Gesture: A Slim Guide

This book provides a short and accessible introduction to how we use gesture in communication. Gestures are those actions made with the human body that accompany spoken or signed language; they are found in every human community that has language, but are far more heavily context dependent than the linguistic elements of communication. In this book, Lauren Gawne explores the different categories of gesture, showing that their use varies across cultures and languages, and even across specific interactions. Further chapters cover the acquisition of gesture, where it lives in the brain, and its role in both the origins of language and the future of communication. Written in an engaging style and compact format, and suitable for readers for all backgrounds, the book demonstrates the importance of gesture in understanding how we communicate.

Lauren Gawne, Senior Lecturer, Department of Languages and Cultures, La Trobe University

Lauren Gawne is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Languages and Cultures at La Trobe University. Her research focuses on the use of gesture with speech, cross-cultural variation in gesture, and the use of emoji, particularly the ways text and emoji parallel speech and gesture. She is passionate about communicating linguistics to a range of audiences and co-hosts the podcast Lingthusiasm with Gretchen McCulloch, as well as running the generalist linguistics website Superlinguo.