Discourse Reference Is Bimodal: How Information Status in Speech Interacts with Presence and Viewpoint of Gestures

Gesture Networks: Introducing Dynamic Time Warping and Network Analysis for the Kinematic Study of Gesture Ensembles

“…In other words, we find larger distances for gestures that co-occur with novel references. This result can be explained in that gestures must be maximally informative when new information in speech is conveyed, which dovetails with findings which have shown that gestures are reduced in their production rate when they are referring to something that is becoming common ground in the discourse (Hoetjes, Koolen, Goudbeek, Krahmer, & Swerts, 2015), as well as with research showing that gestures are more prevalent when speech referents are less accessible (Debreslioska & Gullberg, 2019). The informativeness of a gesture might then be in part defined by its relative novel trajectory relative to the gesture ensemble.…”

General- and Language-Specific Factors Influence Reference Tracking in Speech and Gesture in Discourse

“…That is, new and less accessible referents are expressed with richer expressions, while reduced referring expression are usually informative enough for maintained and more accessible referents. This principle is found to be present across typologically different spoken languages as well as in sign languages (Aksu-Koç & Nicolopoulou, 2015;Contemori & Dussias, 2016;Debreslioska & Gullberg, 2017;Hendriks et al, 2014;Hickmann & Hendriks, 1999;Perniss & Özyürek, 2015).…”

“…See Appendices, Table C1 and Table C2 for specifications of the models reported in this section. All analyses made use of variants of the generalized linear model with binomial error structure because the dependent variables were binary, coded as 1 for presence and as 0 for absence of a category (following Debreslioska & Gullberg, 2017). The analyses accounted for the random variation for participants by including random intercepts and random slopes in the models (see Baayen, Davidson, & Bates, 2008 for more information on mixed-effects modelling in language research).…”

“…When referents are maintained, however, reduced forms as pronouns and in some cases null pronouns (i.e., argument drop) may be sufficient to track referents, because those referents have already accessible representations. Varying the richness of referring expressions in relation to accessibility and discourse status (i.e., whether referents are (re)introduced or maintained) has been shown to be a language-general strategy across typologically different languages (Aksu-Koç & Nicolopoulou, 2015;Arnold, 2010;Contemori & Dussias, 2016;Debreslioska & Gullberg, 2017;Hendriks, Koster, & Hoeks, 2014;Hickmann & Hendriks, 1999;Perniss & Özyürek, 2015).…”

“…Gestures that accompany referring expressions are also found to be sensitive to the richness of expressions in speech. Speakers tend to gesture more with referents that are expressed with richer referring expressions in speech such as noun phrases (NPs) as opposed to reduced referring expressions such as overt pronouns (Debreslioska & Gullberg, 2017;Gullberg, 2006;Perniss & Özyürek, 2015;Yoshioka, 2008). Therefore, speech and gesture are closely related at the level of discourse production (Levy & McNeill, 1992).…”