Gesture Studies

Gesture Studies aims to publish book-length publications on all aspects of gesture. Topics may include, but are by not limited to: the relationship between gesture and speech; the role gesture may play in communication in all the circumstances of social interaction, including conversations, the work-place or instructional settings; gesture and cognition; the development of gesture in children; the place of gesture in first and second language acquisition; the processes by which spontaneously created gestures may become transformed into codified forms; the documentation and discussion of vocabularies of ‘quotable’ or ‘emblematic’ gestures; the relationship between gesture and sign; studies of gesture systems or sign languages such as those that have developed in factories, religious communities or in tribal societies; the role of gesture in ritual interactions of all kinds, such as greetings, religious, civic or legal rituals; gestures compared cross-culturally; gestures in primate social interaction; biological studies of gesture, including discussions of the place of gesture in language origins theory; gesture in multi-modal human-machine interaction; historical studies of gesture; and studies in the history of gesture studies, including discussions of gesture in the theatre or as a part of rhetoric.
Volumes in this peer-reviewed series may be collected volumes, monographs, or reference books, in the English language.