Christine Kuehn, Hokkaido-University
Reception of Gestures: Coherence and Correction
 
My main thesis is that gesture and speech, particularly their impact upon perception, are integral parts of the understanding process. The focus is on gesture, to show that is not, as traditionally thought, simply an additive component to speech. My research (Kühn 1999, 2000, 2002) has revealed that people respond to several types of gestures -- not only to so-called emblems, but also to non-conventionalized gestures (NCG’s). These NCG‘s seem to influence the semantic processing during reception. The question I discuss in this paper is:
 
How do recipients respond to gestures?
 
By analyzing the interactive responses of several communication partners from a videotaped program, I will investigate how NCG‘s are adopted during the reception process. Two types of reciprocal reference to gestures will be discussed:
 
1.  REPETITION of a non-conventionalized gesture:
When one communication partner creates a gesture to illustrate a part of their speech and the same gesture is repeated by other communication partners when referring to the same topic. When this happens over a relatively long period of time a kind of gestural COHERENCE is created.
 
2.  CORRECTION of a non-conventionalized gesture
When one communication partner makes a descriptive gesture that is incongruent with their speech and another communication partner reacts to this Slip of the hand (Kühn 2000) by correcting it verbally. The maker of the incongruent gesture may respond to the correction by adjusting the gesture or the speech to make the verbal and non-verbal elements of the communication congruent.
 
Research Material
 
The videotaped material used for this analysis was taken from a German TV show called “Boulevard Bio”. This is a one-hour show, taped live with no commercial breaks. Three guests are introduced in the beginning. Then the host sits down with one guest while the other two sit in the first row of the audience. They rejoin the host and the first guest, one after 20 minutes, and one after 40 minutes. The topic of this particular show was “Back to nature”. The guests were journalist Carmen Thomas, multiple Olympic and World Cup Winner Kathrin Krabbe and professional horse-trainer Klaus-Ferdinand Hempfling. This paper will look atthe interaction between the tree participants: the host of the show Biolek, journalist Thomas and horse trainer Hempfling. He is something like a “Horse Whisperer”, a guru of the German Community who passionately loves horses. Thomas had recently published a best-selling book with the title “A very special juice – Urine”. It is about the different uses as well as the healing power of this substance.
 
Repetition & Coherence - The "Rub into the skin" Gesture
 
The topic “Urine” triggered different verbal as well as non-verbal responses in this show. As one result participants kept referring back to the topic with a gesture (a rubbing motion into the skin), creating a gestural coherence for the different parts of the show. This repetitive gesture I call: The "Rub into the skin" gesture.
 
In the beginning of the show the host appears disgusted by the subject of urine. After about 5 minutes of verbal ping pong the host asks Thomas to talk about practical uses of the substance and mentions he has heard something about curing skin diseases with urine. At that point Thomas creates the "Rub into the skin" gesture (see figure 1). With this gesture she introduces the topic on medical uses of urine as she replies:
 
Th.: Ja also, ich sach immer den Leuten als erstes: Versuchen sie doch nachher, wenn sie ((vor)) ins Bett gehen, // pinkeln sie sich // einmal auf die Hand und reiben sie’s ein // und dann riechen sie dran. Da werden sie ein Schlüsselerlebnis haben: Es stinkt nicht, es stinkt überhaupt nicht.
 
Th.: Well, I usually tell people first to try later before they go to bed to once pee on their hand and to rub it into the skin and then to smell it. You will have a crucial experience: It does not smell. It does not smell at all.
 
By “pinkeln“ her right hand goes up and by “einmal“ the closed fingers slowly move forward and continue to move forth and back near the wrist of her left hand over the whole sequence of “reiben sie’s ein“.
 

Figure 1: Creation of the “Rub into the skin” gesture
 
This gesture is then repeated five times by two other participants as well as herself. All gestural repetitions refer back to the topic but are accompanied by different verbalizations.
 
"Rub into the skin" Gesture
 
1. 8: 42 min - Thomas: "reiben sie’s ein" (rub into the skin)
2. 9: 06 min - Biolek: "eine Stelle, die krank ist“ (a spot that is sick)
3. 11: 10 min - Biolek: "mit mit so ne ne n bißchen so" (with with such uh a little like that)
4. 19: 48 min - Thomas: "alle neuroderm also alle Krankheiten, die mit der Haut zu tun haben" (all neuroderm all illnesses that have soemthing to do with the skin)
5. 54: 42 min - Hempfling: "wenn ich da Urin drauftue auf meine Warze" (if I put urine on it on my wart)
 
Due to space constraints only one repetition will be discussed. Example 5 is chosen because of the long period of time between the gestures and the repetitions. Since the creation of the gesture more than 45 minutes have passed and about 35 min since the last repetition, including an entire talk sequence with the sportswoman without any repetition. Hempfling is the last guest of the show and at this point he is explaining his technique of taming horses without force. He talks about how difficult it is to actually prove the success of a certain method or medicine. In this context he refers back to the urine usage as a healing method:
 
H: 227- und man kann eigentlich ma ((immer)) ganz wenig die Dinge beweisen, weil // wenn ich da Urin drauftue auf meine // Warze, naja dann kann man möglicherweise sagen, die ging // zwei Jahre vorher nicht weg, // aber ich kann ja nicht sagen, vielleicht wäre sie ja sowieso weggegangen, weil // heut Nacht der der Mond besonders helle geschienen is oder sonst irgendwas. Ich denke, man kann die Dinge nich, nich wirklich belegen.
 
H: and actually one can barely prove these things, because if I put urine on my wart, well then I can possibly say, I could not get rid of it for the last two years, but I cannot say, may be it would have gone anyway, because tonight the moon has shined so bright or something like that. I think, one cannot, not really prove these things.
 
Like his predecessors he starts rubbing the finger tips of the right hand on his left hand close to his wrist just before “wenn ich da Urin drauftue“. After “meine“ he pauses and his right hand lies at his wrist. Before “zwei Jahre“ he turns back towards the host of the show and at “aber“ he continues to rub till “weggegangen“ and then turns back to Thomas. The reference to the first speaker, the creator of this gesture, is underlined by his obvious turn towards her. In contrast to his predecessors he has a different seating posture, resting his left arm at the armrest and not holding it in front of his body (see figure 2).
 

 
Figure 2: Repetition of the “Rub into the skin” gesture
 
I would like to draw the attention to two interesting points. First, the re-use of the “Rub into the skin“ gesture of Hempfling as a recipient does not seem to be restricted to the functions of traditional classifications: The gesture is not simply an illustration of the process of rubbing into the skin nor is it a replacement for an embarrassing verbalization. Instead of using the neutral verbalization Thomas has offered “in die Haut reiben“ which rather reminds us of a facial lotion or a medical ointment, Hempfling says “Urin drauftun“ and also replaces “Hautunreinheiten“ or “Pickel“ by “Warze“. Secondly, the re-use of the gesture that first introduced the topic may now also stand for the topic of using urine as a medicine in a more general way. This way the gesture may function as a Pars pro toto for the overall topic of using urine as a medicine. This generalizing power of the reference becomes clear primarily by the repetitive use of the gesture.
 
Correction: A slip of the hand
 
The second type of reciprocal reference is used by Hempfling while he speaks about the relationship between people and horses throughout history:
 
“Und auf der anderen Seite zurückverfolgen, wie haben die das früher gemacht die Leute, weil von denen gibt es Erzählungen, daß die Unglaubliches mit den Pferden getan haben. Die Ritter zum Beispiel sind in die Kriege gezogen seinerzeit // und hatt(b)en in der linken Hand das Schwert ähm das Schild und in der rechten Hand das Schwert und hatten keinen Platz mehr für die Zügel. Wenn heutzutage einem Sportreiter die Zügel reißen, (dann) ist er aufgeschmissen.”
 
“And on the other hand (I would like to) go back to how they did it in earlier times, because there are stories of people that did unbelievable things with horses. The knights for example, going to war, they carried in their left hand the sword, um, the shield and in their right hand the sword and there was no room for the bridle. Nowadays, if a horseman loses the horse’s bridle, he is stuck.”
 
Already at “seinerzeit”, Hempfling starts to draw a shield in the air (see figure 3, starting at picture 3), i.e. he describes with his right hand, a rather relaxed fist with a pointed index finger, half a circle in front of his face (pictures 4-7). After he says “Schwert”, he continues verbally “und in der” while gesturally anticipating what I call a sword fist. It looks as if he holds the hilt of a sword with his right fist (pictures 8-9). At that point two of the recipients respond to the non-equivalent gesture by interrupting and correcting him verbally. The first response comes from Thomas who sits at his left side. The second response comes from Biolek. Both communication partners rely on gesture rather than speech, and correct the speech with reference to the gesture by saying: “Schild”. Hempfling, who obviously had not noticed the mismatch of gesture and speech, accepts the correction by the recipients and starts a repair action. After the “freezing” of the immediate gesture (picture 9) he focuses on his right hand and says “ähm” followed by a short pause. Then he lifts his gaze from his hand and looks to the left at Thomas, who corrected him first (picture 10). He nods his head and repeats the shield gesture, but now synchronized with the verbalization of “Schild” (pictures 11-13). Continuing he repeats the sword fist and finally verbalizes: “und in der rechten Hand das Schwert” (picture 16).
 

Figure 3: A slip of the hand & Correction
 
Conclusions
 
In addressing the question: "How do recipients respond to gestures?" I have focused on two types of response: Repetition of a non-conventionalized gesture, and correction of a non-conventionalized gesture. In the first case the „Rub into the skin“ gesture is repeated 4 times by two different recipients as well as the originator over a relatively long period of time – thereby creating a gestural coherence connecting the different speakers and parts of the show. In the second case two recipients quickly recognize the cross-modal inconsistency of speech and gesture and correct it verbally.
 
It is especially interesting that the corrections of the recipients are directed towards the verbal utterance. That is, the verbal expression is being corrected with reference to the gesture, which is taken as the correct reference point. The recipients in this case obviously consider the gesture more important than the speech. This finding runs contrary to the traditional belief that gesture only accompanies speech. Here it is speech that accompanies gesture.
 
In summary it may be said that gestures are perceived and considered meaningful by recipients. In addition there are instances in which NCG‘s function as more than additive components to language. Whether recipients re-use a non-conventionalized gesture to connect their statements or whether they correct a verbal expression with reference to the gesture – both examples show the bi-directional interdependency of gesture and speech during the reception process.
 
References:

Kühn, Christine. “Body & Soul: Gestures as mediators in communication.“ The Semantics and Pragmatics of Everyday Gestures.
 The Berlin Conference. Ed. Roland Posner/Müller, Cornelia. Berlin: Verlag Arno Spitz, 1999 (to appear).
Kühn, Christine. “A slip of the hand: Gesture and verbal correction.“ Gestures: Meaning and Use. The Porto Conference. Ed. Monica  Rector: Porto: Fundacao Fernando Pesoa, 2000 (to appear).
Kühn, Christine. “Stereotypes, misconceptions and more: A contrastive study of Japanese-German communication.“ Oralité et  gestualité - Interaction et comportements multimodaux dans la communication. Ed. Christian Cavé/ Guaïtella, Isabelle/Santi,  Serge. Paris : l'Harmattan, 2001: 556-559.
?????????????????????????????????????(?????)? ???????? ?: ????????????????. ??: ?????2001: 55-75.
Kühn, Christine. “Körper - Sprache. Elemente einer sprachwissenschaftlichen Explikation non-verbaler Kommunikation.” Frankfurt  am Main; Berlin; Bern; Bruxelles; New York; Oxford; Wien: Lang, 2002.
Kühn, Christine. ”???? (500 Rakan) - Archaische Gesten zwischen Konversation und Kodifizierung.“  Archaismen- Archaisierungsprozesse-Sprachdynamik. Ed. Undine Kramer. Frankfurt am Main; Berlin; Bern; Bruxelles; New York;  Oxford; Wien: Lang 2002: 121-136.