Cover not available

Article published In: Gesture
Vol. 16:2 (2017) ► pp.176–202

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

Foreground gesture, background gesture

 | University of Chicago
Published online: 12 January 2018
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/gest.16.2.02coo
Abstract
Do speakers intend their gestures to communicate? Central as this question is to the study of gesture, researchers cannot seem to agree on the answer. According to one common framing, gestures are an “unwitting” window into the mind ( (1992). Hand and mind: What gestures reveal about thought. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar); but, according to another common framing, they are designed along with speech to form “composite utterances” ( (2009). The anatomy of meaning: Speech, gesture, and composite utterances. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). These two framings correspond to two cultures within gesture studies – the first cognitive and the second interactive in orientation – and they appear to make incompatible claims. In this article I attempt to bridge the cultures by developing a distinction between foreground gestures and background gestures. Foreground gestures are designed in their particulars to communicate a critical part of the speaker’s message; background gestures are not designed in this way. These are two fundamentally different kinds of gesture, not two different ways of framing the same monolithic behavior. Foreground gestures can often be identified by one or more of the following hallmarks: they are produced along with demonstratives; they are produced in the absence of speech; they are co-organized with speaker gaze; and they are produced with conspicuous effort. The distinction between foreground and background gestures helps dissolve the apparent tension between the two cultures: interactional researchers have focused on foreground gestures and elevated them to the status of a prototype, whereas cognitive researchers have done the same with background gestures. The distinction also generates a number of testable predictions about gesture production and understanding, and it opens up new lines of inquiry into gesture across child development and across cultures.
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • The foreground-background framework
    • The hallmarks of foreground status
      • Concurrent use of demonstratives
      • Absence of speech
      • Co-organization with speaker gaze
      • Speaker effort
    • Summary of hallmarks and predictions
    • Background gestures
  • Further issues
    • Foreground-background status and existing gesture typologies
    • Cross-cultural variation
    • Foreground gestures and background gestures in child development
  • Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (76)
References
Alibali, Martha W., Dana C. Heath, & Heather J. Myers (2001). Effects of visibility between speaker and listener on gesture production: Some gestures are meant to be seen. Journal of Memory and Language, 441, 169–188. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Alibali, Martha W. (2005). Gesture in spatial cognition: Expressing, communicating, and thinking about spatial information. Spatial Cognition & Computation, 5 (4), 307–331. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bangerter, Adrian (2004). Using pointing and describing to achieve joint focus of attention in dialogue. Psychological Science, 151, 415–419. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bangerter, Adrian & Eric Chevalley (2007). Pointing and describing in referential communication: When are pointing gestures used to communicate? In Sluis van der Ielka, Mariët Theune, Ehud Reiter, & Emiel Krahmer (Eds.), CTIT Proceedings of the Workshop on Multimodal Output Generation (MOG), 25–26 January 2007, Aberdeen, Scotland (pp. 17–28). Enschede, The Netherlands: Universiteit Twente.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bavelas, Janet B. (1994). Gestures as part of speech: Methodological implications. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 27 (3), 201–221. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bavelas, Janet B., Jennifer Gerwing, Chantelle Sutton, & Danielle Prevost (2008). Gesturing on the telephone: Independent effects of dialogue and visibility. Journal of Memory and Language, 58 (2), 495–520. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bavelas, Janet B. & Jennifer Gerwing (2011). Dyadic evidence for grounding with abstract deictic gestures. In Gale Stam & Mika Ishino (Eds.), Integrating gestures (pp. 49–60). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brentari, Diane, Marie Coppola, Laura Mazzoni, & Susan Goldin-Meadow (2012). When does a system become phonological? Handshape production in gesturers, signers, and homesigners. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 301, 1–31. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brookes, Heather (2004). A repertoire of South African quotable gestures. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 14 (2), 186–224. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brooks, Neon, David Barner, Michael Frank, & Susan Goldin-Meadow (2017). The role of gesture in supporting mental representations: The case of mental abacus arithmetic. Cognitive Science. .
Butterworth, George & Shoji Itakura (2000). How the eyes, head and hand serve definite reference. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 181, 25–50. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Carlson, Richard A., Mario N. Avraamides, Melanie Cary, & Stephen Strasberg (2007). What do the hands externalize in simple arithmetic? Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 33 (4), 747–56.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chu, Mingyuan & Sotaro Kita (2008). Spontaneous gestures during mental rotation tasks: insights into the microdevelopment of the motor strategy. Journal of Experimental Psychology. General, 137 (4), 706–23. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chu, Mingyuan, & Sotaro Kita (2011). The nature of gestures’ beneficial role in spatial problem solving. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 140 (1), 102–16. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chu, Mingyuan, Antje Meyer, Lucy Foulkes, & Sotaro Kita (2013). Individual differences in frequency and saliency of speech-accompanying gestures: The role of cognitive abilities and empathy. Journal of Experimental Psychology. General, 143 (2), 694–709. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Clark, Herbert H. (1996). Using language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cooperrider, Kensy (2011). Reference in action: Links between pointing and language. Doctoral dissertation, University of California – San Diego.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2014). Body-directed gestures: Pointing to the self and beyond. Journal of Pragmatics, 711, 1–16. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
de Ruiter, Jan-Peter & David P. Wilkins (1998). The synchronization of gesture and speech in Dutch and Arrernte (an Australian Aboriginal language): A cross-cultural comparison. In Serge Santi (Ed.), Oralité et gestualité (pp. 603–607). Paris: Harmattan.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
de Ruiter, Jan-Peter, Adrian Bangerter, & Paula Dings (2012). The interplay between gesture and speech in the production of referring expressions: Investigating the tradeoff hypothesis. Topics in Cognitive Science, 4 (2), 232–248. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2006). Demonstratives, joint attention, and the emergence of grammar. Cognitive Linguistics, 17 (4), 463–489. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dixon, Robert M. W. (2003). Demonstratives: A cross-linguistic typology. Studies in Language, 27 (1), 61–112. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ekman, Paul & Wallace V. Friesen (1969). The repertoire of nonverbal behavior: Categories, origins, usage, and coding. Semiotica, 1 (1), 49–98.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Emmorey, Karen (2002). Language, cognition, and the brain: Insights from sign language research. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Emmorey, Karen & Shannon Casey (2001). Gesture, thought and spatial language. Gesture, 1 (1), 35–50. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Emmorey, Karen, Robin Thompson, & Rachael Colvin (2009). Eye gaze during comprehension of American Sign Language by native and beginning signers. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, 141, 237–243. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Enfield, Nicholas J. (2004). On linear segmentation and combinatorics in co-speech gesture: A symmetry-dominance construction in Lao fish trap descriptions. Semiotica, 1491, 57–123. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2009). The anatomy of meaning: Speech, gesture, and composite utterances. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Enfield, Nicholas J., Sotaro Kita, & Jan-Peter de Ruiter (2007). Primary and secondary pragmatic functions of pointing gestures. Journal of Pragmatics, 39 (10), 1722–1741. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Engle, Randi (2000). Toward a theory of multimodal communication: Combining speech, gestures, diagrams, and demonstrations in instructional explanations. Doctoral dissertation, Stanford University.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Floyd, Simeon (2016). Modally hybrid grammar? Celestial pointing for time-of-day reference in Nheengatú. Language, 92 (1), 31–64. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Forrester, Gillian S. & Alina Rodriguez (2015). Slip of the tongue: Implications for evolution and language development. Cognition, 1411, 103–111. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Garber, Paul, & Susan Goldin-Meadow (2002). Gesture offers insight into problem-solving in adults and children. Cognitive Science, 261, 817–831. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Galati, Alexia & Susan E. Brennan (2014). Speakers adapt gestures to addressees’ knowledge: implications for models of co-speech gesture. Language and Cognitive Processes, 29 (4), 435–451.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gentilucci, Maurizio, Francesca Benuzzi, Massimo Gangitano, & Silvia Grimaldi (2001). Grasp with hand and mouth: A kinematic study on healthy subjects. Journal of Neurophysiology, 861, 1685–1699. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gerwing, Jennifer, & Janet B. Bavelas (2004). Linguistic influences on gesture’s form. Gesture, 4 (2), 157–195. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goldin-Meadow, Susan (2003). Hearing gesture: How our hands help us think. Cambridge, MA: Belknap.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goldin-Meadow, Susan & Martha W. Alibali (2013). Gesture’s role in speaking, learning, and creating language. Annual Review of Psychology, 641, 257–283. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goodwin, Charles (1986). Gesture as a resource for the organization of mutual orientation. Semiotica, 62 (1/2), 29–49.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(1994). Professional vision. American Anthropologist, 96 (3), 606–633. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Guérin, Valérie (2015). Demonstrative verbs: A typology of verbal manner deixis. Linguistic Typology, 19 (2), 141–199. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gullberg, Marianne & Sotaro Kita (2009). Attention to speech-accompanying gestures: Eye movements and information uptake. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 33 (4), 251–277. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Haviland, John B. (2004). Gesture. In Alessandro Duranti (Ed.), A Companion to Linguistic Anthropology (pp. 197–221). Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hostetter, Autumn B. (2014). Action attenuates the effect of visibility on gesture rates. Cognitive Science, 38 (7), 1468–1481. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hostetter, Autumn B. & Martha W. Alibali (2008). Visible embodiment: Gestures as simulated action. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 15 (3), 495–514. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Iverson, Jana M. & Susan Goldin-Meadow (1998). Why people gesture when they speak. Nature, 396 (6708), 228. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Iverson, Jana M. & Esther Thelen (1999). Hand, mouth, and brain: The dynamic emergence of speech and gesture. In Rafael Núñez & Walter J. Freeman (Eds.), Reclaiming cognition: The primacy of action, intention and emotion (pp. 19–40). Thorverton: Imprint Academic.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kendon, Adam (1988). How gestures can become like words. In Fernando Poyatos (Ed.), Cross-cultural perspectives in nonverbal communication (pp. 131–141). Toronto: Hogrefe.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(1990). On some human greetings. In Adam Kendon, Conducting interaction: Patterns of behavior in focused encounters (pp. 153–207). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(1995). 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
(2004). Gesture: Visible action as utterance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Le Guen, Olivier (2011). Speech and gesture in spatial language and cognition among the Yucatec Mayas. Cognitive Science, 351, 905–938. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
McComsey, Melanie, Kensy Cooperrider, & Tyler Marghetis (2016, January). Sources of within-population variability in spatial communication and reasoning: Evidence from Juchitán, Mexico. Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, Washington, DC.
McNeill, David (1985). So you think gestures are nonverbal? Psychological Review, 92 (3), 350–371. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(1992). Hand and mind: What gestures reveal about thought. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2000). Introduction. In David McNeill (Ed.), Language and gesture (pp. 1–10). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2005). Gesture and thought. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
McNeill, David, Justine Cassell, & Elena T. Levy (1993). Abstract deixis. Semiotica, 95 (1/2), 5–20.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
McNeill, David (2014). Gesture – speech unity: Phylogenesis, ontogenesis, and microgenesis. Language, Interaction and Acquisition, 5 (2), 137–184. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Meissner, Martin & Stuart B. Philpott (1975). The sign language of sawmill workers in British Columbia. Sign Language Studies, 9 (1), 291–308. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Oben, Bert, & Geert Brône (2015). What you see is what you do. On the relationship between gaze and gesture in multimodal alignment. Language and Cognition, 71, 546–562. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rimé, Bernard, & Loris Schiaratura (1991). Gesture and speech. In Robert S. Feldman (Ed.), Fundamentals of nonverbal behavior (pp. 239–281). New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sandler, Wendy (2009). Symbiotic symbolization by hand and mouth in sign language. Semiotica, 2009 (174), 241–275. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sidnell, Jack (2005). Gesture in the pursuit and display of recognition: A Caribbean case study. Semiotica, 2005 (156), 55–87. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Slama-Cazacu, Tatiana (1976). Nonverbal components in message sequence: “Mixed syntax”. In William C. McCormack & Stephen A. Wurm (Eds.), Language and man: Anthropological issues (pp. 217–227). The Hague: Mouton.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Slonimska, Anita, Aslı Özyürek, & Emanuela Campisi (2015). Ostensive signals: markers of communicative relevance of gesture during multimodal demonstrations to adults and children. In Gaëlle Ferré & Mark Tutton (Eds.), Proceedings of the 4th GESPIN Conference (pp. 217–222). Nantes: Université de Nantes.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Snow, Charles Percy (1959). The two cultures and the scientific revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Streeck, Jürgen (1993). Gesture as communication I: Its coordination with gaze and speech. Communication Monographs, 601, 275–299. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2009). Gesturecraft: The manu-facture of meaning. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tuite, Kevin (1993). The production of gesture. Semiotica, 93 (1/2), 83–105.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wharton, Tim (2009). Pragmatics and non-verbal communication. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (27)

Cited by 27 other publications

Avcı, Can, Demet Özer, Terry Eskenazi & Tilbe Göksun
2025. Assessing Others’ Knowledge Through Their Speech Disfluencies and Gestures. Cognitive Science 49:11 DOI logo
Floyd, Simeon
2025. Multimodal Existential Negation in Ecuadorian Highland Kichwa. Languages 10:6 ► pp. 138 ff. DOI logo
Gawne, Lauren
2025. Gesture, DOI logo
Pearson, Lara, Thomas Nuttall & Wim Pouw
2025. The Co‐Structuring of Gesture‐Vocal Dynamics: An Exploration in Karnatak Music Performance. Cognitive Science 49:11 DOI logo
Özer, Demet, Aslı Özyürek & Tilbe Göksun
2025. Spatial working memory is critical for gesture processing: Evidence from gestures with varying semantic links to speech. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 32:4 ► pp. 1639 ff. DOI logo
Cuffari, Elena Clare
2024. Gesture and Intersubjectivity. In The Cambridge Handbook of Gesture Studies, ► pp. 599 ff. DOI logo
Gawne, Lauren & Kensy Cooperrider
2024. Emblems: Meaning at the interface of language and gesture. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics 9:1 DOI logo
Janzen Ulbricht, Natasha & Shane Lindsay
2023. Can grammatical morphemes be taught? Evidence of gestures influencing second language procedural learning in middle childhood. PLOS ONE 18:2 ► pp. e0280543 ff. DOI logo
Laparle, Schuyler
2023. Gradient at-issueness and semiotic complexity in gesture: a response. Theoretical Linguistics 49:3-4 ► pp. 261 ff. DOI logo
Mlakar, Izidor, Darinka Verdonik, Simona Majhenič & Matej Rojc
2023. Understanding conversational interaction in multiparty conversations: the EVA Corpus. Language Resources and Evaluation 57:2 ► pp. 641 ff. DOI logo
Raghavan, Renuka, Limor Raviv & David Peeters
2023. What's your point? Insights from virtual reality on the relation between intention and action in the production of pointing gestures. Cognition 240 ► pp. 105581 ff. DOI logo
Cartmill, Erica A.
2022. Gesture. Annual Review of Anthropology 51:1 ► pp. 455 ff. DOI logo
Cooperrider, Kensy, James Slotta & Rafael Núñez
2022. The ups and downs of space and time: topography in Yupno language, culture, and cognition. Language and Cognition 14:1 ► pp. 131 ff. DOI logo
Dyrmo, Tomasz
2022. Gestural metaphorical scenarios and coming out narratives. Metaphor and the Social World 12:1 ► pp. 23 ff. DOI logo
Inbar, Anna
2022. The Raised Index Finger gesture in Hebrew multimodal interaction. Gesture 21:2-3 ► pp. 264 ff. DOI logo
Cooperrider, Kensy, Jordan Fenlon, Jonathan Keane, Diane Brentari & Susan Goldin-Meadow
2021. How Pointing is Integrated into Language: Evidence From Speakers and Signers. Frontiers in Communication 6 DOI logo
de Dear, Caroline, Joe Blythe, Francesco Possemato, Lesley Stirling, Rod Gardner, Ilana Mushin & Frances Kofod
2021. Locational pointing in Murrinhpatha, Gija, and English conversations. Gesture 20:3 ► pp. 417 ff. DOI logo
Mlakar, Izidor, Matej Rojc, Simona Majhenič & Darinka Verdonik
2021. Discourse markers in relation tonon-verbal behavior. Gesture 20:1 ► pp. 103 ff. DOI logo
Mlakar, Izidor, Matej Rojc, Darinka Verdonik & Simona Majhenič
2021. Can Turn-Taking Highlight the Nature of Non-Verbal Behavior: A Case Study. In Types of Nonverbal Communication [Working Title], DOI logo
Tversky, Barbara & Azadeh Jamalian
2021. Thinking Tools: Gestures Change Thought About Time. Topics in Cognitive Science 13:4 ► pp. 750 ff. DOI logo
Beck Nielsen, Søren
2020. Silence gestures revisited. Gesture 19:2-3 ► pp. 246 ff. DOI logo
Marghetis, Tyler, Melanie McComsey & Kensy Cooperrider
2020. Space in Hand and Mind: Gesture and Spatial Frames of Reference in Bilingual Mexico. Cognitive Science 44:12 DOI logo
Pouw, Wim, Steven J. Harrison, Núria Esteve-Gibert & James A. Dixon
2020. Energy flows in gesture-speech physics: The respiratory-vocal system and its coupling with hand gestures. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 148:3 ► pp. 1231 ff. DOI logo
Cooperrider, Kensy
2019. Universals and diversity in gesture. Gesture 18:2-3 ► pp. 209 ff. DOI logo
Hostetter, Autumn B. & Martha W. Alibali
2019. Gesture as simulated action: Revisiting the framework. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 26:3 ► pp. 721 ff. DOI logo
McNeill, David
2018. Recurrent gestures. Gesture 17:2 ► pp. 229 ff. DOI logo
Wehling, Elisabeth
2017. Discourse management gestures. Gesture 16:2 ► pp. 245 ff. 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