Cover not available

Article published In: Anthropology of Gesture
Edited by Heather Brookes and Olivier Le Guen
[Gesture 18:2/3] 2019
► pp. 142–172

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
authorization required

Gesture and anthropology

Notes for an historical essay

 | University of Cambridge
Published online: 17 February 2021
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/gest.00041.ken
Abstract
This essay is a (necessarily selective) historical review of some contributions to the study of gesture (in all its varieties) from an anthropological perspective. Reasons for an interest in gesture by the authors considered are varied. Some are interested because it seems a simpler form of communication which might throw light on language emergence, others see it as interesting as a form of communication in its own right. In the early days of ethnography attempts were made to describe all aspects of “primitive”or “savage” life and if gestures were noticed an attempt would be made to describe them. Later on, especially as we get into the second half of the twentieth century, much study of gesture was motivated by the idea that it might serve as a “window” on mental processes, rather than how it works in communication, but in recent years the role of gesture in communication has once again received more emphasis and its study from an anthropological viewpoint has, accordingly, again gained in importance.
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • The eighteenth century
  • Nineteenth and early twentieth centuries
    • Edward Tylor
    • Andrea de Jorio
  • Sign languages in “primitive” societies
    • Garrick Mallery
  • Early twentieth century
  • Gesture vocabularies
  • Historical studies of gesture in society
  • The emergence of “Embodied Communication Studies”
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (108)
References
Bateson, Gregory. (1972). Steps to an ecology of mind. San Francisco: Chandler Publishing Company.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bäuml, B. & Bäuml, F. (1975). A dictionary of gestures. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Birdwhistell, Ray L. (1951). Border county: A study of socialization and mobility potential. Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Chicago.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Birdwhistell, Ray. L. (1952). Introduction to kinesics: An annotation system for analysis of body motion and gesture. Louisville, KY: University of Louisville.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(1970). Kinesics and context: Essays in body motion communication. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Braddick, Michael J. (Ed.). (2009). The politics of gesture: Historical perspectives. Oxford: Oxford Journals, Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bremmer, J. & Roodenburg, H. (Eds.). (1992). A cultural history of gesture. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (2004). A repertoire of South African quotable gestures. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 14 (2), 186–224. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (2005). What gestures do: Some communicative functions of quotable gestures in conversations among Black urban South Africans. Journal of Pragmatics, 371, 2044–2085. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cocchiara, Giuseppe. (1952). Storia del folklore in Europa. Turin: Einaudi.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. ([1959] 2004). Popolo e letteratura in Italia. Palermo: Sellerio Editore.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Collett, Peter & Contarello, Alberto. (1987). Gesti di assenso e di dissenso. In P. E. Ricci-Bitti (Ed.), Comunicazione e gestualità (pp. 69–85). Milan: Franco Angeli.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Condillac, Étienne Bonnot de. (2001). Essay on the origin of human knowledge (H. Aasleff, Trans.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Davis, J. E. (2010). Hand talk: Sign language among American Indian nations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
De Jorio, Andrea. (1832). La mimica degli antichi investigata nel gestire napoletano. Napoli: Fibreno.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (2000). Gesture in Naples and gesture in classical antiquity. A translation of La mimica degli antichi investigata nel gestire napoletano by Andrea de Jorio (1832) and with an Introduction and Notes by Adam Kendon (A. Kendon, Trans.). Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Degérando, Jean-Marie. (1969). The observation of savage people [Considerations sur les methodes a suivre dans l’observation des peuples sauvages, 1800] (F. C. T. Moore, Trans.). London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Diadori, P. (1990). Senza parole: 100 gesti degli italiani. Rome: Bonacci editore.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Diderot, Denis. (1904). Lettre sur le sourds et muets – Letter on deaf mutes. In H. Jourdain (Ed.), Diderot’s early philosophical works. Chicago: Open Court Publishing Co.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dingemanse, M. & Floyd, S. (2014). Conversation across cultures. In N. J. Enfield, Paul Kockelman, & J. Sidnell (Eds.), Cambridge handbook of linguistic anthropology (pp. 447–480). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Efron, David. (1972). Gesture, Race and Culture. The Hague: Mouton.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ekman, Paul & Friesen, Wallace. (1969). The repertoire of non-verbal behavior: Categories, origins, usage and coding. Semiotica, 1 (1), 49–98. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Farnell, Brenda. (1995). Do you see what I mean?: Plains Indian sign talk and the embodiment of action. Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Foerster, H. von, Mead, M., & Teuber, H. L. (Eds.). (1949). Cybernetics: Circular, causal and feedback mechanisms in biological and social systems. Transactions of Conferences, 5 Volumes. New York: Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goodwin, Charles. (1981). Conversational organization: Interaction between speakers and hearers. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (2018). Co-operative action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Green, J. R. (1968). Gesture inventory for the teaching of Spanish. Philadelphia: Chilton Books.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Greenway, J. (1963). Bibliography of the Australian Aborigines and the Native peoples of Torres Straits until 1959. Sydney: Angus and Robertson.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hall, Edward T. (1959). The silent language. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(1968). Proxemics. Current Anthropology, 91, 83–108. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(1966). The hidden dimension. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hayes, Francis C. (1957). Gestures: A working bibliography. Southern Folklore Quarterly, 21 (4), 218–317.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hewes, Gordon. (1974). Gesture language in culture contact. Sign. Language. Studies, 41, 1–34. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Howard, Jane. (1984). Margaret Mead: A life. New York: Simon and Schuster.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Howitt, A. W. (1890). Notes on the use of gesture language in Australian tribes. Australian Association for the Advancement of Science, 21, 637–646.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(1904). The native tribes of South East Australia. London & New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kaye, F. B. (1924). Mandeville on the origin of language. Modern Language Notes, 39 (3), 136–142. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kendon, Adam. (1980a, b, c). A description of a deaf-mute sign language from the Enga Province of Papua New Guinea with some comparative discussion. Part I: The formational properties of Enga signs. Semiotica, 321, 1–32; Part II: The semiotic functioning of Enga signs. Semiotica, 321, 81–117; Part III: Aspects of utterance construction. Semiotica, 321, 245–313. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (1981). Geography of gesture. Semiotica, 37 (1/2), 129–163.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (1982). The organization of behavior in face-to-face interaction: observations on the development of a methodology. In Klaus Scherer & Paul Ekman (Eds.), Handbook of methods in nonverbal behavior research (pp. 440–505). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (1988). Sign languages of Aboriginal Australia: Cultural, semiotic and communicative perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (1990). Conducting interaction: Patterns of behavior in focused encounters. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (1992). Some recent work from Italy on quotable gestures (‘emblems’). Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 2 (1), 72–93. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (1995a). Andrea De Jorio: The first ethnographer of gesture? Visual Anthropology, 71, 375–394. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (1995b). Gestures as illocutionary and discourse structure markers in Southern Italian conversation. Journal of Pragmatics, 23 (3), 247–279. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (2000). Andrea de Jorio and his work on gesture. Editor’s Introduction. In Andrea de Jorio, Gesture in Naples and gesture in classical antiquity. A translation of Andrea de Jorio’s La mimica degli antichi investigata nel gestire napoletano, and with an introduction and notes by Adam Kendon (pp. xix–cvii). Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (2004). Gesture: Visible action as utterance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (2007). On the origins of modern gesture studies. In J. Cassell, S. Duncan, & E. Levy (Eds.), Gesture and the dynamic dimension of language: Essays in honor of David McNeill. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (2008a). A history of the study of Australian Aboriginal sign languages. In W. B. McGregor (Ed.), Encountering Aboriginal languages: Studies in the history of Australian linguistics (pp. 383–402). Canberra: Pacific Linguistics, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (2013). History of the study of gesture. Chapter 3 in Keith Allan (Ed.), Oxford handbook for the history of linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (2017). Languages as semiotically heterogeneous systems. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 401, e59. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kendon, Adam & Sigman, Stuart J. (1996). Ray L. Birdwhistell (1918–1994). Semiotica, 112 (3/4), 231–261.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Knowlson, J. (1965). The idea of gesture as a universal language in the 17th and 18th centuries. Journal of the History of Ideas, 261, 495–508. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(1975). Universal language schemes in England and France. Toronto & Buffalo: University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lane, Harlan. (1989). When the mind hears. A history of the Deaf. New York: Vintage Books. A Division of Random House.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Leeds-Hurwitz, Wendy. (1987). The social history of the Natural History of an Interview: a multidisciplinary investigation of social communication. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 201, 1–51. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (1990). Notes in the history of intercultural communication: The Foreign Service Institute and the mandate for intercultural training. Quaterly Journal of Speech, 761, 262–281. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mallery, Garrick. (1972). Sign language among North American Indians compared with that among other peoples and deaf-mutes. The Hague: Mouton. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mandeville, Bernard. ([1729] 1924). The fable of the bees: Or, Private vices, publick benefits. With a commentary critical, historical, and explanatory by F. B. Kaye, Volume 21. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
McNeill, David. (1992). Hand and mind. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mead, George Herbert. (1934). Mind, self and society. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mead, Margaret & Bateson, Gregory. (1942). Balinese character: A photographic analysis. New York: New York Academy of Sciences.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Meggitt, Mervyn. (1954). Sign language among the Walbiri of Central Australia. Oceania, 251, 2–16. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Meo Zilio, G. & Mejia, S. (1980/1983). Diccionario de gestos: España e Hispanoamérica (Tomo 1, A–H (1980), Tomo 2, I–Z (1983)). Bogotá: Instituto Caro y Cuervo.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Miller, Wick R. (1978). A report on the sign language of the Western Desert (Australia). In Donna Jean Umiker-Sebeok & Thomas Albert Sebeok (Eds.), Aboriginal sign languages of the Americas and Australia (pp. 435–440). New York: Plenum Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Monahan, Brenda. (1983). A dictionary of Russian gesture. Ann Arbor: Hermitage.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Morris, Desmomd. (1994). Body talk: The meaning of human gestures. New York: Crown Publishers.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Morris, Desmond, Collett, Peter, Marsh, Peter, & O’Shaughnessy, Maria. (1979). Gestures: Their origins and distribution. London: Jonathan Cape.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Munari, Bruno. (1963). Supplemento al dizionario italiano. Mantova: Corrraini Editore.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Park, Robert E. & Burgess, Ernest. W. (1969). Introduction to the science of sociology. Student edition abridged from the edition of 1921. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Paura, Bruno & Sorge, Marina. (1998). Comme te l’aggia dicere? Ovvero l’arte gestuale a Napoli. Napoli: Intro Moenia.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Payrató, Lluis. (1993). A pragmatic view on autonomous gestures: A first repertoire of Catalan emblems. Journal of Pragmatics, 201, 193–216. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Petch, Alison. (2014). Edward Burnett Tylor, Part I, Part II. In The invention of museum anthropology. Pitt Rivers Virtual Collections. [URL]
Poggi, Isabella. (2007). Mind, hand, face and body: A goal and belief view of multimodal communication. Berlin: Weidler Buchverlag.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Read, C. Hercules. (1917). Obituary: Sir Edward Tylor. Man, Nos. 16–17, 25–26.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rée, Jonathan. (1999). I see a voice: A philosophical history of deafness, language and the senses. New York: Metropolitan Books, Henry Holt and Co.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ricci-Bitti, Pio Enrico. (Ed.). (1987). Communicazione e gestualità. Milano: Franco Angeli Libri.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rosenfeld, Sophia. (2001). A revolution in language: The problem of signs in late eighteenth-century France. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Roth, W. E. (1897). Ethnological studies among the North-West-Central Queensland Aborigines. Brisbane: Edmund Gregory, Government Printer.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ruby, Jay. (1983). An early attempt at studying human behavior with a camera: Franz Boas and the Kwakiutl: 1930. In Nico Bogaart & Henk Ketelaar (Eds.), Methodology in anthropological film making (pp. 25–38). Göttingen: Edition Herodot.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Saitz, R. & Cervenka, E. (1972). Handbook of gestures: Columbia and the United States. The Hague: Mouton and Co. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sapir, Edward. (1927). The unconscious patterning of behavior in society. In E. S. Dummer (Ed.), The unconscious: A symposium (pp. 114–142). New York: Knopf. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schaffner, B. (Ed.). (1956). Group processes: Transactions of the Second Conference. New York: Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Scheflen, Albert E. (1964). The significance of posture in communication systems. Psychiatry: Journal of Interpersonal Relations, 271, 316–331. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schmitt, Jean-Claude. (1990). La raison des gestes dans l’Occident médiéval. Paris: Gaillmard.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Seyfeddinipur, Mandana. (2011). Reasons for documenting gestures and suggestions for how to go about it. In N. Thierberger (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of linguistic fieldwork (pp. 147–166). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Simmel, Georg. (1924). The sociology of the senses: visual interaction. In Robert E. Park & Ernest W. Burgess (Eds.), An introduction to the science of sociology, Second Edition (pp. 356–361). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (1950). The sociology of Georg Simmel (Kurt H. Wolff, Ed.) Glencoe, IL: The Free Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Spencer, Baldwin A. & Gillen, Francis J. (1899). The native tribes of Central Australia. London & New York: Macmillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(1904). The Northern tribes of Central Australia. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stocking, George. (1982). French anthropology in 1800. In G. Stocking (Ed.), Race, culture and evolution: Essays in the history of anthropology (pp. 13–41). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (1987). Victorian anthropology. New York: The Free Press, A Division of Macmillan, Inc.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (1995). After Tylor: British social anthropology 1888–1951. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stokoe, William. (1960). Sign language structure: An outline of the visual communication systems of the American Deaf. Buffalo, NY: Department of Anthropology and Linguistics, University of Buffalo.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stokoe, William, Casterline, D., & Croneberg, C. (1965). A dictionary of American Sign Language on linguistic principles. Washington, DC: Gallaudet College Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Streeck, Jürgen, Goodwin, Charles, and LeBaron, Curtis (Eds.). (2011). Embodied interaction: Language and body in the material world. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Trager, George L. (1958). Paralanguage: A first approximation. Studies in Linguistics, 131, 1–12.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Trager, George L. & Smith, Henry Lee. (1951). An outline of English structure. Studies in Linguistics, Occasional Papers No. 3.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tylor, Edward B. (1878). Researches into the early history of mankind and the development of civilization, Second Edition. Boston: Estes & Lauriat [Originally published in 1865. London: John Murray]. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Warner, W. Lloyd. (1937). A Black civilization: A social study of an Australian tribe. New York: Harper. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
West, Candace & Zimmerman, Don. (1982). Conversation analysis. In Klaus Scherer & Paul Ekman (Eds.), Handbook of methods in nonverbal behavior research (pp. 506–541). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
West, La Mont, Jr. (1960). The sign language: An analysis. 21 Volumes. Dissertation, Department of Linguistics, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(1963). Aboriginal sign language: A statement. In William Edward Hanley Stanner & Helen Sheils (Eds.), Australian Aboriginal studies (pp. 159–165). Melbourne: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wylie, Lawrence. (1977). Beaux gestes: A guide to French body talk. Cambridge, MA: The Undergraduate Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (3)

Cited by three other publications

Fehn, Anne-Maria
2025. Gestures and Cultural Variation. In Reference Module in Social Sciences, DOI logo
Goldstein, Donna M. & Kira Hall
2021. Darwin’s hug. HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 11:2 ► pp. 693 ff. DOI logo
Tampubolon, Manotar
2021. Human Interaction Model Emerging Changes During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Qualitative Study. SSRN Electronic Journal DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 9 december 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue