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Friday, September 22, 2006
Chavez Gestures
There was a nice bit of gesturing in the speech by Hugo Chavez at the UN General Assembly.
After recommending Chomsky's Hegemony or Survival and calling out Bush as the devil, he invoked heavenly protection. He crossed himself elaborately, including kissing his hands before folding them in a quick prayer to the Lord above. I wonder if all the representatives from all over the world understood the general meaning of these gestures. My guess would be that they did? The laughter and applause seemed to be in response to it, to some extent anyway. Throughout his speech I think he made good and frequent use of co-speech gestures in a relaxed style (which appears common in Venezuela culture).
Thursday, September 21, 2006
Plants gesture: You may profit if you boil me
Once more let us dream a while
Once more let us consider plant gestures
I wrote previously about the intentions of moving plants, and about their ability to communicate. Do plants gesture? I remain unconvinced. Sure, they move for various practical reasons but not to communicate.
They do appear to provide information to their environment in response to events through chemical signals. When under attack from a bug, they send up smoke signals calling in allied killer bugs. However, this signaling appears limited to a single message, it is not a semiotic system. There may also be no killer bugs to pick it up. It is also not under cognitive control. Yet I can see how it is useful to call it communication. But not through movement or appearance. And I do not call my own chemical signals from my armpits gesture either. So, no gesture sofar.
A seductive gesture? (News in Science)
But the internet is a jungle rife with diversity, and I stumbled upon another case for your consideration: A review of a book on Bach Flower Remedies. The basic idea concerns the healing power of flowers, or their essences. But they also mention the soul gestures of plants (which need to be studied in relation to their essence qualities).
If I understand correctly: The way the flower grows and lives has its analogy in human development. And so the "beautiful Water Violet, which floats so freely on the surface of our clearest streams, will help you...to stand absolutely alone in the world, gaining the intense joy of complete freedom" (source). One could argue that the Water Violet communicates its specific flower-power through the way it grows and lives. Growing and living can be considered movement. Ergo, the plant gestures.
Why would this Water Violet share its secret and tell us what it will do for us if we boil it into an essence?
However, if we complete the analogy, then what do we communicate with the way we grow as a species? We grow from crying babies in cots to screaming toddlers, unruly kids, troublesome teenagers on to neurotic adults. What would be the quality of our essence? Will our perfume help other organisms, like their essence may help us?
There appears to be a problem with the analogy. All of nature revolves around humans, and not vice versa. If we but listen carefully each plant has its own message for us. We are challenged: "to open our eyes to the wonder of the natural world as a living script, a soul-imbued life that can speak intimately to the human soul". Any takers?
A seductive gesture? (News in Science)
But the internet is a jungle rife with diversity, and I stumbled upon another case for your consideration: A review of a book on Bach Flower Remedies. The basic idea concerns the healing power of flowers, or their essences. But they also mention the soul gestures of plants (which need to be studied in relation to their essence qualities).
If I understand correctly: The way the flower grows and lives has its analogy in human development. And so the "beautiful Water Violet, which floats so freely on the surface of our clearest streams, will help you...to stand absolutely alone in the world, gaining the intense joy of complete freedom" (source). One could argue that the Water Violet communicates its specific flower-power through the way it grows and lives. Growing and living can be considered movement. Ergo, the plant gestures.
Why would this Water Violet share its secret and tell us what it will do for us if we boil it into an essence?
However, if we complete the analogy, then what do we communicate with the way we grow as a species? We grow from crying babies in cots to screaming toddlers, unruly kids, troublesome teenagers on to neurotic adults. What would be the quality of our essence? Will our perfume help other organisms, like their essence may help us?
There appears to be a problem with the analogy. All of nature revolves around humans, and not vice versa. If we but listen carefully each plant has its own message for us. We are challenged: "to open our eyes to the wonder of the natural world as a living script, a soul-imbued life that can speak intimately to the human soul". Any takers?
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Wednesday, September 20, 2006
Dutch Gesture and Sign Language Theses Online
All Dutch theses (proefschriften) are now available online at DAREnet. But they do not seem to go back very far. I found the 2003 thesis of Inge Zwitserlood on Classifying hand configurations in Nederlandse Gebarentaal (NGT, or Sign Language of the Netherlands, SLN). And there is a 2005 thesis of Keiko Yoshioka on Linguistic and gestural introduction and tracking of referents in L1 and L2 discourse.
(Source RuG)
None of the older theses about NGT seem to be available. There are some at the LOT, like the one from Onno Crasborn (2001) and Beppie van de Bogaerde (2000), but these also go back to 1998 only.
(Source RuG)
None of the older theses about NGT seem to be available. There are some at the LOT, like the one from Onno Crasborn (2001) and Beppie van de Bogaerde (2000), but these also go back to 1998 only.
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Tuesday, September 19, 2006
Perception of Vulgarity
Dark Damian, blogging at Almost Infamous, wrote a nice piece on a gesture he calls the shocker. He saw it on the television. Thousands of other people did not see it apparently.
Is this man making an obscene gesture? (for the answer check Dark Damian)
To be frank I missed it too. I did not know the gesture. Next time I will be more alert.
I think this sort of 'vulgarity' is perceived much the same was as insulting gestures. Some people are sensitive to it while others do not see it. That makes it easy to explain what happened here. Damian knows the gesture and appears to be a focused TV watcher (or at least with certain sporting events). Therefore the gesture that was intended as a shocker reached his eyes but not those of more innocent or less alert couch potatoes.
Is this man making an obscene gesture? (for the answer check Dark Damian)
To be frank I missed it too. I did not know the gesture. Next time I will be more alert.
I think this sort of 'vulgarity' is perceived much the same was as insulting gestures. Some people are sensitive to it while others do not see it. That makes it easy to explain what happened here. Damian knows the gesture and appears to be a focused TV watcher (or at least with certain sporting events). Therefore the gesture that was intended as a shocker reached his eyes but not those of more innocent or less alert couch potatoes.
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Monday, September 18, 2006
History of the Nod
Conrad H. Roth has a blog called Varieties of Unreligious Experience. On it you can find everything you ever wanted to know about the history of the head nod and more and more (the best was saved for last I believe). Parts one and two are largely etymological speculations. Part three treats the gestural aspect. Why he chose the humble nod, I cannot tell, but he provides ample reading material on the subject.
"Proud day: Rice accepts Bush's nod to head State" (source MSNBC)
A possible candidate for gesture mix-ups is the way Bulgarians nod for yes and no (see video). I hope the people of Umanify are still listening? (They wanted their avatar to use appropriate head gestures)
"Proud day: Rice accepts Bush's nod to head State" (source MSNBC)
A possible candidate for gesture mix-ups is the way Bulgarians nod for yes and no (see video). I hope the people of Umanify are still listening? (They wanted their avatar to use appropriate head gestures)
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Thursday, September 14, 2006
The People of Nunavut Rule
I am much impressed by the humanist Inuit, aren't they nice people? If a community has its own language they seem happy to recognize it oficially. Are you using native Inuit Sign Language instead of ASL? No problemo. At LanguageAndHumor.net (nice blog) they have been following events. Why can't it be like Nunavut everywhere?
Because they live so far apart, their signs are very big... (lame joke)
Brave explorer Jamie MacDougall, a reported specialist in language and perception, risked the frosty territories to discover the Inuit sign language. It has an estimated 3 users. No, I am kidding, it could well be that from the 155 deaf people in Nunavut, there is a larger percentage using it.
Inuit counting signs? Enlarge
This reminds me of a speech from a top European civil servant at ICED 2005. Europe counts many languages, and each of them is recognized. Even though member states are still struggling with recognizing their native sign languages (NGT, VGT, DGS, ETC), Europe sees no problem in it. If there are already 40 languages in use, then one or two extra do not cause big additional problems. Life can be simple.
Because they live so far apart, their signs are very big... (lame joke)
Brave explorer Jamie MacDougall, a reported specialist in language and perception, risked the frosty territories to discover the Inuit sign language. It has an estimated 3 users. No, I am kidding, it could well be that from the 155 deaf people in Nunavut, there is a larger percentage using it.
Inuit counting signs? Enlarge
This reminds me of a speech from a top European civil servant at ICED 2005. Europe counts many languages, and each of them is recognized. Even though member states are still struggling with recognizing their native sign languages (NGT, VGT, DGS, ETC), Europe sees no problem in it. If there are already 40 languages in use, then one or two extra do not cause big additional problems. Life can be simple.
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The Gesturing Caller
Sometimes people gesture even though they are talking to someone on the phone. This often observed fact has been discussed by many people investigating the nature of gesture.
A habitual serial caller? (source)
Now, Mark Liberman wrote his views on the phenomenon in the LanguageLog. In short he explains it as a communicative habit. A habit that grew out of complex "theory of mind" reasoning, like exemplified in this hilarious comic. How it grew he does not say exactly, other than that gesture is apparently one of a 'lot of things that seem cleverly calculated to influence the knowledge and beliefs of others'. Gesture as a cherished part of the arsenal of communication means we carry around. Like a pocketknife we carry, perhaps? Just because the situation does not call for a pocketknife, it still feels good to know it is there?
Personally I think habits are very poweful, but do not offer the full explanation here. People are on the phone so much that I expect them to grow phone habits. And why would they include gestures if they are not accomplishing anything?
I think most gesture researchers, especially psycholinguists, consider speaking and gesturing to be very closely linked (in cognitive processes). Therefore gesturing on the phone may be either a side effect of talking or a way to help you formulate and express your message. Of course, your communicative behaviour will be channelled into habits, but the link is always there.
The question is why gesturing on the phone is such a hard habit to break. And under which conditions does it occur most? And if my phone recognizes gestures, will that be a problem?
A habitual serial caller? (source)
Now, Mark Liberman wrote his views on the phenomenon in the LanguageLog. In short he explains it as a communicative habit. A habit that grew out of complex "theory of mind" reasoning, like exemplified in this hilarious comic. How it grew he does not say exactly, other than that gesture is apparently one of a 'lot of things that seem cleverly calculated to influence the knowledge and beliefs of others'. Gesture as a cherished part of the arsenal of communication means we carry around. Like a pocketknife we carry, perhaps? Just because the situation does not call for a pocketknife, it still feels good to know it is there?
Personally I think habits are very poweful, but do not offer the full explanation here. People are on the phone so much that I expect them to grow phone habits. And why would they include gestures if they are not accomplishing anything?
I think most gesture researchers, especially psycholinguists, consider speaking and gesturing to be very closely linked (in cognitive processes). Therefore gesturing on the phone may be either a side effect of talking or a way to help you formulate and express your message. Of course, your communicative behaviour will be channelled into habits, but the link is always there.
The question is why gesturing on the phone is such a hard habit to break. And under which conditions does it occur most? And if my phone recognizes gestures, will that be a problem?
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Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Let Site Pal do the Talking
I came across Site Pal, a nice web application that lets you incorporate an embodied conversational agent on your web site. I created a demo right-away. They even have something special for bloggers called iJoomla (?), but I only stayed long enough to get the example below:
Downsides? You have to pay at least 10$ a month, and she (or he) does not gesture. In fact, the 'embodied' agent does not even have arms. Sadly enough I found this out while I was wondering about her other body parts, where a man's eyes normally drift. She didn't have those either. Suddenly a website's content seems such a trivial matter.
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Monday, September 11, 2006
Did anyone order some natural interaction?
Here is an interesting company that seems to be in the business of selling natural interaction (am I the only one to get weird associations here?).
Of course they had to do the obliged Minority Report clone
They seem to be out there doing actual projects with gesture recognition, and touch-sensitive floors and such, without a care in the world (more at YouTube). Here I am thinking about what a long way this technology still has to go. Meanwhile in Chianti, Tuscany (Italy) these fine craftsman are working together with museums, studios, and banks to create really cool tools. I wonder if they are making a profit. That would be even more cool.
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Friday, September 08, 2006
Chomsky on Gesture and Language
Somewhat old, perhaps, but prof. Noam Chomsky made a few remarks in 1996 which I think illustrate the position held by many US linguists and other scientists regarding the difference between gestures and (sign) language. Language is discreet, gesture is continuous. But see some discussion.
Personally, I think the characterizations of discreet and continuous have led to some remarkable claims. Some researchers looked at how people talked and found certain continuous systems of signification. For example the rising and falling of pitch to indicate height. And they dubbed it 'gesture' in language. Likewise, people studying sign language find continuous mechanisms and call it gesture in sign language. And vice versa, people who study gesture find discreet systems and point out that there are language-like properties in gesture.
It seems more useful to me to think of speech and gesture as two of many forms of meaning-making. We use our hands, mouth, face, tools, media, canvas, even the web, to create meaning for eachother. And when we create meaning we use (sub)systems of form and meaning. Some of those systems are discreet and others are continuous.
Ther e c a n e v e n b e continuity in the way I type this sentence.
Were you ever forced to point the finger at someone? (source EurekAlert)
Consider pointing. The question is not whether pointing is continuous or discreet as such. The question how we use different pointing mechanisms to communicate meaning. Some of those will be continuous, but even pointing can be as discreet as it gets.
Were you ever forced to point the finger at someone? (source EurekAlert)
Consider pointing. The question is not whether pointing is continuous or discreet as such. The question how we use different pointing mechanisms to communicate meaning. Some of those will be continuous, but even pointing can be as discreet as it gets.
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