Connecting iconic gestures with units of speech

Abstract

The aim of this study is to look at the connections between speech and gesture at the level of iconic gestures and their lexical affiliates. The primary interest is to see if the lexical affiliates of gestures representing the four aspects of iconicity belong to any specific word class or take a specific position within clause structure. David McNeill’s theories on gestures and the growth point as well as Nick Enfield’s idea of the composite utterance serve as the main theoretical background for this study. The findings suggest that iconic gestures connect to specific units of speech.