The Anatomy of Meaning
Speech, Gesture, and Composite Utterances

This study examines how words combine with hand gestures and other bodily movements to create unified 'composite utterances'.

N. J. Enfield (Author)

9780521880640, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 26 March 2009

264 pages
23.5 x 15.5 x 1.5 cm, 0.55 kg

Review of the hardback: 'Enfield's The Anatomy of Meaning is a pathbreaking exploration of multimodal communication based on Lao video-recordings and fieldwork. Of special interest is his notion of 'composites', through which he addresses the question of cross-modal integration - how it is that signs in different modalities cohere, speech and gesture being his focus. For whom, to what degree, and through what means do composites coalesce? Does this notion denote a kind of cross-modal orderliness, or the achievement of orderliness - perhaps through heuristics and inference-making? … [The] Anatomy of Meaning is, simply put, in the vanguard of the science of communication. It deserves wide attention.' Michael Lempert, Language in Society

How do we understand what others are trying to say? The answer cannot be found in language alone. Words are linked to hand gestures and other visible phenomena to create unified 'composite utterances'. In this book N. J. Enfield presents original case studies of speech-with-gesture based on fieldwork carried out with speakers of Lao (a language of Southeast Asia). He examines pointing gestures (including lip and finger-pointing) and illustrative gestures (examples include depicting fish traps and tracing kinship relations). His detailed analyses focus on the 'semiotic unification' problem, that is, how to make a single interpretation when multiple signs occur together. Enfield's arguments have implications for all branches of science with a stake in meaning and its place in human social life. The book will appeal to all researchers interested in the study of meaning, including linguists, anthropologists, and psychologists.

1. Composite utterances
Part I. Deictic Components of Moves: 2. Demonstratives
3. Lip-pointing
4. Hand-pointing
Part II. Illustrative Components of Moves: 5. Modeling
6. Diagramming
7. Editing
8. Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Anthropology [JHM], Semantics, discourse analysis, etc [CFG], Psycholinguistics [CFD], Sociolinguistics [CFB], Linguistics [CF]