Embodied Communication and Gestural Contrast

In direct face-to-face communication, we use a variety of different means of expression with different degrees of consciousness and intentionality (Allwood 1976). Communication is multimodal and embodied. In parallel to verbally formulating our conscious message, we also convey information with our voice, mimics, gaze, gestures and body posture. The aim of this paper is to analyse the use of spontaneous gestures accompanying spoken discourse on ’others’. The first example shows that the ethnic references can be made in the gestural channel, keeping the spoken channel free from explicit ethnic reference. In the second example, a variety of gestures illustrate and emphasise the events referred to in the spoken discourse.