Exercise 4: Gesture and Gaze in Conversational Storytelling
In order to make their narrative more plausible and detailed, many will use more than just a verbal account to illustrate their stories. Instead, they use gazes and gestures. In conversational storytelling, which is a collaborative event, gestures have meaningful functions that are tied to the description of the story. Simply defined, a gesture is the movement of the body that expresses a thought or feeling. In the video-recorded interaction, four people engaged in communicating through gaze, gesture, and speech within an interactional environment. In this paper, I will explore and explain the relationships and related concepts based on the video.
Gesture Relates to Timing Obviously, gesture is tied to speech. Studies show that gestures allude to meanings conveyed though speech. In other words, gestures precede the unit of talk to which it is tied. For example, in the video (line 48), Michael lifted his arms before saying the words, “What the fuck is the problem?” His gesture helped him to get attention from recipients first; therefore, when he started to talk, the others were already looking at him. Gestures can happen before …show more content…
On line 39, Shane looked in the front while he imitated honking. He did not have any eye contact with the others at that moment. However, after he finished his gesture, he immediately had an eye gaze with Michael. And then on line 53, he imitated honking again and looked in the front, as he did the first time, then back at Michael again, like he did before. This eye gaze interaction also occurred with Michael. He looked at Vivian and Shane when he lifted up his arms and said, “What the fuck is the problem?” on line 48. However, when he said “Fuck you, buddy!” on line 51, he looked up and raised his right
In order to make their narrative more plausible and detailed, many will use more than just a verbal account to illustrate their stories. Instead, they use gazes and gestures. In conversational storytelling, which is a collaborative event, gestures have meaningful functions that are tied to the description of the story. Simply defined, a gesture is the movement of the body that expresses a thought or feeling. In the video-recorded interaction, four people engaged in communicating through gaze, gesture, and speech within an interactional environment. In this paper, I will explore and explain the relationships and related concepts based on the video.
Gesture Relates to Timing Obviously, gesture is tied to speech. Studies show that gestures allude to meanings conveyed though speech. In other words, gestures precede the unit of talk to which it is tied. For example, in the video (line 48), Michael lifted his arms before saying the words, “What the fuck is the problem?” His gesture helped him to get attention from recipients first; therefore, when he started to talk, the others were already looking at him. Gestures can happen before …show more content…
On line 39, Shane looked in the front while he imitated honking. He did not have any eye contact with the others at that moment. However, after he finished his gesture, he immediately had an eye gaze with Michael. And then on line 53, he imitated honking again and looked in the front, as he did the first time, then back at Michael again, like he did before. This eye gaze interaction also occurred with Michael. He looked at Vivian and Shane when he lifted up his arms and said, “What the fuck is the problem?” on line 48. However, when he said “Fuck you, buddy!” on line 51, he looked up and raised his right