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The “preparation” for gesticulation begins with the start of a spoken phrase; the “stroke” marks the emphatic point of this momentary meaning structure; and the “retraction” marks its end. These gesticulations are spontaneous and relatively unconscious, in an instant anticipating and then synchronizing with speech. They are assembled with speech into a sequence of idea units. Mind produces meaning with hands and speech, syncopated in real time.³¹³

Fig. 1.4.3: Body as meaning

Then, closely linked with both speech and gesture are facial expressions. With twenty-two pairs of facial muscles, thousands of expressions are possible across the range of stretch intensities and muscle combinations. Facial meanings are far more nuanced in their range – their references to the self and its context – than speech ever can be, which is how they also orchestrate speech.³¹⁴

Like speech, gesticulation and facial expression are captive to time, occurring in irreversible sequential segments, overlaying clauses (Halliday^§MS0.2.7a) or breath groups (Masterman^§AS1.4.1b) in real time. Theater, cinema, and now video can overcome a contiguity in time and place normally required in speech. They turn gesticulation into a kind of writing, re-enacting a referenced moment of spontaneity in plannable performances and editable recordings of performance.

Other moments of gesticulation are premeditated and highly conscious. This is frequently the case in person-to-person contexts where speech is not viable. The distance may be too far for speech, the context too noisy or too quiet. In such situations some gestures may take the form of likeness (drawing the shape of something in a hand pictures, imitation); others directedness (“stop,” or waving someone through); still others abstractions (nodding or shaking one’s head are only by convention “yes” and “no”). Gesticulations that materialize meanings by abstraction are more varied by culture and context than those meaning by likeness or directedness. This also means that they are more open to misconstrual. Gestures that are offensive or laughable are so by convention or difference in interpretation.

Gestural signing with the omission of speech can achieve a range of meaning equal to spoken language, as evidenced in deaf sign languages,^§AS1.4.3 for instance, or the sign languages used by Walpiri women in Australia when they are sworn to silence to mourn the death of a relative.³¹⁵ This testifies to the power of multimodality, the possibility of meaning as fully as any human could wish, even in the complete absence of sensorial capacity for one or more media. Such an extraordinary ability to substitute meaning forms shows that, in the sense that we make as a species, always-possible transposability may be the main game.

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³¹³ David McNeill, 1992, Hand and Mind: What Gestures Reveal About Thought, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, pp. 23–28; David McNeill, 2012, How Language Began: Gesture and Speech in Human Evolution, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Adam Kendon, 2004, Gesture: Visible Action as Utterance, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Ellen Fricke, 2013, “Towards a Unified Grammar of Gesture and Speech: A Multimodal Approach,” pp. 733–54 in Body-Language-Communication: An International Handbook on Multimodality in Human Interaction, edited by C. Müller, A. Cienki, E. Fricke, S.H. Ladewig, D. McNeill, and J. Bressem, Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.

³¹⁴ Daniel McNeill, 1998, The Face, Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Company.

³¹⁵ David McNeill, 1992, Hand and Mind: What Gestures Reveal About Thought, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, pp. 42–54; Adam Kendon, 1989, Sign Languages of Aboriginal Australia: Cultural, Semiotic and Communicative Perspectives, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Kalantzis, Mary, and Bill Cope. 2020. Adding Sense: Context and Interest in a Grammar of Multimodal Meaning. Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press. pp. 124–126. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108862059

David McNeill’s “Hand and Mind” §AS1.4.3a