Bressem, Jana (in prep.). Recurrent form features in coverbal gestures. In: Bressem, Jana & Silva Ladewig (Hgg.), Hand made patterns. Recurrent forms and functions in gestures. To be submitted to Semiotica. This paper focuses on a quantitative account of the form of gestures. Based on a description of 623 coverbal gestures used by four German speakers in naturally occurring conversations, the paper presents a form-based description of gestures. In particular, it aims at three questions: 1. Which hand shapes, orientations, positions, and movements do German speakers in naturally occurring conversations use?  2. How are the realizations of the four parameters distributed? 3. Is it possible to detect frequent co-occurrences of parameter realizations?  The study shows that the speakers use particular gestural forms recurrently and that these forms systematically co-occur with one another and even specifically cluster.

copyright: Jana Bressem

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