Paper short abstract:

Deictic elements and the correlated pointing gestures will be described. Cultural aspects regarding conceptualizations of various domains - such as space, time and interpersonal relations will be pointed out.

Paper long abstract:

Understanding that speech and gesture are underlined by the same process, this paper aims at describing linguistic elements and correlated pointing gestures in the Portuguese spoken by a tonga in STP. Pointing gestures have been explored in various gesture typologies. Although pointing at some element in the interactional context may seem a simple and even universal act, recent studies of culturally specific forms of pointing, interactional practices, cognitive processes, forms of pointing in gestual languages and in the semiotic and pragmatic processes reveal a high degree of complexity.

In order to give account to some of these aspects, multimodal deixis in a case study of European Portuguese has been explored (Galhano-Rodrigues, no prelo). In the present paper linguistic deictic elements and the correlated pointing gestures will be described according to the deictic elements used and to gesture configuration. The formal aspects which may reveal cultural differences regarding conceptualizations of various domains, such as time, space and interpersonal relations will be pointed out.

Galhano-Rodrigues, I. (no prelo) "Vou buscar ali, ali acima!" a multimodalidade da deixis na interacção face a face". In: Linguística: Revista de Estudos Linguísticos da Universidade do Porto, vol.7, 2012.