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Speaker: Dr Simon Harrison, City University of Hong Kong

Title: Negation’s co-speech and vocal-entangled gestures: Multiscalar perspectives on typologically widespread gestures

Abstract: Gestures associated with negation have attracted attention from diverse empirical and theoretical perspectives. In this presentation, I offer insights on these typologically widespread gestures by integrating empirical findings from a linguistic gesture study with discoveries in biomechanics research. Using visualisation software (ELAN/PRAAT) to analyse negative utterances comprising accented particle, lateral sweep gesture, and facial distortion, I show that as syllable-onset consonant is lengthening (voiced alveolar /n/ = 300ms on average) with pitch and intensity increasing (e.g., “NNNNNEVER”), the speaker’s upper arm is rotating with palm pronating/adducing while his or her face is disforming. This finding is my basis for bringing conceptions of gesture as ‘co-speech’ and ‘vocal-entangled’ into conversation. It also raises new questions for cross-linguistic research and perception studies involving gestures associated with negation.

Short bio

Simon Harrison is Assistant Professor in the Department of English at City University of Hong Kong, having previously held positions at the University of Nottingham Ningbo China, RWTH Aachen, and Université Sorbonne-Nouvelle. His research explores embodied and relational understandings of language, communication, and culture across diverse settings and scales, with a focus on spoken language interactivity and gesture. Simon is author of The Impulse to Gesture: Where Language, Bodies, and Minds Intersect (2018) and Chinese Urban Shi-nema: Cinematicity, Society and Millennial China (with David H. Fleming, 2021). In 2019 he co-founded the Hong Kong hub of the International Society for Gesture Studies.

Homepage: https://scholars.cityu.edu.hk/en/persons/simon-mark-harrison(40244672-8c87-4ceb-85a4-0a1b7ac7ac89).html

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