Ruch, gest, gestykulacja w tekstach specjalistycznych i niespecjalistycznych
Movement, gesture, and gesticulation in specialist and non-specialist texts

Summary/Abstract: The paper presents a comparative study between expressions of the general language and specialist terms with a similar scope. All the analysed expressions of the general language, i.e. mostly units and constructions with the morphemes -ruch-, -gest-, pokaz-, and -mig-, describe in contemporary Polish motional actions of humans. As shown by contradiction tests, some of them are in addition limited to only relaying communicatively significant hand movements, revealing the existing linguistic opposition between movement and gesture, cf. -ruch- vs -gest-. An analogous contrast can also be found in the specialist language, cf. e.g. McNeill (1992) or Poggi (2007), where however gesture is used as an umbrella term for all expressive movements, cf. e.g. Kendon (2004), Lynn (2011, 2014). Furthermore, Kendon’s 1980 distinction between gesture and gesticulation understood as expressive hand movements accompanying speech, is considered to be a novel finding. It is however not taken into account that this opposition has been known to the general language for at least several hundred years and may well have been the (unwitting) inspiration for Kendon. This fact emphasizes the usefulness of research into communicative phenomena in the context of analyses of the general (meta)language.

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