think First, Gesture Later
9. Different languages clearly differ in how information is conveyed, McNeill says. His
former doctoral student, Gale Stam, now at National-Louis University in Chicago, uses this
finding to determine whether a Spanish speaker who is learning English is beginning to
think in English. If his gesture stroke continues to fall on the verb "climb" while speaking
English, he is probably still thinking in Spanish and thus is purely translating. If the gesture
stroke spontaneously falls on the preposition "up," she assumes that the transition to
thinking in English has occurred.
10. The growing appreciation among scientists for the tight interweave between speech,
thought and gesture is giving rise to theories about how the brain creates and coordinates
these functions. One influential new model comes from psychologist Willem Levelt of the
Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. According to
Levelt, the brain produces a verbal utterance in three stages. First the brain conceptualizes
an intended message as purely preverbal information--as a concept that is not yet
formulated linguistically. In the second stage, the brain finds words for this concept and
constructs sentences--again, a purely internal process. Only in the third stage do the
organs of articulation come into play, producing the desired utterance via the lungs and
vocal cords.
11.
One of Levelt's students, Jan-Peter de Ruiter, has incorporated gestures into this
model. He assumes that the initial conceptualization stage also encompasses a visual
precursor for gestures. According to de Ruiter, the brain creates gestural sketches. In the
second stage, the sketch is transformed into a gestural plan--a set of movement
instructions--that leads to muscle motor programs in the third stage. These programs tell
our arms and hands how to move.
12. This model helps us to understand why gestures may precede the speech they are
meant to accompany. The words first have to be assembled into a grammatically sensible
expression, whereas the motion is conveyed by standard motor instructions. De Ruiter is
examining in greater detail the presumed interaction between speech and gesture for
pointing motions. He has recorded dialogues between two people telling each other stories
and has found that an extended gesture--such as when someone points up toward the sky-tends to delay the verbalization to which it refers ("the plane ascended at a steep angle").
Gestures also adapt to speech; when a storyteller has misspoken and stumbles
momentarily, a pre-prepared gesture appears to be held in abeyance until the speech
component is running smoothly again.
13. These kinds of insights show that understanding how the body communicates is crucial
to understanding verbal communication. Spoken words are not the only way humans
convey meaning. As professional orators have known for centuries, a well-placed gesture
can be the most effective way to make a point hit home. The more we learn about how the
body communicates, the better we will become as communicators and observers.
Questions
1. The example of individuals on a blind date is brought to show that ____________
____________________________________________________________________
2. In the first sentence of paragraph 2 the writer says, “The same is true of gestures.”
What is true of gestures?
____________________________________________________________________
3. What view changed in the 1990s?
___________________________________________________________________
4. While in the past gestures were considered as_____________________________
______________________, today experts understand that ____________________
___________________________________________________________________
5. According to paragraph 2, it's essential that we understand the relationship between
_____________ and ____________________in order to understand
____________________________.
6. How can we describe gestures? Gestures are
a. something we do consciously
b. usually contradictory to what a person says
c. an important part of communication
d. a cognitive process
7. Paragraph 3: People can use hand movements to:
i. ___________________________________________________________
ii. ___________________________________________________________
iii. ___________________________________________________________
iv. ___________________________________________________________
8. The example of patients with aphasia shows that ___________________
_______________________________________________________________
9. Observation of young children leads to a conclusion that
a. children behave like chimpanzees
b. babies progress when they move from opening the entire hand to pointing with
one finger.
c. children learn gesturing before actually speaking.
d. once children learn to speak, they begin gesturing
10. There's no universal gesture to indicate sleep. (Circle one)
TRUE / FALSE
Support your answer with a quote from the text:___________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
11. McNeill WOULD/ WOULD NOT be particularly interested in the symbol for sleeping
because it INVOLVES / DOESN'T INVOLVE speech.
12. According to Adam Kendon, speech (precedes/follows) a gesture.
Copy from the text to justify your answer
__________________________________________________________________
13. According to paragraph 8, what precedes a thought formation?
Complete the sentence:
A thought stems from _________________________________________________.
14. Why does Gale Stam study gestures?
To see whether
a.
b.
c.
d.
Spanish speakers gesture as much as English speakers
all languages use the same gestures
learners of a new language begin thinking in that language
English is harder to speak than Spanish.
15. (a) Levelt describes different stages of producing a verbal utterance:
USE 1-2 WORDS FOR EACH
a. __________________________
b. __________________________
c. __________________________
b). In what way did Jan-Peter de Ruiter add to Levelt's model?
_________________________________________________________________________
16. (circle the correct words) Gestures come before the words they are supposed to
emphasize. This is because gestures/words are more automatic, while gestures/words
require more preparation.
17. What is the main idea of the article ?
a. Spoken words are always connected to gesturing
b. Understanding how the body communicates is vital to understanding verbal
communication.
c. When a child points with one finger, we have to see that he is gesturing.
d. Hand and arm movements accent words, and thus help to understand the verbal
message
Vocabulary exercises:
Find the following words in the text and study their meanings in context:
Title
insight
Paragraph 9
determine
Paragraph 2
verbal
common
crucial
Paragraph 10
rise
produce
Paragraph 3
extended
attempt
Paragraph 11
initial
Paragraph 12
smoothly
Paragraph 5
effort(s)
Fill in the blanks with the words from the list above. You may need to change the form of
the word:
1. New immigrants make great _________________ to learn the language and the customs
of the host country.
2. The glass industry ________________ 10 tons of glass from recycled bottles every
month.
3. Although the singing performance of the new star went _________________, the judges
criticized it.
4. Observation of the tiny details is the most ___________________ characteristic of a
detective.
5. While “The Little Prince” was ________________ written for children, it became popular
among the adults as well.
6. Spiritual people often have ___________________, which help them make the right
decisions in their lives.
7. The cat crawled quietly in an ____________________ to catch the bird.
8. The __________________ wish of people all over the world is to live in peace.
Translate the following words or phrases as they are used in the text. You need to pay
attention to the parts of speech.
1. accent (subtitle) _____________________
2. position (para. 1) _____________________
3. visual information channel (subtitle) _____________________
4. complex spatial relations (para. 3) ______________________
5. shift (para. 5) ___________________
6. fine-motor finger control improves (para. 5) _________________________________
7. Synchronized word-gesture combinations (para. 6) _________________________
_____________________
8. relative (para. 6) ____________________
9. common mental source (para. 8) ______________________
10. grammatically sensible expression (para. 12) _______________________________
11. standard motor instructions (para. 12) _____________________________________
Useful grammar
Study the following examples:
1. Our body movements always convey something about us to other people. (para. 1)
2. The body "speaks" whether we are sitting or standing, talking or just listening. (para. 1)
In the first sentence “s” signals the plural form of a noun, while in the second sentence “s”
marks the singular form (he, she, it) of the verb in the present form.
Some of the following sentences contain a grammar mistake. Correct the mistake by
adding/taking off “s” where necessary:
1. Pet often feel the mood of their owners.
2. It has been proved that classical music alleviate stress and reduce anxiety.
3. GPS helps the driver get to his destination in the easiest and the quickest way.
4. Israel export citrus fruit such as lemons and oranges.
5. Depression rate are higher in northern countries since peoples in such countries are
deprived of sunshine.
6. My grandparents consumes organic food, which is rich in fibers and low in fats and
cholesterol.