What gestures do: Some communicative functions of quotable gestures in conversations among Black urban South Africans

Using video-recordings of spontaneous conversations among Black urban South Africans, the use of three quotable gestures/emblems is analyzed. Characteristics of their use in relation to speech are established showing that quotable gestures are multifunctional, and fulfill substantive, interactive, and discourse functions simultaneously. Implications for theories on the relationship between gesture and speech and processes of speech–gesture production are discussed. Data presented suggest that the Growth Point model of speech–gesture production has the most explanatory power, but it needs to extend the central notion of context to fully explain the nature of gestural behavior. Questions related to the emergence of quotable gestures in terms of origin, conventionalization, and detachability from speech, the relationship of quotable gestures to other forms of gesture, and the categorization of gestures into gestural typologies are also addressed.