‘Away’ gestures associated with negative expressions in narrative discourse in Syuba (Kagate, Nepal) speakers
Year: 2021
Type: article
Abstract: This article examines the formal and functional features of a recurring ‘away’ gesture in Syuba (Tibeto-Burman, Nepal). The formal properties of this gesture include a pronation of the forearms to bring the palms downward while the fingers spread away, and is most often performed with both hands. Functionally, it is found with utterances that signal negation, particularly the absence of something. A growing body of literature links ‘away’ trajectories with negation, or negative evaluation of speech content cross-linguistically. The temporal alignment between these gesture and lexical content also shows that cross-linguistic differences in word order appear to affect performance of gestures associated with negated content.
Source: Semiotica
Author: Lauren Gawne
Institution: La Trobe University
Language: English
Subfield: Language and Linguistics
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W3126942422