CHAPTER 4 LINGUISTIC REPRESENTATIONS OF VIEWPOINTS
4.4 The distribution of linguistic representations of character viewpoint
Speakers can make use of direct speech, voiced direct reported speech, or inner speech to enact different characters’ speech or thoughts in talking about third-person past events. In this case, speakers act as characters in the original scene of the past events, performing their speech or thoughts. The distribution of the linguistic representations of character viewpoint is shown in Table 4.
Table 4. The distribution of linguistic representations of character viewpoint
Character viewpoint
Linguistic representations Number Example
Direct speech 3 42.9% Example (15) in Chapter 3
Voiced direct reported speech 3 42.9% Example (16) in Chapter 3
Inner speech 1 14.2% Example (17) in Chapter 3
Total 7 100%
From Table 4, we can see that linguistic representations of character viewpoint are infrequent in the current data. Speakers in talking about third-person past events seldom attempt to enact characters’ speech or thought as a way of making a description. If gestures often collaborate with the accompanying speech in expressing the same viewpoint, we would then hypothesize that the expression of character viewpoint in gesture is also rare. If this is the case in the current data, we might suggest that the situation when speakers are talking about past events in conversations to be the same as found by McNeill in that observer viewpoint is more frequently seen than character viewpoint in gesture when people are narrating stories. Whether the
hypothesis that character viewpoint in gesture is infrequent and uncommon is right or wrong will be looked into and discussed in the following chapter on gestural representations of viewpoints.
4.5 Summary
This chapter presents the quantitative analysis of linguistic viewpoints. The distribution of the three viewpoints suggests that observer viewpoint is the most common choice for speakers to use to talk about third-person past events in ongoing conversations, while character viewpoint is the most infrequent. The distribution of the linguistic representations concerning each viewpoint not only suggests how speakers make use of different linguistic or paralinguistic devices as resources to represent each viewpoint, but also suggests that plain statements are the most unmarked way for speakers to talk about third-person past events. With the distribution of each linguistic viewpoint and of the different linguistic representations used within each viewpoint, this chapter presents the performance of viewpoints in language when speakers are talking about third-person past events within conversational contexts. In hypothesizing that gestures might collaborate with the accompanying speech in expressing the same viewpoint, we would expect a similar pattern for the distribution of each viewpoint in gesture. Whether this hypothesis
holds for the current data will be presented and discussed in the following chapter on gestural representations of viewpoints.
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CHAPTER 5
GESTURAL REPRESENTATIONS OF VIEWPOINTS
This chapter presents a quantitative study of gestural viewpoints and the collaborative expressions of viewpoints in language and gesture. In the interaction and collaboration between different gestural features, a speaker’s use of embodied gestures can express speaker, observer and character viewpoint. The ways in which the five gestural features identified in the current study—gestural space, handedness, stroke duration, frequency, and the involvement of other parts of the body within the performance of a gesture interact and collaborate with each other in representing different viewpoints could serve as important criteria in identifying and determining gestural viewpoints are introduced in section 5.1. The distributions of the three viewpoints in the gestural channel in the descriptions of third-person past events in conversational contexts are then presented in section 5.2. Three gestural instantiations of each viewpoint are then given in section 5.3. Gestures types produced in the current data in representing viewpoints are discussed in 5.4. A brief summary is given in section 5.5. Section 5.6 discusses the collaborative expressions of viewpoints in linguistic and gestural channel. A summary for this chapter is given in section 5.7.
5.1 Gestural features and gestural viewpoints
In the current study, we have recognized five gestural features—gestural space, handedness, stroke duration, frequency, and the involvement of other parts of the body as five criteria for use in analysis in determining different gestural viewpoints.
How the five gestural features interact and collaborate with each other in representing the three viewpoints, and how these gestural features could serve as distinctive criteria in identifying different viewpoints are discussed in this section. In particular, we will see how the performance of each gestural feature can be used to distinguish between observer and character viewpoint, due to the limited data of speaker viewpoint in gesture in the current data. Table 5 shows how gestures of observer and character viewpoint are performed with reference to the five gestural features when each gestural feature is analyzed as showing more gestural complexity: the hand movement involves Center and Periphery space, use of both hands, longer stroke duration, repetition of the same stroke, and the involvement of other parts of the body. In Chapter 3, it was suggested that a speaker’s gesture often shows more gestural complexity when representing character viewpoint, since speakers are using their hand movements to enact characters’ actions or deeds. We will see whether C-VPT gestures produced in the current data indeed perform more complex gestural features than O-VPT gestures. Table 6 further shows the number of complex gestural features
used in C-VPT and in O-VPT gestures.
Table 5. Gestural features that show more gestural complexity
Viewpoint
*The percentages that are shaded in grey refer to each (complex) gestural feature used between C-VPT and O-VPT gestures; the percentages shown without the grey shading refer to the five (complex) gestural features used within a C-VPT or an O-VPT gesture.
Table 6.
Number of complex gestural features used in C-VPT and O-VPT gestures Viewpoint between C-VPT and O-VPT gestures; the percentages shown without the grey shading refer to the five (complex) gestural features used within a C-VPT or an O-VPT gesture.From Table 5, we can see that the percentage of each gestural feature which
shows more gestural complexity in C-VPT gestures is much higher than that in O-VPT. Table 6 further shows the number of complex gestural features that are used in two types of gestures, and suggests that the percentage of C-VPT gestures that are composed of two or more than two complex gestural features is higher than that of O-VPT gestures. In addition, the use of three or more than three complex gestural features is only seen in C-VPT gestures but not in O-VPT gestures. This suggests that C-VPT gesture indeed is more possible to be composed of gestural features that show greater gestural complexity than O-VPT gesture, and that a C-VPT gesture is composed of more of these complex gestural features than O-VPT gesture to be identified as representing character viewpoint. O-VPT gesture might show none of these gestural features that show greater gestural complexity (12 out of total 52 cases of O-VPT), or at most two complex gestural features. To sum up, speakers in representing character viewpoint through gesture perform gestural features that show more gestural complexity and make use of a greater number of these complex gestural features within a C-VPT gesture than an O-VPT gesture.
At the same time, we can also see how gestures of observer and character viewpoint are performed with reference to the five gestural features when each gestural feature is analyzed as showing less gestural complexity. It was suggested in Chapter 3 that speakers plainly depict the past events like an observer that does not
attempt to walk into the original scene of the past events in representing observer viewpoint. As a result, speakers tend to produce a “simpler” gesture, which means that the gesture shows less gestural complexity, when representing observer viewpoint. A simple gesture that shows less gestural complexity might have the following gestural features: the gestural space is confined to the Center-Center space, use of a single hand, shorter stroke duration, no repetition of the same stroke, and no involvement of other body parts. Table 7 shows the percentage of each gestural feature that shows less gestural complexity used in C-VPT and O-VPT gestures:
Table 7. Gestural features that show less gestural complexity
Viewpoint
In Table 5, we have seen that the percentage of each gestural feature that shows more gestural complexity in C-VPT gestures is apparently higher than that in O-VPT gestures. However, the distinctive difference between C-VPT and O-VPT gesture on
the percentage of the use of gestural features that show simpler and less gestural complexity is not at all obvious, as shown in Table 7 (for example, 49.5% of C-VPT and 50.5% of O-VPT concerning the feature “no involvement of other parts of the body”). Only the results for the performance of shorter stroke duration show a relatively clear distinction between C-VPT and O-VPT gestures (32.1% v.s. 67.9%).
Such result, nevertheless, does not mean that the five gestural features identified in this study fail in differentiating observer and character viewpoint. Instead, if we combine two sets of the performances of each gestural feature presented in Table 5 and Table 7 and look at the correlation between each gestural feature and gestural viewpoint, we find that these five gestural features is actually crucial in identifying observer viewpoint and character viewpoint.
The data were analyzed by using Chi-square tests. The results suggest that the correlations between each gestural feature, including gestural space, handedness, stroke duration, and frequency, and gestural viewpoint are statistically significant.3 With respect to the correlation between the involvement of other body parts and gestural viewpoint, there are no instances of O-VPT gesture that is accompanied with other bodily movements. In general, these statistics concerning to the data shown in
3 The result of the Chi-square test for the distribution of C-VPT and O-VPT gestures accompanying the gestural space at Center-Center and Center-Periphery/Periphery is 2.095(1)=9.73; that for the use of single and both hands is 2.095(1)=10.2; that for shorter and longer stroke duration is 2.095(1)=20.5; and that for repetition of the same stroke and no repetition is 2.095(1)=6.65.
Table 5 and Table 7 show that the five gestural features identified in this study as basis for analysis are indeed indicative in analyzing gestural viewpoints.
Table 8 further shows the number of simple gestural features used in both C-VPT and O-VPT gestures.
Table 8.
Number of simple gestural features used in C-VPT and O-VPT gestures Viewpoint representing observer viewpoint with four and five simple gestural features comprise the majority of all O-VPT gestures (44 out of a total of 52 O-VPT gestures). In general, Table 8 suggests that speakers make use of greater number of gestural features that show less gestural complexity in an O-VPT gesture than a C-VPT gesture.To sum up, in presenting how observer and character viewpoint is represented through the use of five gestural features, this section has proved that each gestural feature indeed is significant and in deciding gestural viewpoints. However, it is also important to note that the identifications of C-VPT and O-VPT gestures by use of the five gestural features as analyzing criteria are not definite. Rather, the use of the five gestural features as analyzing criteria suggests that the identifications of C-VPT and O-VPT made along a continuum.
5.2 Quantitative study of gestural viewpoints
Based on the interaction and collaboration of five gestural features, with gestural space, handedness, stroke duration, frequency, the involvement of other parts of the body as coding principles, the present study analyzes 119 speech-accompanying gestures in representing three viewpoints within descriptions of third-person past events. The distribution of each viewpoint in the gestures produced in the current data is presented in Table 9.
Table 9. The distribution of gestural viewpoints
Types of viewpoint Number of each viewpoint Total
S-VPT 4 3.4%
O-VPT 52 43.7%
C-VPT 63 52.9%
Total 119 100%
Table 9 suggests that speakers’ use of speech-accompanying gestures within the descriptions of third-person past events in conversational contexts most often express character viewpoint. Speakers often make use of a speech-accompanying gesture to enact the role of characters involved in the past events, performing characters’ actions or deeds as if they themselves were in the scene of the original events as the characters. The distribution of character viewpoint in gesture is clearly different from that in language, and is contradictory to the hypothesis made according to the performance of linguistic viewpoints in the previous chapter. In the previous chapter on linguistic viewpoints, we saw that speakers rarely perform a character’s speech or thoughts as a way of description when talking about third-person past events (see Table 1, C-VPT, 5.9%). In assuming that gestures might co-express the same viewpoint as their accompanying speech, we would then expect that gestures would display the same pattern in the distribution of viewpoint as that of language. Therefore, it was predicted that gestures representing character viewpoint also rarely occur, as is the case in language. However, while character viewpoint is the most infrequent form of viewpoint to be expressed through language, it is the most frequently adopted viewpoint in gesture. Character viewpoint clearly shows different distributions for language and for gesture.
Observer viewpoint is also commonly adopted in gesture. Despite the fact that
the percentage of its distribution is not the highest among all gestural viewpoints and that it is not as high as expressed in language (52.9% in gesture v.s. 60.5% in speech), the adoption of observer viewpoint in gesture is also often seen. This suggests that while speakers frequently make use of plain statements or indirect reported speech in speech to describe the third-person past events from the position of an outsider who is not involved in the original scene, their use of speech-accompanying gestures also frequently suggests that they are an onlooker outside the original scene. Whether the occurrences of observer viewpoint in gestures appear when observer viewpoint is also adopted in language will be discussed in the following section on collaborative expressions of viewpoints in language and gesture. From the distribution of observer viewpoint in language and in gesture, we could also suggest that when observer viewpoint is to be expressed in describing third-person past events, speakers can convey it through either the linguistic or the gestural channel. In this case, to plainly talk about a third-person past event like an observer outside of the event and perform a simple gesture seem to be the most unmarked way for speakers to talk about third-person past events within conversational contexts.
While speakers in talking about third-person past events occasionally speak on behalf of themselves as a current speaker to make personal comments or interact with other speakers to maintain the ongoing conversations, their speech-accompanying
gestures rarely do so. This points out the fact that speakers’ use of the speech-accompanying gestures in the descriptions of third-person past events within conversational contexts are mainly concerned with the propositional contents of the events. Gesture is rarely used to help speakers reveal their here-and-now state as a current speaker in an ongoing conversation. When speaker viewpoint is to be expressed, speakers usually represent it through language.
Like character viewpoint, speaker viewpoint therefore also displays very different patterns of distribution in language and in gesture. The hypothesis based on the linguistic representations of speaker viewpoint made in the previous chapter again fails in expecting that the distribution of speaker viewpoint in gesture is also similar to that of the distribution of speaker viewpoint in language, since there are only four gestures representing speaker viewpoint in the current data.
To conclude, following McNeill’s notion that “one area of meaning where speech and gesture are coexpressive is the point of view” (1992:118), we expected that gestures might tend to work in collaboration with their accompanying speech to represent the same viewpoint within the descriptions of the same event and we have made hypotheses on gestural viewpoints based on the performance of linguistic viewpoints presented in the previous chapter. However, Table 9 suggests that the distribution of gestural viewpoints has different patterns from the distribution of
linguistic viewpoints in some way, which suggests that gestures might not always convey the same viewpoint as the accompanying speech. In terms of character viewpoint, while it is the most frequently adopted viewpoint in gesture, it is rarely seen in language. On the other hand, despite the fact that speaker viewpoint is also commonly seen in language, it rarely occurs in gesture. The ways in which gesture works in collaboration with language in expressing viewpoints within the descriptions of an event will be discussed in the following sections on the collaborative expressions of viewpoints in language and gesture.
However, given the limited amount of data on speaker viewpoint in gesture (see Table 9, S-VPT) in the current data, the present study will take only one example as illustration of how gesture represents speaker viewpoint. In the following discussions, the present study will mainly focus on the gestural representations of observer viewpoint and character viewpoint.
5.3 Gestural instantiations of three viewpoints
In this section, three gestural instantiations of gestural viewpoints—one instantiation for each viewpoint, will be presented successively to see how gestural features collaborate and interact with each other in representing speaker viewpoint, observer viewpoint, and character viewpoint.
5.3.1 Gestural representation of observer viewpoint
In conveying observer viewpoint through gesture, speakers’ hand movements suggests that they are representing the past events as though they were an onlooker, observing the past events from outside the original scene without walking into it.
Speakers in representing observer viewpoint perform a simple gesture. The representations of characters are concentrated in the use of hands only without any involvement of other body parts accompanying them. The gesture is usually performed at Center-Center space. The gesture is usually performed with short stroke duration, and done with the use of only a single hand. These gestural features taken together suggest that speakers are using their hand movements to represent the past events as though they were not involved in the original scene of the past events, and simply observing the events as an onlooker and displaying the events as a small projection in front of them. Example (18) is a gestural instantiation of observer viewpoint. In Example (18), the conversational topic is about the speaker F1’s friend’s (Chacha’s) first experience of riding a motorcycle to a mountain area. The clausal event being examined is about the way in which F1’s friend was unsteady in riding the motorcycle, since it was her first time riding a motorcycle.4 The first time she rode, she had to ride around a hairpin turn:
4 Since the speech-accompanying gestures are not necessarily synchronized with their lexical affiliates, related contexts prior to or following the clausal event are also provided for illustration.
(18) 1 F1: ..yīnwèi tā hěn dǒu.. yīnwèi tā dìyī cì jí shānlù.. ránhòu..
[a] At dìyī cì jí, right hand lifts up from thigh to the chest, with the right index finger extended ((1) in Figure 5)
[b] At rào fǎjiáwān, right index finger slightly points down first. Then, all other digits extend downward, drawing an anti-clockwise semicircle ((2) to (3) in Figure 5)
[c] From ránhòu to le, right index finger draws an anti-clockwise semicircle once ((4) in Figure 5)
[d] From nǐ to ma, right index finger points down and draws a clockwise semicircle, with all other digits curling to the fist ((5) in Figure 5)
F1: ‘Because she is unsteady…because it’s her first time riding a motorcycle to the mountain area…and she has to ride around a hairpin turn.’
F1: ‘Because she is unsteady…because it’s her first time riding a motorcycle to the mountain area…and she has to ride around a hairpin turn.’