MARKERS OF UNCERTAINTY IN SPEECH AND GESTURE: SOME COGNITIVE IMPLICATIONS FOR GRICE’S MAXIMS

MARKERS OF UNCERTAINTY IN SPEECH AND GESTURE: SOME COGNITIVE IMPLICATIONS FOR GRICE’S MAXIMS

Author:  O.K. Iriskhanova, O.N. Prokofyeva

Affiliation:  Moscow State Linguistic University

Abstract:  This article presents an empirical study of verbal and gestural markers of uncertainty in descriptive discourse.
The participants of the experiment were asked to sequentially describe paintings of four different genres (romantic realism, neo-expressionism, abstractionism, and surrealism), so that the listeners could recognize them from a list of various paintings. All the participants were amateurs in arts.
The authors argue that the interlocutors who find themselves in a situation of uncertainty, which might interfere with the process of joint problem solving, highlight their cognitive state for the listener by using recurrent hand movements, mainly, swaying, cyclic and palm-up-open-hand gestures. More specifically, the authors show that the use of verbal and / or gestural markers of uncertainty is related to two factors – conceptual transparency of the stimulus that triggers the discourse, and the intentions of the speaker either to describe a painting, or to reflect on its message and the feelings caused by it.
The authors have come to believe that maximizing the relevance of uncertainty with the help of verbal and non-verbal means, the speaker complies with Grice’s Maxims of Quality and Manner by signaling to the listener that he has to solve a problem in a situation of vagueness or ambiguity.

Keywords:  : uncertainty, Grice’s Maxims, descriptive discourse, hedge, gesture, swaying gestures,
cyclic gestures, palm-up-open-hand gestures.

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For citation:  Iriskhanova, O. K., & Prokofyeva, O. N. (2020). Markers of uncertainty in speech and gesture: some cognitive implications for Grice’s maxims. Voprosy Kognitivnoy Lingvistiki, 4, 18-25.

Pages:  18-25