Are Gestures Worth a Thousand Words? An Analysis of Interviews in the Political Domain Daniela Trotta Sara Tonelli Universita` degli Studi di Salerno Fondazione Bruno Kessler Via Giovanni Paolo II 132, Via Sommarive 18 Fisciano, Italy Trento, Italy
[email protected] [email protected] Abstract may provide important information or significance to the accompanying speech and add clarity to the Speaker gestures are semantically co- expressive with speech and serve different children’s narrative (Colletta et al., 2015); they can pragmatic functions to accompany oral modal- be employed to facilitate lexical retrieval and re- ity. Therefore, gestures are an inseparable tain a turn in conversations stam2008gesture and part of the language system: they may add assist in verbalizing semantic content (Hostetter clarity to discourse, can be employed to et al., 2007). From this point of view, gestures fa- facilitate lexical retrieval and retain a turn in cilitate speakers in coming up with the words they conversations, assist in verbalizing semantic intend to say by sustaining the activation of a tar- content and facilitate speakers in coming up with the words they intend to say. This aspect get word’s semantic feature, long enough for the is particularly relevant in political discourse, process of word production to take place (Morsella where speakers try to apply communication and Krauss, 2004). strategies that are both clear and persuasive Gestures can also convey semantic meanings. using verbal and non-verbal cues. For example,M uller¨ et al.(2013) discuss the prin- In this paper we investigate the co-speech ges- ciples of meaning creation and the simultaneous tures of several Italian politicians during face- and linear structures of gesture forms.