A kinesiological approach to gesture analysis

The classical approach to gesture and sign language analysis focuses on the forms and locations of the hands. This constitutes an external point of view on the gesturing subject. The kinesiological approach presented in this chapter looks at gesture from the inside out, at how it is produced, taking a first-person perspective. This involves a physiological description of the parts of the body that are moving (the segments) and the joints at which they can move (providing the degrees of freedom of movement). This type of analysis allows for such distinctions of proper movement of segments from displacement caused by movement of another segment. Movement is distinguished according to muscular properties such as flexion versus extension, abduction versus adduction, exterior versus interior rotation, and supination versus pronation. The propagation of movement in the body is considered in terms of its flow across connected segments of the body, from more proximal to more distal segments or vice versa. These distinctions in the transfer of movement distinguish different functions of gestures (e.g. showing that you don’t care versus expressing negation) and different meanings of signs in a sign language.