Thesis (M.S.)--Missouri State University, 2009. / "May 2009." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 21-23). Also available online.

To better understand representational gestures used in everyday talk, this study explores the ways participants talk about their own mental imagery and gestural awareness, and how their comments affect analysis. Literature pertaining to representational gestures, mental imagery, gestural awareness, and self-report data provide the theoretical framework for the study's design and implementation. Data is drawn from observations of two video recorded dyads engaged in everyday conversation, and four audio recorded interviews with each participant individually as they viewed and commented on selected video segments in which they had produced a representational gesture. Findings indicate that participants talked about mental imagery and gestural awareness in ways that were descriptive, explanatory, and self-reflective. They described their mental imagery in i) visual and motor terms, ii) as mental simulations, iii) as textural sensations, and iv) in linguistic metaphors. Participants talked about gestural awareness in terms of i) spontaneity, ii) intentionality, and iii) affective states. Taken altogether, participant comments suggest embodied cognition as a useful framework for analyzing and understanding representational gestures. Further, findings indicate that participant comments served to i) confirm, ii) clarify, and/or iii) expand my analysis, suggesting that participant comments can enhance understanding of mental imagery and gestural awareness in ways that could not be achieved by a researcher's observations and analysis alone.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--UCLA, 2009. / Vita. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 80-90).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Dept. of Psychology, August 1999. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

Dissertation submitted to the Department of African Languages and Linguistics in fulfilment of the requirement for Master of Art's Degree in Humanities The University of the Witwatersrand, School of Literature, Language and Media, March 2016 / The gradual decline in the use of Black South African languages (BSALs) has been a concern for the past 20 years in both the South African civil population and academia. The last census data of 2011 informs this phenomenon by showing how language use has changed nationally over the years. In an effort to counter this decline, some researchers have called for the improvement of existing non-standard language varieties, which could serve to improve some of these decreasing Black South African languages (Ditsele, 2014). Non-standard language varieties are ‘languages’ largely spoken in black townships around South Africa. They are sometimes referred to as stylects, sociolets or speech varieties, due to their structures and functions (Bembe & Beukes, 2007). Applying a psycholinguistic approach, this study seeks to compare the standard language Sesotho to a non-standard language variety, Mamelodi Lingo. This study looks at the discursive behaviour focusing on speech and gesture. Previous literature on South African language varieties focuses on the semantic and pragmatic description of the words in use (Calteaux, 1996; Hurst, 2008; 2015; Rudwick, 2005; Ditsele, 2014), and very few have incorporated co-speech gesture, which form an integral part of non-language varieties (Brookes, 2001; 2005). The present study presents the results of an empirical investigation that compares 20 narratives produced by Sesotho and Mamelodi Lingo speakers. Using the methodology used in the elicitation of speech and gesture by Colletta et al., (2009; 2015), participants watched a speechless short cartoon and were then asked to retell the story they had seen to the interviewer. Using the language annotation tool, ELAN narratives were annotated for language complexity, length, and type of clause, syntax, as well as story grammar memory-recall. Narratives were also annotated for gesture: type of gesture and function of gesture. The focus was on the discursive performance of speech and gesture. Results show a significant use of meta-narrative clauses from the language variety compared to the standard language as well as a higher use of non-representational gestures by the non-standard language. The findings also show an interesting use of interactive co-speech gestures when retrieving lexical items that are not present in the repertoire of Mamelodi Lingo / GR2017