Target Gesture Case Study

While Group A delivered exact or relatively close Target Gesture instances, Group B gave more limited results, instead providing otherwise unique ones. In fact, at one point, a speaker completely diminished gestures altogether, which effected the cycle of the story. However, Target Gesture 1 was the single example that remained somewhat consistent for all speaker recounts. By way of example, here is the progression of gesture 1 though Speaker 4 to Speaker 8. Speaker 4’s fingers form in what looks to be a precision-like grip, intended to form the shape of the GoPro camera in beat with, “GoPro on her head.” Conversely, Speaker 5 does not follow this example. Curling her fingers into her fists up by her head firmly, she details the setting of the GoPro in the imagined space, but did not verbally express the “on her head” part of the story.
With Speaker 6, the gesture is preformed relatively, as if she assumes the position of the narrator and the GoPro is being strapped onto her person. This trend continued to the final speaker, all referencing the GoPro attachment as they executed the gestures. I believe this can best be compared to how Poggi views gesture types as holophrastic or lexical. As gesture one, in this case, functioned only as a component of the complete expressive storyline, the “performative character can be different from one instance to the next.” (Kendon, 1992) Therefore, the gesture is prone to vary once the context of putting the GoPro on my head was not offered to Speaker