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In:From Gesture in Conversation to Visible Action as Utterance: Essays in honor of Adam Kendon
Edited by Mandana Seyfeddinipur and Marianne Gullberg
[Not in series 188] 2014
► pp. 75–94

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The emblem as metaphor

Published online: 6 August 2014
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https://doi.org/10.1075/z.188.05nei
Emblems contain inner metaphors – precision for “OK,” the so-called conduit metaphor for the grappolo, for example. Other metaphors are Up is Good, Bad is Down in “thumbs up/down,” and Beams and Obstacles in “warding-off” (including the “horn”). Cultures historically pick metaphors, codify them with standards of form and function, ensure social standardization and intergenerational transmission, and the inner metaphor does not disappear. No emblem or “quotable gesture” in Kendon’s study of Neapolitan emblems appears to reverse or contradict its inner metaphor. North America and Naples both use the “ring” as a metaphor of precision but differ in how it is used: approbation in North America, authorization in Naples. Finally, emblems become “magical.”
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2025. Does early gesture usage contribute alongside oral language to later theory of mind performance and metaphor comprehension? Indications from a longitudinal study with children aged 1–9 years. Language Acquisition ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Kraśnicka, Izabela
2024. Gestural Ways of Depicting Metaphors and Abstract Concepts. Studies in Logic, Grammar and Rhetoric 69:1 ► pp. 95 ff. DOI logo

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