Articles

Gesture's community: Social organization in multimodal conduct

Gregory Matoesian^a1

^a1 Department of Criminology, Law and Justice, University of Illinois at Chicago matoesia@uic.edu

Abstract

This article analyzes the multimodal integration of gesture, talk, and sociocultural context. More specifically, I investigate how forms of Gemeinschaft/Gesellshaft community are embodied in the concrete details of multimodal form—in the iconic interplay of multimodal practice and symbolic forms of social organization. Using a focus group interview of community policing training, I show how criss-crossing laminations of participation emerge through novel gestural configurations like multimodal quotation and pragmatic beats to not only pace the rhythm of speech but simultaneously plot the spatial coordinates of social organization. In the course of events, we see how speakers integrate gesture, gaze, and postural orientation into the stream of their utterances to project rhythmically infused meanings of communal identity, social solidarity, and cultural opposition. (Multimodality, community, legal discourse)*

(Received March 07 2011)

(Revised September 11 2011)

(Accepted September 19 2011)

(Reviewed December 09 2011)

Footnotes

* Thanks to Susan Gal and Michael Silverstein (as always) along with their students at the Semiotics Workshop at the University of Chicago; David McNeill and Susan Duncan along with their students at the University of Chicago Mini-Conference to Honor Adam Kendon; Adam Kendon, Adam Jaworski, Lisa Frohmann, and Mindie Lazarus-Black for all their help, encouragement, and advice. I owe a special debt of gratitude to Jennifer Huiying Qian for her skill in doing the sketches. Finally, thanks to Barbara and the anonymous reviewers for their constructive criticism and recommendations for improving the article.