Language Is Gesture

by David McNeill

Overview

A new way of viewing language, as a dynamic mode of meaning-making of which gesture is a fundamental part.

When David McNeill began his work on gesture more than forty years ago, language and the action of speaking were regarded as separate realms. But language, says McNeill in Language Is Gesture, is dynamic and gesture is fundamental to speaking. Central to his conception of language, and distinct from linguistic analysis, is what McNeill calls the “growth point,” the starting point of making thought and speech one. He uses the term “gesture–speech unity” to refer to the dynamic dimension of adding gesture to speaking. It is the growth point that achieves this unity, whereby thought is embedded in gesture and speech at the same time.

Gesture is the engine of language. It is foundational to speaking, language acquisition, the origin of language, animal communication, thought, and consciousness. Gesture is global and synthetic and brings energy; speech is linear and segmented and brings cultural standards. The growth point is a snapshot of an utterance at its beginning psychological stage, the starting point of unifying thought and speech. Growth points create gesture–speech unity by synchronizing a bundle of linguistic features with a gesture that carries the same meaning. This gesture–speech unity is a form of thought, a unique form of cognition.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780262552912
Publisher:	MIT Press
Publication date:	08/05/2025
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	6.06(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.67(d)

About the Author

David McNeill is Professor Emeritus, Departments of Psychology and Linguistics, the University of Chicago. His many books include How Language Began and Hand and Mind.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“We often say that ‘ideas come out of the blue.’ McNeill takes us into the blue. He is an original and dedicated thinker of the first order, and this book in its scope and depth is magnificent. I urge you to read it.”
—Geoffrey Beattie, Professor of Psychology, Edge Hill University; Visiting Scholar, Oxford Centre for Life-Writing and Wolfson College, University of Oxford

“This book dramatically and convincingly furthers David McNeill’s nonreductive scientific approach to the mind–brain–body unity of language, the interrelationship of thought, speech, and gesture at different stages of linguistic and psychological development, and at any given moment of being."
—Steven G. McCafferty, Emeritus Professor, University of Nevada, Las Vegas