Structural Congruity in Co-Speech Gesture

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate the differences in the production of gestures in spontaneous and planned speech. Given the cognitive link between speech and gesture (Kelly et al., 2010; Peeters et al., 2015; McNeill, 2005, 2007) and the differences in the process of spontaneous and planned speech production (Blaauw, 1995; Chawla & Krauss, 1994; Levelt, 1989), the question that was answered was: What are the differences between the gestures that are produced in spontaneous and planned speech? This research was conducted with the use of a semi-structured sociolinguistic interview and a presentation by the same participants, in which their co-speech gestures were analysed. The different types of gestures and the synchronous speech showed various extents of structural congruity; metaphoric gestures and speech were strongly congruent, beat gestures and speech did show some structural congruity but to a lesser extent, and iconic gestures did not show structural congruence. The structural congruity of metaphoric and beat gestures gives further evidence for the cognitive link between speech and gesture.