Lecture 1. Nonverbal Communication...................................................................................................2
Lecture 2. Gesture, cognition and language..........................................................................................3
Paper 1. Kendon, 2014.......................................................................................................................6
Paper 2. Perniss 2018........................................................................................................................8
Lecture 3. Gesture versus sign language..............................................................................................11
Paper 3. Ferrara & Hodge 2018.......................................................................................................15
Paper 4. De Vos 2011.......................................................................................................................17
Lecture 4. Multi-modal interaction......................................................................................................19
Paper 5. Kendon, 2010.....................................................................................................................22
Lecture 5. Emotions & Facial expressions............................................................................................25
Paper 6. Ekman et al. 1969..............................................................................................................30
Paper 7. Gendron et al 2014............................................................................................................30
Paper 8. Barrett et al 2019...............................................................................................................31
Lecture 6. Gesture as action................................................................................................................37
Paper 9. Harrison et al. 2021...........................................................................................................41
Paper 10. Mittelberg 2018...............................................................................................................44
Lecture 7. Guest lecture & sign language workshop with deaf presenter...........................................45
Paper 11. Harder et al. 2013............................................................................................................47
Lecture 8. Application of NVC..............................................................................................................50
,Lecture 1. Nonverbal Communication
Nonverbal communication= everything that is not verbal: facial expression, vocal expression, body
posture (distance), gesture paralinguistic signals (eyebrow accents), clothing, accents, vocabulary.
Sign language is verbal! But may integrate nonverbal elements.
It is a popular statement to say that nonverbal features account for 93% of human communication.
However, this is not generally true, think of not being able to use language, text messaging without
emoticons, etc. But it is not clear whether it generalizes to all aspects of non-verbal communication.
Research on nonverbal communication started with the identification of parallels between human
and animals by Charles Darwin.
Culture and nonverbal communication.
Facial expressions, vocal expressions and emotions are universal in production and in perception.
There is evidence for universality, but certainly also for culture specificity so there are ingroup
advantages. Universality is often a default assumption in research.
‘Recognizing the full extent of human diversity does not mean giving up on the quest to understand
human nature. To the contrary, this recognition illuminates a journey into human nature that is
more exciting, more complex, and ultimately more consequential than has previously been
suspected’.
Examples of research: positive gestures occurred more often in the dominant hand, the different
functions of smiles (sour vs happy), eyebrow movements.
Surprise is one of the six basic emotions according to Ekman. But Reisenzen et al., state that
prototypical display of surprise hardly ever occurs and this holds for more emotions.
Conclusions:
Nonverbal communication is modality-independent: it can be visual-gestural, auditory, etc.
There is evidence for both universal and culture-specific aspects of nonverbal
communication. This holds for both production and perception (hence mixed-methods are
essential).
Nonverbal communication affects all forms of face-to-face interaction.
,Lecture 2. Gesture, cognition and language
Language is something living beings to do communicate that meets the following criteria:
1. Arbitrary: the form doesn't resemble the meaning. The word ‘write’ does not look or sound
anything like the action of writing. The connection between the form and meaning is
arbitrary.
a. In this case: writing and speech are languages.
b. Gesture and singed languages are non-arbitrary: the forms resemble the meaning.
Gesture and sign are not language.
2. Culture specific: the same meaning is expressed by different forms in different cultures. A
single meaning is expressed differently in different cultures. For example, ‘write’, ‘schrijven',
etc.
a. In this case: writing and speech are language.
b. Meanings are expressed by similar forms in different cultures for both gesture and
sign. Gesture and sign are therefore not language.
3. Pre-specified for form and meaning: a form reliably conveys a single meaning. ‘Write’ always
refers to some writing event and changing any part of ‘write’ changes the meaning (compare
to ‘bright’ or ‘rite’).
a. In this case: writing and speech are languages.
b. Gesture and signs can vary in form without changing the meaning, therefore gesture
and sign are not languages.
4. Compositional: forms combine linearly according to grammatical conventions to form more
complex meaning. ‘Hayden wrote on a board’, differs from: ‘A broad wrote on Hayden', or:
‘A on wrote hayden board'. Writing and speech are language.
a. Gesture and signs can express complex meaning via simultaneous combination,
sometimes unexpectedly. Gesture and sign are not language.
Written language bias= our conception of language is deeply influenced by a long tradition of
analysing only written language. The bias is that writing is definitely language, and so language is
made up of the things you can write down.
Aspects of writing:
An expanding notion of language: by centring the language modes furthest from the written
language prototype we can begin to see that no language mode lives up to the written ideal (not
even writing), at least not all of the time.
, Speech is also language: permanent should be removed.
Iconicity as a semiotic resource.
Language is for communicating complex information, and it makes sense for language users to
communicate as efficiently as possible. Hands are very good at communicating about things that
hands do, which is a lot: manipulating objects, performing actions, directing attention. This makes
iconicity= the resemblance of a form to its meaning, more apparent in manual forms (signs and co-
speech gestures).
Lecture 2. Gesture, cognition and language..........................................................................................3
Paper 1. Kendon, 2014.......................................................................................................................6
Paper 2. Perniss 2018........................................................................................................................8
Lecture 3. Gesture versus sign language..............................................................................................11
Paper 3. Ferrara & Hodge 2018.......................................................................................................15
Paper 4. De Vos 2011.......................................................................................................................17
Lecture 4. Multi-modal interaction......................................................................................................19
Paper 5. Kendon, 2010.....................................................................................................................22
Lecture 5. Emotions & Facial expressions............................................................................................25
Paper 6. Ekman et al. 1969..............................................................................................................30
Paper 7. Gendron et al 2014............................................................................................................30
Paper 8. Barrett et al 2019...............................................................................................................31
Lecture 6. Gesture as action................................................................................................................37
Paper 9. Harrison et al. 2021...........................................................................................................41
Paper 10. Mittelberg 2018...............................................................................................................44
Lecture 7. Guest lecture & sign language workshop with deaf presenter...........................................45
Paper 11. Harder et al. 2013............................................................................................................47
Lecture 8. Application of NVC..............................................................................................................50
,Lecture 1. Nonverbal Communication
Nonverbal communication= everything that is not verbal: facial expression, vocal expression, body
posture (distance), gesture paralinguistic signals (eyebrow accents), clothing, accents, vocabulary.
Sign language is verbal! But may integrate nonverbal elements.
It is a popular statement to say that nonverbal features account for 93% of human communication.
However, this is not generally true, think of not being able to use language, text messaging without
emoticons, etc. But it is not clear whether it generalizes to all aspects of non-verbal communication.
Research on nonverbal communication started with the identification of parallels between human
and animals by Charles Darwin.
Culture and nonverbal communication.
Facial expressions, vocal expressions and emotions are universal in production and in perception.
There is evidence for universality, but certainly also for culture specificity so there are ingroup
advantages. Universality is often a default assumption in research.
‘Recognizing the full extent of human diversity does not mean giving up on the quest to understand
human nature. To the contrary, this recognition illuminates a journey into human nature that is
more exciting, more complex, and ultimately more consequential than has previously been
suspected’.
Examples of research: positive gestures occurred more often in the dominant hand, the different
functions of smiles (sour vs happy), eyebrow movements.
Surprise is one of the six basic emotions according to Ekman. But Reisenzen et al., state that
prototypical display of surprise hardly ever occurs and this holds for more emotions.
Conclusions:
Nonverbal communication is modality-independent: it can be visual-gestural, auditory, etc.
There is evidence for both universal and culture-specific aspects of nonverbal
communication. This holds for both production and perception (hence mixed-methods are
essential).
Nonverbal communication affects all forms of face-to-face interaction.
,Lecture 2. Gesture, cognition and language
Language is something living beings to do communicate that meets the following criteria:
1. Arbitrary: the form doesn't resemble the meaning. The word ‘write’ does not look or sound
anything like the action of writing. The connection between the form and meaning is
arbitrary.
a. In this case: writing and speech are languages.
b. Gesture and singed languages are non-arbitrary: the forms resemble the meaning.
Gesture and sign are not language.
2. Culture specific: the same meaning is expressed by different forms in different cultures. A
single meaning is expressed differently in different cultures. For example, ‘write’, ‘schrijven',
etc.
a. In this case: writing and speech are language.
b. Meanings are expressed by similar forms in different cultures for both gesture and
sign. Gesture and sign are therefore not language.
3. Pre-specified for form and meaning: a form reliably conveys a single meaning. ‘Write’ always
refers to some writing event and changing any part of ‘write’ changes the meaning (compare
to ‘bright’ or ‘rite’).
a. In this case: writing and speech are languages.
b. Gesture and signs can vary in form without changing the meaning, therefore gesture
and sign are not languages.
4. Compositional: forms combine linearly according to grammatical conventions to form more
complex meaning. ‘Hayden wrote on a board’, differs from: ‘A broad wrote on Hayden', or:
‘A on wrote hayden board'. Writing and speech are language.
a. Gesture and signs can express complex meaning via simultaneous combination,
sometimes unexpectedly. Gesture and sign are not language.
Written language bias= our conception of language is deeply influenced by a long tradition of
analysing only written language. The bias is that writing is definitely language, and so language is
made up of the things you can write down.
Aspects of writing:
An expanding notion of language: by centring the language modes furthest from the written
language prototype we can begin to see that no language mode lives up to the written ideal (not
even writing), at least not all of the time.
, Speech is also language: permanent should be removed.
Iconicity as a semiotic resource.
Language is for communicating complex information, and it makes sense for language users to
communicate as efficiently as possible. Hands are very good at communicating about things that
hands do, which is a lot: manipulating objects, performing actions, directing attention. This makes
iconicity= the resemblance of a form to its meaning, more apparent in manual forms (signs and co-
speech gestures).
