Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Language Is Gesture

Language Is Gesture

McNeill, David

Paperback

PhilosophyLinguisticsGeneral Sociology

Currently unavailable to order

ISBN10: 0262552914
ISBN13: 9780262552912
Publisher: MIT Press
Published: Aug 5 2025
Pages: 240
Language: English
A new way of viewing language, as a dynamic mode of meaning-making of which gesture is a fundamental part.

When David McNeill began his work on gesture more than forty years ago, language and the action of speaking were regarded as separate realms. But language, says McNeill in Language Is Gesture, is dynamic and gesture is fundamental to speaking. Central to his conception of language, and distinct from linguistic analysis, is what McNeill calls the growth point, the starting point of making thought and speech one. He uses the term gesture-speech unity to refer to the dynamic dimension of adding gesture to speaking. It is the growth point that achieves this unity, whereby thought is embedded in gesture and speech at the same time.

Gesture is the engine of language. It is foundational to speaking, language acquisition, the origin of language, animal communication, thought, and consciousness. Gesture is global and synthetic and brings energy; speech is linear and segmented and brings cultural standards. The growth point is a snapshot of an utterance at its beginning psychological stage, the starting point of unifying thought and speech. Growth points create gesture-speech unity by synchronizing a bundle of linguistic features with a gesture that carries the same meaning. This gesture-speech unity is a form of thought, a unique form of cognition.

Also from

McNeill, David

View All

Also in

Linguistics

View All