The Language of Gestures 9783110808285, 9789027924865

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APPROACHES TO SEMIOTICS PAPERBACK SERIES edited by THOMAS A. SEBEOK Research Center for the Language Sciences Indiana University

THE LANGUAGE OF GESTURES by

WILHELM WUNDT

with an introduction by ARTHUR L. BLUMENTHAL and additional essays by GEORGE HERBERT MEAD and

KARL BÜHLER

1973

MOUTON THE HAGUE . PARIS

© Copyright 1973 in The Netherlands. Mouton & Co. N.V., Publishers, The Hague. No part of this book may be translated or reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publishers.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 73-84206

Printed in Belgium by NICI, Printers, Ghent

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Permission to quote from authors and works is gratefully acknowledged herewith, as follows: To Professor Charles Morris and The University of Chicago Press: George H. Mead, Mind, Self and Society. To Dr. Charlotte Bühler and Gustav Fischer Verlag, Stuttgart: Karl Bühler, Ausdruckstheorie: Das System an der Gesichte aufgezeigt.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

5

Table of Figures

9

ARTHUR L. BLUMENTHAL

Introduction

11

GEORGE HERBERT MEAD

Wundt and the Concept of the Gesture

20

KARL BÜHLER

The Psychophysics of Expression of Wilhelm Wundt . .

30

WILHELM WUNDT

The Language of Gestures I. Forms of Development of Gestural Communication 1. Concept and General Characteristics of Gestural Communication 2. Gestural Communication among Deaf-mutes . . 3. Gestural Communication and Primitive Peoples . 4. Inherited Gestures among Civilized Peoples . . 5. Gestural Signs among the Cistercian Monks . . II. Basic Gestural Forms 1. Psychological Classification of Gestures . . . . 2. Demonstrative Gestures 3. Imitative Gestures

55 55 55 57 63 64 69 72 72 74 78

TABLE OF CONTENTS

4. Connotative Gestures 84 5. Symbolic Gestures 87 III. Ambiguity and Change of Meaning of Gestures . . 101 1. The Vagueness of the Conceptual Categories . . 101 2. The Transition of Concepts and the Change of Meaning of Gesture 107 IV. The Syntax of Gestural Communication 114 1. The Sequence of Gestures among Deaf-mutes . . 114 2. The Sequence of Gestures among Indians. . . . 120 3. Psychological Causes of Gestural Syntax . . . . 123 V. The Psychological Development of Gestural Communication 127 1. The Origin of Gestures from Expressive Motions . 127 2. Gestures and the Origin of Graphic Art . . . . 133 3. Gestural Communication and Pictography . . . 135 4. The Psychological Character of Gestural Communication . . . . . 145

TABLE OF FIGURES

The illustrations used in Wundt's "The Language of Gestures" are from Völkerpsychologie. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig.

1 — Neapolitan Hand-gestures 2 — North American Indian Hand-gestures 3 — North American Indian Hand-gestures 4 — Neapolitan Mimic Hand-signs 5 — Neapolitan Mimic Hand-signs 6 — Symbolic Neapolitan Hand-gestures 7 — Symbolic North American Hand-gestures 8 — Letter of an Indian Chief in Hieroglyphics 9 — Business Letter of an Indian in Hieroglyphics

80 81 82 86 95 96 97 141 144

INTRODUCTION

ARTHUR L. BLUHMENTHAL

Wilhelm Wundt furnishes one of the greatest examples of the famous prodigious working capacity of nineteenth century German professors. Best known as the 'father of experimental psychology', he also made Promethean efforts to contribute to numerous other aspects of academic and social thought. Yet in spite of his unusual productivity, today relatively little is known of Wundt in comparison with such of his contemporaries as James, Freud, or de Saussure. A superficial glance at his works, if that is possible, has led many reviewers to dismiss him as a mere encyclopedist and a plodding compiler of volumes; this is a popular description in current historical accounts. Yet this description may reflect historians' avoidance of the formidable task of studying and interpreting Wundt's work and its relation to his times. After all, Wundt has been out of fashion for most of this century. And few would feel inclined to fault an historian for lack of interest. Today that situation may be changing. There are some current topics in cognitive psychology and in psycholinguistics that show a close affinity with the theories of Wundt. These include Wundt's emphasis on the faculty of ATTENTION in his psychological system, and the related experimental work on 'central intermittency'. His psycholinguistic theories now appear especially modern. It had been his goal as a psychologist to give an explicit characterization of the principles that govern the functioning of cognition in humans, and it was his belief that the study of human language would provide one of the best means to knowledge about the human mind. In his linguistic formulations the SENTENCE occupies

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INTRODUCTION

a central position as the unit most characteristic of human language. Wundt was thus a precursor of modern transformational grammarians, and he, as well, took inspiration from Wilhelm von Humboldt's dictum that language provides a finite means for generating an infinite variety of expressive forms. Wundt's psycholinguistic theory was based on the principle that language has an 'inner' and an Outer' aspect, that sentences can be studied from the point of view of how they express a thought or from the point of view of their physical shape. The problem of the transformation from the inner to the outer state was thus a key issue for him. In the present volume we focus on only one fragment of Wundt's research - his often cited chapter on gesture communication, which appears here in English translation for the first time. It reflects the style that characterized his unusually long career. The style is one of tireless, fact-searching scholarship. In two accompanying commentaries by G. H. Mead and by Karl Bühler, different views and reactions to Wundt's discussion of gesture give a further insight into his times and into those who worked in his shadow and who contested his ideas. But so rapidly was this episode in intellectual history buried by the subsequent intellectual revolutions of the twentieth century that little was ever translated into English. The behaviorist reformulations of psychology had subjected the Wundtian heritage to nothing less than an Over-kill', which meant that Wundt was often unfavorably misrepresented in historical chapters. Such distortions are common in the succession of intellectual movements. Certainly, to understand the history of psycholinguistics no less than that of psychology in general, one must attempt seriously to comprehend Wundt and his times. And there is a further value in this necessity - it is the wealth of data and analysis in Wundt's writings. It is true, as charged, that Wundt was an encyclopedist and a compiler. But he was also a theorist who exerted a strong, though brief, influence on the development of psychological theory and to some degree on linguistic theory in the late nineteenth century. He was the one living psychologist who had the most influence on the thought of linguists at that time. His lectures

INTRODUCTION

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on the psychology of language were the most heavily attended in the world, and those who heard him included de Saussure, Paul, Delbrück, and Bloomfield. Most who undertook the study of the psychology of language in the decades around the turn of the century were either guided by him or had to deal with him at their great effort [for examples see, A. L. Blumenthal, Language and Psychology (John Wiley, 1970)]. Wundt had presented psychology to the world as the propadeutic science. Hence, linguistics was to be derived from psychological principles as was everything else. This was at the heart of the debate between Wundt and several linguists, and it was naturally also at the bottom of some intellectual battles between Wundt and other scholars. By the 1870's Wundt had planned the course of the remainder of his academic career which carried on to the last words that were dictated from his death bed in 1920. In the earlier years he had set out to undertake a description of human mental processes based upon the careful laboratory experimentation that was modelled after those techniques which had just then been so successful for physiology. But Wundt recognized that such an approach was largely limited to the Outer' phenomena such as sensory processes and simple affective processes. As one moves toward the more abstract phenomena such as language, he argued, the methodology must shift toward the methods of logicians and historians. His life's work progressed in that order, that is, from the analysis of the finest psychological events to the largest generalizations about human society. The study of language and particularly the study of gesture stands at the midpoint of this development. Wundt's social theories have been classified as belonging to the nineteenth century frame of mind, a fact which is said to be reflected in the very title of his ten-volume work, Völkerpsychologie (Ethnic Psychology), and in his concept of the Volkseele which refers to the communal thoughts and prejudices which hold together peoples of like mind. Wundt had cautioned that this latter concept was not to be confused with an earlier, more mystical notion of a transcendental group mind. And he had shown some encouraging

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INTRODUCTION

signs of moving away from other restrictive nineteenth century views. For instance, he was discredited by colleagues for devoting the same serious and logical analysis to the exotic languages (then widely assumed to be 'inferior') as was usually applied only to the Indo-European and Semitic groups. In 1878 when Wundt opened the first formal psychological laboratory at Leipzig it was also the occasion 'for the opening of the first German institute for the study of deaf-mutes, also at Leipzig and under the direction of Samuel Heinicke. It is clear that Wundt was in contact with Heinicke, although to what degree he was associated with Heinicke's research is not presently certain. One may surmise, however, that many of Wundt's observations on sign language come from this source. In that decade Wundt was also compiling daily linguistic biographies of the language acquisition of his children. This, in fact, was the decade when such 'baby biographies' began to appear in great profusion. It was, further, a time of rampant speculation about the origins of human language, so prevalent that the French Academy of Science was forced to forbid any further papers on the topic. These burning interests had been fanned by the new theory of evolution and the spirit of nineteenth century romanticism. Of wide and typical interest were stories about wild children who had been isolated from parents at birth and then had somehow evolved primitive communication systems. It could be argued that the first two chapters of Wundt's major psycho linguistic work, Die Sprache, were influenced by the spirit of such interests. These chapters are respectively titled "Expressive Movements" and "Gesture Language". Wundt's first formal lecture on language had taken place in 1876, and by 1880 he was involved with linguists and with the planning of his Die Sprache. However, this work was not to appear for another twenty years, that is, not until the proper time in his careful career plan. It necessarily had to await the fuller development of the psychological system. Wundt's Die Sprache comprises the first two books of his Völkerpsychologie series which goes on to analyze at great length and detail mythology, religion, the development of art forms, of

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social structures, legal systems, concepts of culture, and theories of history, in that order. It is significant that the work on language introduces this series, for many of the general principles are determined in the study of language. This again is the Humboldtian influence, in this case that of language determinism: the spirit of a society may largely be influenced by the structure and the nature of the language that binds it together. Wundt believed that sign language was simply a primitive form of ordinary language and as such it may reveal something of the essential nature of natural language - something of its basic aspects which may be masked by the complex structures of fully developed languages. He notes, for instance, that there seemed to be some universal characteristics of all gesture language systems including those invented anew by one generation of deaf-mutes. He thought that gesture systems might uniquely reflect characteristics of the innate human language capacity. In Chapter One of Die Sprache he claims that there are unique innate expressive actions which are elicited by certain emotional states and that human language evolves from this base. The next step is the move up to simple gestures where the task of analysing the mental state into a sequence of constituents first begins at a primitive level. It was thus the study of gesture that provided, for Wundt, the link between the innate, emotive beginnings of human language and its subsequent complex syntactic structure. The study of sign language, especially its evolution in the course of one generation, is according to Wundt a simple and clear model of the development of human language in general. The individual gestures are like words, he says, which are subject to a development of meaning by which they adapt to the changing requirements of thought. And considering what was more psychologically fundamental to Wundt, namely the sentence, he emphasizes that "...one can only deduce from the existence of certain syntactic laws that gestural communication does not merely consist of individual signs, but rather of sentences. The sentence, in fact, plays an even greater role in gestural communication, since it is that which bestows on the individual sign its grammatical meaning".

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INTRODUCTION

Wundt's psychological system had evolved largely as a reaction to Herbart's Vorstellungsmechanik, or mechanistic associationism, which had prevailed in German academic circles during Wundt's early years. In opposing this, Wundt eventually moved toward a 'voluntaristic' psychology founded on principles of volition and attention rather than association. 'Apperception', a term which appears throughout his writings, refers to the focus of attention which moves within a wider field of consciousness. Its function is either to analyze or to synthesize the crude sensory and affective impressions of peripheral consciousness. Another heavily used principle was that of 'creative synthesis' which refers to Gestalt emergent phenomena, or the new appearances and qualities that emerge from the restructuring of mental events, and which cannot be deduced from a summing together of the individual elements. He also used the expression 'developments' (Entwicklungen) with this specific meaning. George Herbert Mead, whose comments on Wundt appear here, is the well known American social theorist described by biographers as having been strongly influenced by certain aspects of Wundt's social psychology. Mead wrote a lengthy article that appeared in 1904 in the Psychological Review titled "The relations of psychology and philology" in which we find him to be a keen observer of Wundt's controversies with linguists. At that time interest in Wundt was very high and students were flocking to Leipzig. Mead's article shows that he had devoted serious study to Wundt's work. The problems of the relations of psychology to linguistics have never been more hotly debated than they were in those days, and Mead skillfully argues the case for Wundt. Mind, Self, and Society, which is perhaps Mead's best known work, appeared posthumously in 1934, containing some sections devoted to Wundt, particularly to the studies of gesture. This volume was composed primarily from student notes taken at Mead's lectures and later assembled and edited by Charles W. Morris, the positivist philosopher. We see in this work that the reaction to Wundt has changed and is no longer as sympathetic as in the early Mead. Mead's greatly expanded concept of gesture,

INTRODUCTION

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now much broader than in Wundt's system, plays the major role in Mead's theory. But the viewpoint now belongs to the 1930's and not to 1900. It is in the spirit of the proliferation of behaviorist systems in America in the 1930's when reactions to early Watsonian behaviorism were evolving from the view that Watson had been too simplistic. Mead became known as a 'social behaviorist' and he used the term 'gesture' in a way somewhat analogous to 'behavior', only here it referred just to that behavior which is socially significant. Gesture then became the medium in which Mead's social behaviorism was defined. In now rejecting Wundt's psychology of the individual consciousness, Mead viewed the mind as an abstraction defined through social interaction. Mead thus arrived at a definition of 'mind' as the PRODUCT of social actions and reactions, for he was more concerned with the social function of expression than with the capacity of expression to represent internal states. He could thus say, "Mind arises through communication by a conversation of gestures in a social process or context of experience - not communication through mind". This is the exact reverse of Wundt's system where minds must exist first before communication can take place, i.e. where language is the product of the mind. Karl Bühler, a long time antagonist of Wundt, offered his comments on Wundt's gesture studies in 1933, thirteen years after Wundt's death. By then the Wundtian system was scattered, abandoned, and the object of ridicule almost as much in Germany as in America. Mentalistic psychology was now in a fatal decline, and Wundt, after all, had been one of its most notable spokesmen. He had been a faithful son of German romanticism and idealism even though tempered by mid-nineteenth century positivism. He had taken an early stand against behaviorism. The hurt to his reputation was then further exacerbated by his outspoken criticisms of 'Anglo-American utilitarianism and materialism' made in his later years. Wundt's career had paralleled the dramatic rise and then collapse of the German nation, as is discussed in F. Ringer's book, The Decline of the German Mandarins: The German Academic Community from 1890 to 1933 (Harvard Univ.

18

INTRODUCTION

Press, 1969). Bühler succeeded Wundt as the leading authority on the psychology of language and became a member of the newly formed Prague Circle of Linguists which was espousing 'functionalism'. Long before his affiliation at Prague and when a student at Würzburg, Bühler had tangled with Wundt over basic issues concerning the proper nature of experimentation in psychology. Wundt publicly analyzed Bühler's work as merely mocking the experimental method in the study of thought processes. At issue was the problem of introspection. For Wundt this technique meant systematic, controlled introspection with the use of statistics and mathematical treatment of data wherever possible. He had accused Bühler of presenting casual uncontrolled, and unreplicable introspective data. In the commentary by Bühler presented in the present volume we find him faulting Wundt's studies of gesture and presenting his new functionalist alternatives. In the 1930's misinterpretations of Wundt as a mind-body dualist and an associationist of the old empiricist school seem to have been widely accepted. Neither view is sensitive to his actual development, for Wundt's system itself was in many ways a reaction against such views. In Bühler's major work on language (Sprachtheorie, 1934) there is a return of mechanistic models akin to those of the mid-nineteenth century before Wundt, but now with the more elaborate analogies provided by twentieth century technology. Bühler's model was that of cybernetics although his system predates the invention of that term. His inspiration came from observing the structure of early electronic communication and control systems, and from the desire to present an axiomatic functionalism. Bühler shows that Wundt overlooked some forms of gesture, but these cases are such things as theatrical pantomine which are not usually a part of sign language though they may be a form of gesture communication. Wundt had been holistic in the sense that he viewed the actions of the organism as unified, so the organism or the mind should be studied as an integrated functioning unit. Bühler, on the other hand, was concerned with separate

INTRODUCTION

19

subsystems of control and their 'steering' of the interactions of organisms. Finally, Bühler concentrates on what was Wundt's least successful venture: the attempt to identify a unique syndrome of physiological action for each one of the 'basic' emotions. Because this experimental program was not successful, Bühler calls into question the sense of Wundt's theory of language origins - that primitive language forms evolve from unique physiological symptoms of emotional states. Questions that had divided Wundt, Mead, and Bühler have been revived by a new wave of interest in psycholinguistics in post mid-twentieth century. The spirit of these earlier thinkers is alive in the current landslide of literature on language acquisition. This monograph is a contribution to the study of acquisition of gesture communication, but even more, it should help to put contemporary psycholinguistic research into a proper historical perspective.

WUNDT AND THE CONCEPT OF THE GESTURE1 GEORGE H. MEAD The particular field of social science with which we are concerned is one which was opened up through the work of Darwin and the more elaborate presentation of Wundt. If we take Wundt's parallelistic statement, we get a point of view from which we can approach the problem of social experience. Wundt undertook to show the parallelism between what goes on in the body as represented by processes of the central nervous system, and what goes on in those experiences which the individual recognizes as his own. He had to find that which was common to these two fields - what in the psychical experience could be referred to in physical terms.2 Wundt isolated a very valuable conception of the gesture as that which becomes later a symbol, but which is to be found in its earlier stages as a part of a social act.3 It is that part of the 1

Reprinted from Mind, Self, and Society from the Standpoint of a Social Behaviorist, ed. by C. W. Morris (Chicago, 1934). 2 [Cf. Grundzüge der physiologischen Psychologie}. The fundamental defect of Wundt's psychophysical parallelism is the fundamental defect of all psychophysical parallelism: the required parallelism is not in fact complete on the psychical side, since only the sensory and not the motor phase of the physiological process of experience has a psychic correlate; hence the psychical aspect of the required parallelism can be completed only physiologically, thus breaking it down. And this fundamental defect of his psychophysical parallelism vitiates the analysis of social experiences - and especially of communication - which he bases upon the assumption of that parallelism. 3 [Völkerpsychologie, Vol. I. For Mead's treatment of Wundt compare "The Relations of Psychology and Philology", Psychological Bulletin,I(l904), 375ff., with the more critical "The Imagination in Wundt's Treatment of Myth and Religion," ibid., 111. (1906), 393ff.].

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social act which serves as a stimulus to other forms involved in the same social act. I have given the illustration of the dog-fight as a method of presenting the gesture. The act of each dog becomes the stimulus to the other dog for his response. There is then a relationship between these two; and as the act is responded to by the other dog, it, in turn, undergoes change. The very fact that the dog is ready to attack another becomes a stimulus to the other dog to change his own position or his own attitude. He has no sooner done this than the change of attitude in the second dog in turn causes the first dog to change his attitude. We have here a conversation of gestures. They are not, however, gestures in the sense that they are significant. We do not assume that the dog says to himself, "If the animal comes from this direction he is going to spring at my throat and I will turn in such a way". What does take place is an actual change in his own position due to the direction of the approach of the other dog. We find a similar situation in boxing and in fencing, as in the feint and the parry that is initiated on the part of the other. And then the first one of the two in turn changes his attack; there may be considerable play back and forth before actually a stroke results. This is the same situation as in the dog-fight. If the individual is successful a great deal of his attack and defense must be not considered, it must take place immediately. He must adjust himself 'instinctively' to the attitude of the other individual. He may, of course, think it out. He may deliberately feint in order to open up a place of attack. But a great deal has to be without deliberation. In this case we have a situation in which certain parts of the act become a stimulus to the other form to adjust itself to those responses; and that adjustment in turn becomes a stimulus to the first form to change his own act and start on a different one. There are a series of attitudes, movements, on the part of these forms which belong to the beginnings of acts that are the stimuli for the responses that take place. The beginning of a response becomes the stimulus to the first form to change his attitude, to adopt a different act. The term "gesture" may be identified with

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these beginnings of social acts which are stimuli for the response of other forms. Darwin was interested in such gestures because they expressed emotions, and he dealt with them very largely as if this were their sole function. He looked at them as serving the function with reference to the other forms which they served with reference to his own observation. The gestures expressed emotions of the animal to Darwin; he saw in the attitude of the dog the joy with which he accompanied his master in taking a walk. And he left his treatment of the gestures largely in these terms. It was easy for Wundt to show that this was not a legitimate point of attack on the problem of these gestures. They did not at bottom serve the function of expression of the emotions: that was not the reason why they were stimuli, but rather because they were parts of complex acts in which different forms were involved. They became the tools through which the other forms responded. When they did give rise to a certain response, they were themselves changed in response to the change which took place in the other form. They are part of the organization of the social act, and highly important elements in that organization. To the human observer they are expressions of emotion, and that function of expressing emotion can legitimately become the field of the work of the artist and of the actor. The actor is in the same position as the poet: he is expressing emotions through his own attitude, his tones of voice, through his gestures, just as the poet through his poetry is expressing his emotions and arousing that emotion in others. We get in this way a function which is not found in the social act of these animals, or in a great deal of our own conduct, such as that of the boxer and the fencer. We have this interplay going on with the gestures serving their functions, calling out the responses of the others, these responses becoming themselves stimuli for readjustment, until the final social act itself can be carried out. Another illustration of this is in the relation of parent-form to the infant - the stimulating cry, the answering tone on the part of the parent-form, and the consequent change in the cry of the infant-form. Here we have a set of adjustments of the two forms

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carrying out a common social act involved in the care of the child. Thus we have, in all these instances, a social process in which one can isolate the gesture which has its function in the social process, and which can become an expression of emotions, or later can become the expression of a meaning, an idea. The primitive situation is that of the social act which involves the interaction of different forms, which involves, therefore, the adjustment of the conduct of these different forms to each other, in carrying out the social process. Within that process one can find what we term the gestures, those phases of the act which bring about the adjustment of the response of the other form. These phases of the act carry with them the attitude as the observer recognizes it, and also what we call the inner attitude. The animal may be angry or afraid. There are such emotional attitudes which lie back of these acts, but these are only part of the whole process that is going on. Anger expresses itself in attack; fear expresses itself in flight. We can see, then, that the gestures mean these attitudes on the part of the form, that is, they have that meaning for us. We see that an animal is angry and that he is going to attack. We know that that is in the action of the animal, and is revealed by the attitude of the animal. We cannot say the animal means it in the sense that he has a reflective determination to attack. A man may strike another before he means it; a man may jump and run away from a loud sound behind his back before he knows what he is doing. If he has the idea in his mind, then the gesture not only means this to the observer but it also means the idea which the individual has. In one case the observer sees that the attitude of the dog means attack, but he does not say that it means a conscious determination to attack on the part of the dog. However, if somebody shakes his fist in your face you assume that he has not only a hostile attitude but that he has some idea behind it. You assume that it means not only a possible attack, but that the individual has an idea in his experience. When, now, that gesture means this idea behind it and it arouses that idea in the other individual, then we have a significant symbol. In the case of the dog-fight we have a gesture which calls out

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appropriate response; in the present case we have a symbol which answers to a meaning in the experience of the first individual and which also calls out that meaning in the second individual. Where the gesture reaches that situation it has become what we call 'language'. It is now a significant symbol and it signifies a certain meaning.4 The gesture is that phase of the individual act to which adjustment takes place on the part of other individuals in the social process of behavior. The vocal gesture becomes a significant symbol (unimportant, as such, on the merely affective side of experience) when it has the same effect on the individual making it that it has on the individual to whom it is addressed or who explicitly responds to it, and thus involves a reference to the self of the individual making it. The gesture in general, and the vocal gesture in particular, indicates some object or other within the field of social behavior, an object of common interest to all the individuals involved in the given social act thus directed toward or upon that object. The function of the gesture is to make adjustment possible among the individuals implicated in any given social act with reference to the object or objects with which that act is concerned; and the significant gesture or significant symbol affords far greater facilities for such adjustment and readjustment than does the non-significant gesture, because it calls out in the individual making it the same attitude toward it (or toward its meaning) that it calls out in the other individuals participating with him in the given social act, and thus makes him conscious of their attitude toward it (as a component of his behavior) and enables him to adjust his subsequent behavior to theirs in the light of that attitude. In short, the conscious or significant conversation of gestures is a much more adequate and effective mechanism of mutual adjustment within the social act - involving, as it does, the taking, by each of the individuals carrying it on, of the attitudes of the others toward himself - than is the unconscious or nonsignificant conversation of gestures. 4

[See "A Behavioristic Account of the Significant Symbol", Journal of Philosophy, XIX (1922), 157ff.].

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When, in any given social act or situation, one individual indicates by a gesture to another individual what this other individual is to do, the first individual is conscious of the meaning of his own gesture - or the meaning of his gesture appears in his own experience - in so far as he takes the attitude of the second individual toward that gesture, and tends to respond to it implicitly in the same way that the second individual responds to it explicitly. Gestures become significant symbols when they implicitly arouse in an individual making them the same responses which they explicitly arouse, or are supposed to arouse, in other individuals, the individuals to whom they are addressed; and in all conversations of gestures within the social process, whether external (between different individuals) or internal (between a given individual and himself), the individual's consciousness of the content and flow of meaning involved depends on his thus ta king the attitude of the other toward his own gestures. In this way every gesture comes within a given social group or community to stand for a particular act or response, namely, the act or response which it calls forth explicitly in the individual to whom it is addressed, and implicitly in the individual who makes it; and this particular act or response for which it stands is its meaning as a significant symbol. Only in terms of gestures as significant symbols is the existence of mind or intelligence possible; for only in terms of gestures which are significant symbols can thinking - which is simply an internalized or implicit conversation of the individual with himself by means of such gestures - take place. The internalization in our experience of the external conversations of gestures which we carry on with other individuals in the social process is the essence of thinking; and the gestures thus internalized are significant symbols because they have the same meanings for all individual members of the given society or social group, i.e. they respectively arouse the same attitudes in the individuals making them that they arouse in the individuals responding to them: otherwise the individual could not internalize them or be conscious of them and their meanings. As we shall see, the same procedure which is responsible for the genesis and existence of

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mind or consciousness - namely, the taking of the attitude of the other toward one's self, or toward one's own behavior - also necessarily involves the genesis and existence at .the same time of significant symbols, or significant gestures. In Wundt's doctrine, the parallelism between the gesture and the emotion or the intellectual attitude of the individual, makes it possible to set up a like parallelism in the other individual. The gesture calls out a gesture in the other form which will arouse or call out the same emotional attitude and the same idea. Where this has taken place the individuals have begun to talk to each other. What I referred to before was a conversation of gestures which did not involve significant symbols or gestures. The dogs are not talking to each other; there are no ideas in the minds of the dogs; nor do we assume that the dog is trying to convey an idea to the other dog. But if the gesture, in the case of the human individual, has parallel with it a certain psychical state which is the idea of what the person is going to do, and if this gesture calls out a like gesture in the other individual and calls out a similar idea, then it becomes a significant gesture. It stands for the ideas in the minds of both of them. There is some difficulty in carrying out this analysis if we accept Wundt's parallelism. When a person shakes his fist in your face, that is a gesture in the sense in which we use the term, the beginning of an act that calls out a response on your part. Your response may vary: it may depend on the size of the man, it may mean shaking your fist, or it may mean flight. A whole series of different responses are possible. In order that Wundt's theory of the origin of language may be carried out, the gesture which the first individual makes use of must in some sense be reproduced in the experience of the individual in order that it may arouse the same idea in his mind. We must not confuse the beginning of language with its later stages. It is quite true that as soon as we see the attitude of the dog we say that it means an attack, or that when we see a person looking around for a chair that it means he would like to sit down. The gesture is one which means these processes, and that meaning is aroused by what we see. But we are supposed to

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be at the beginning of these developments of language. If we assume that there is a certain psychical state answering to a physical state how are we going to get to the point where the gesture will arouse the same gesture in the attitude of the other individual ? In the very beginning the other person's gesture means what you are going to do about it. It does not mean what he is thinking about or even his emotion. Supposing his angry attack aroused fear in you, then you are not going to have anger in your mind, but fear. His gesture means fear as far as you are concerned. That is the primitive situation. Where the big dog attacks the tittle dog, the little dog puts his tail between his legs and runs away, but the gesture does not call out in the second individual what it did in the first. The response is generally of a different kind from the stimulus in the social act, a different action is aroused. If you assume that there is a certain idea answering to that act, then you want at a later stage to get the idea of the first form, but originally your idea will be your own idea which answers to a certain end. If we say that gesture Ά' has idea 'a' as answering to it, gesture Ά' in the first form calls out gesture 'B' and its related idea 'b' in the second form. Here the idea that answers to gesture Ά' is not idea 'a' but idea 'b'. Such a process can never arouse in one mind just the idea which the other person has in his. How, in terms of Wundt's psychological analysis of communication, does a responding organism get or experience the same idea or psychical correlate of any given gesture that the organism making this gesture has ? The difficulty is that Wundt presupposes selves as antecedent to the social process in order to explain communication within that process, whereas, on the contrary, selves must be accounted for in terms of the social process, and in terms of communication; and individuals must be brought into essential relation within that process before communication, or the contact between the minds of different individuals, becomes possible. The body is not a self, as such; it becomes a self only when it has developed a mind within the context of social experiences. It does not occur to Wundt to account for the existence and development of selves and mind within, or in terms of, the social process of

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experience; and his presupposition of them as making possible that process, and communication within it, invalidates his analysis ofthat process. For if, as Wundt does, you presuppose the existence of mind at the start, as explaining or making possible the social process of experience, then the origin of minds and the interaction among minds become mysteries. But if, on the other hand, you regard the social process of experience as prior (in a rudimentary form) to the existence of mind and explain the origin of minds in terms of the interaction among individuals within that process, then not only the origin of minds, but also the interaction among minds (which is thus seen to be internal to their very nature and presupposed by their existence or development at all) cease to seem mysterious or miraculous. Mind arises through communication by a conversation of gestures in a social process or context of experience - not communication through mind. Wundt thus overlooks the important fact that communication is fundamental to the nature of what we term "mind"; and it is precisely in the recognition of this fact that the value and advantage of a behavioristic account of mind is chiefly to be found. Thus, Wundt's analysis of communication presupposes the existence of minds which are able to communicate, and this existence remains an inexplicable mystery on his psychological basis; whereas the behavioristic analysis of communication makes no such presupposition, but instead explains or accounts for the existence of minds in terms of communication and social experience; and by regarding minds as phenomena which have arisen and developed out of the process of communication and of social experience generally - phenomena which therefore presuppose that process, rather than being presupposed by it - this analysis is able to throw real light on their nature. Wundt preserves a dualism or separation between gesture (or symbol) and idea, between sensory process and psychic content, because his psychophysical parallelism commits him to this dualism; and though he recognizes the need for establishing a functional relationship between them in terms of the process of communication within the social act, yet the only relationship of this sort which can be established on his

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psychological basis is one which entirely fails to illuminate the bearing that the context of social experience has upon the existence and development of mind. Such illumination is provided only by the behavioristic analysis of communication, and by the statement of the nature of mind in terms of communication to which that analysis leads.

THE PSYCHOPHYSICS OF EXPRESSION OF WILHELM WUNDT1 KARL BÜHLER

We are writing in 1933, a year after the 100th anniversary of Wilhelm Wundt's birth, and are exactly one generation removed from the first printing of his work on speech in 1900.2 If one tries to appraise the theory of expression from a historical point of view, one is confronted with an interesting task. A straightforward recapitulation would be meaningless and inadequate; but finding its intrinsic historical value is a valid undertaking. For it is the mark of Wundt's achievement, as we see it, and must see it from today's point of view, that like a reservoir, it unites two or three historical currents, without exhausting their synthesis. One instinctively compares the first and second chapters, the "Movements of Expression" with "Gestural Communication". The second is true linguistics and rests on another axiom than the first. Our first task is to give an outline of it and then to determine whether or not he separates and distinguishes the pertinent facets. (1) That gestures could be developed into a 'language' was already known to the ancient practitioners of pantomime; and the linguistic theoreticians, likewise, knew this. In order to demonstrate the superiority of speech, we remind the readers of Engel's comparison between speech and mime. In his second chapter, Wundt himself refers to a work of Steinthal which contrasts the gestural signs 1

From Ausdruckstheorie: Das System an der Gesichte aufgezeigt, (Gustav Fischer, Jena: 1933). Translated from the German by Mara Abolins. 2 W. Wundt, Völkerpsychologie, Vol. I: Die Sprache (1900). I shall quote from the second, revised edition of 1904.

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of deaf-mutes with speech, and concludes that so-called gestural communication is lacking a true grammar: it has no sentences. In order to say "the father gave me an apple", the deaf-mute must first make a sign for "father", then the sign for "apple", and finally, the sign for "I"; he does not add a sign for "to give". The result is "father apple I". Yet that is nothing less than a sentence, even though this expression is lacking the essence of a sentence, the actual statement. Wundt is by no means blind to the factual lack of specific grammatical signs, even in the most developed gestural communication that is known; yet, with great skill he proposes the thesis that they, nevertheless, exhibit a clear and specific syntax, and that this alone proves that they must also have the means to form real sentences. For, "where a sentence exists, there must also be definite rules of syntax, and vice versa. Where these can be proven, sentences are also present" (209). I have cited this not in order to give an extensive account of this interesting interpretation, nor to introduce Wundt's discussions with Sütterlin and Delbruck on this matter, but only to illustrate that in the second chapter of his work on speech Wundt deals with specifically linguistic problems. What Wundt writes in the second chapter belongs, in my opinion, to the best work that he has written about language (in the broadest sense of the word). The gestural syntax is not the high-point of the second chapter, but it is so well-conceived that the chapter could end with it. In the first section of this chapter Wundt describes and surveys the then known gestural systems of deaf-mutes, primitive peoples (especially the North American Indians), Neapolitans, and the Cistercian monks. He then poses the question about the 'basic forms of gestures' and follows extensively in the footsteps of Engel,3 a matter that, historically viewed, is both interesting and important. The two distinct aspects of these signs, represen3

Engel recognized the difference between gestural communication and the simple non-conventionalized expression and tested it in some of his analyses of gestures. Especially note the comments about the Neapolitan gestures of mistrust (1,92). This difference did not become a question of principles in Engel's work as it did in Wundt's.

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tation and symbolism, are separately discussed; and parallel to historical linguistics, an 'etymology' for the lexically developed gestures is sought. Especially interesting is an allusion that will be discussed later, but should already be cited here: If the etymology of speech must content itself with the investigation of original forms, it has to accept them as historically given and not as derived. For this reason then, they remain inexplicable. The 'etymology' of a gesture, on the other hand, is indicated when its psychological meaning and its connection with the general principles of expressive movement is recognized. So the problem begins right where the etymology of spoken languages ends. Here, the meaning of gestural communication for overall psycholinguistic problems becomes more appreciable. To some extent, the gestures always seem to remain on the level of its original condition, and what we observe in traces of historical change tends, in this connection, to establish the character of gestural communication as a language. One might go so far as to say that the concept of original language, which is only a hypothetical peripheral question in speech investigations, becomes an observable reality in gestures. But this fact, even if it has no other discernible purpose, proves the necessity for the supposition of an original language in the psychological sense: that is, the necessity for there having been a time when in the development of every natural form of communication the relationship between the sign and what it signified was immediately apparent. Of course, gestural communication has shown that this time need not have occurred at the very same instant for all elements of the language. For in gestural communication original elements and neologisms are found parallel to metamorphosed forms, which have transformed the original meaning into an apparently conventional sign. (154 ff.) This is obviously pure linguistics. The second chapter of Wundt's linguistic work is totally philologically conceived and satisfactorily expanded. This means this chapter is based on the axioms of linguistics. Wundt investigated a means of intellectual communication in certain communities, and presupposed that by means of signs, one member was indeed able to communicate with another. The scene of action for this kind of investigation is, by definition, intersubjective intercourse, the social situation. The first chapter is totally different; he who returns to it from the second chapter takes a step into another world. It is, we say for sake of contrast, scientifically conceived. We must mention at

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the start, that what is here investigated has, by definition, another scene of action. Like Aristotle in all his books, Wundt attaches great importance upon grouping the opinions of his predecessors, so that we may see how the new, which he offers, contrasts with the old. Wundt builds a historical staircase and 'Herbert Spencer's physiological theory' is placed on the first platform. 'Attempts at a physiological theory' is on the second platform. Through these two, we can progress, with Wundt, to the third, 'the most universal psychophysical principles of expressive movement'. The staircase is in itself informative: Tell me from whom you advance, and I shall tell you who you are. But Wundt wishes neither to remain stuck in physiological discussions, nor to surrender himself totally to an analysis of pure experience. In this respect, his work can be compared with that of many others. One is reminded of Aristotle, or of the polarity of Goethe, which is very close to Aristotle. Wundt is not aiming at a polarity but rather at a principle of duality, which is monistic, or approaching monism. Anticipating our critical analysis, it is this assessment that particularly dictates his clear and definite reduction of axioms. It is dictated in a peculiar manner, philosophically not compelling (for Goethe, too, was monistically oriented). And thus the first chapter of his theory of expressions appears solipsistic and individualistic, while the second chapter appears axiomatically founded. This is written in the lines, but something else is written between them. An action theory of expression shines through; it cannot be derived empirically or more geometrically from the principle of psychological parallelism. QUOD ERAT DEMONSTRANDUM. (2) There is nothing astonishing in the content itself of the 'most universal principles of expressive movements'. It reads: "with each change in the psychic condition are associated changes in the correlative physical reactions" (90), and this is the source of expressive movements. Thus, we can view certain visible bodily movements as symptoms of specific emotional states. Somewhat more specifically, "we must view the expressive movements and the innervating reactions that produce them as phenomena that

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accompany an emotional state" (ibid.). No debate will ensue from this. This merely belongs to the positive thesis of a negating, proud, and sure-of-victory renunciation. From the start one must refrain from subordinating the expressive movements to any specific principles. Textually, critical consciousness demands that we examine whether this "refrain from the start" rejects all specific axiomatic statements a limine or only at the outset. As examination shows, it pushes them aside a limine and for always, because they are superfluous. Wundt is thinking, at this point, about all the basic assumptions of older theoreticians, assumptions which he had, prior to this book, explicitly criticized: the axioms of Darwin as well as the specifically psychological axioms of Engel and Piderit, or the purely physiological axioms of Spencer. The psychophysics of Fechner and Wundt sets out on its journey with proud sails, trustful in the newly discovered methodology of experimentation with impressions and expressions. But today the sea has become calm around them. The results of the investigations on pulse and breathing by experimenters in Wundt's laboratory are commonly rejected. This rejection differs, depending upon whether it comes from Klage and his group in Germany, or from the American behaviorists. And it is precisely with this, with the pulse curves of Lehmann and their interpretation, that Wundt's theory of expressions begins. Why should we concern ourselves seriously with something that causes the reader to shake his head after the first few pages and which offers him no new insights? Granted, historical studies are not every man's cup of tea, and a certain amount of patience and discipline is required to think Wundt's statements through once more, exactly as he presents them. Instead of this, I recommend the way of constructive analysis. The purpose is not to criticize a few curve interpretations and the like, but rather to penetrate to the roots of a scientific belief that inspired a generation of researchers, and to comprehend and examine, in the works of the leader, the motives for this belief. It was not due to historical chance, but to the consequence of a secular program of psychology, that Wundt was able to attract and focus the attention of the young researchers around him to

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the heart and breathing, and begin his expressive theory with symptoms of pulse and respiration. For supposing Descartes was right, then a modern could arrive at the conclusion that the "concomitant processes of the psychic state" must first of all be comprehended methodically and purely in terms of bodily subjectivity. And so it is with Wundt, who views the vital internal service of circulation and respiration as the most cardinal element of expression. Around the innermost circle Wundt places, as if with a compass, a second circle that is occupied by the means of movement in the human face and the symptoms from which these movements arise. And in the third, outermost circle he schematically arranges the pantomime associated with the coarse skeletal, muscular system of the arms, legs, and trunk. I maintain that this sequence appears natural and plausible to the Cartesian, without the necessity for much persuasion, because he views the individual human being as a self-contained, scientifically isolatable system, and in his analysis of expression progresses outward from the interior. But this is not all that need be mentioned about this structure. In a phenomenological analysis of the affect itself, insofar as it is comprehensible to 'subjective experience', Wundt sees two sets of three abstract moments (dimensions) and components. He imagines that this kind of affect experience would be manifest to the psychologist, as well as to the inexperienced observer, as a structure with the same components. It is understood through the window of expressive movements. Always most important to him is the three dimensional scheme of the so-called simple feelings: excitation-restraint / pleasure-aversion / tension-relief. In the structure of Wundt's theory of expression an important role is also played by the three variable attributes of affects: intensity, quality, and the component of imagination. According to his interpretation, the three above-mentioned organs of the body (the heart and respiratory system, the face, the muscular systems of the trunk and the extremities) momentarily or componently enact the experience; they 'mirror' it. "With the manifestations of motion and inhibition, which measure the strength of

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the affect, are generally connected inseparable characteristic expressive movements, in which the quality of the affect is reflected" (100). In another passage he is more consequent and states that they are always connected. There is a certain finesse of symptom purity, to which we shall only refer in passing. He asserts that the vasomotor symptoms of intensity, "in contrast to the mimal and pantomimal motions, which as a rule are of a mixed nature, retain through all stages of emotional expression the character of pure symptoms of intensity" (96). Wundt also implies that only the tension and relief constituents directly reflect the experience (ibid.). After disregarding all the secondary limitations and retouchings of the picture, Wundt sees the introspectively-comprehensible, the experience of the experiencing, as momentarily or componently accessible to the glances of a stranger in the mirrorimage of comcomitant bodily phenomenon. I am not able to say what Wundt's source for the mirror-image was, but purely logically, it seems a convenient means of showing the relationship of one structure to another, and analogous to the mirror-image of Leibnitz Wundt's whole structure is basically monadic. Now we can see that the scientific beginning of Wundt's theory of expression can be philosophically classified. Perhaps we should also add that in his physiological reflections, Wundt reflects the Cartesian philosophy and its assertion that the soul has a definite site in the body, an assertion that can be clearly followed in the medical psychology of Hermann Lotze. Thus he avoids the problem with which Johannes Müller had to contend: why are certain fibres of the nervus facilialis aroused by anger, and different fibres aroused by joy ? In the area of vasomotor manifestations, Wundt's observation of mirror-images leads to an observation of systems. Nevertheless, he postulates a center of sensation in the brain, from which the physiological reactions and innervations are regulated. (3) The classification of the manifestations of expression according to the system of organs or regions of the body is sound and faultless. The classification follows the three regions as previously

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mentioned. The face is the center of mime, in the narrowest sense of the word, and the trunk and extremity muscles of the body are controlled by it, as it also controls pantomime; on the other hand, they are also controlled by the entire vegetative system or the control area of the department of the interior, figuratively speaking. Wundt places the latter at the beginning, and at the end we shall see how this concert of three establishes an action theory of expression. We shall reformulate the substance of the empirical data of Wundt's attempts at creating a system so that they can receive the consideration that they deserve. But first we must let Wundt himself have the word. We shall move now to the last chapter, although it is the weakest, and must be the weakest, in accordance with Wundt's teachings. For how can one come to terms with the fact of pantomime after he has, with an all-too-proud renunciation, axiomatically retreated from all that which comprises the strength of Engel's theory? In Engel's work, the expressing subjects are sought out and depicted in the regions of their actions in regard to men and things. But Wundt has drawn in all his tentacles and sits like Diogenes in a barrel, or behaves like a monadic creature who tells himself: the world is what I imagine. Hence, the key-phrase: "remarks about imagination in affects" in his statements about pantomime. How would Diogenes express himself with pantomime ? An unforgettable part of pantomime is the walk. But its theory of expressive valance is still waiting today for someone who, with a broad point of view and a steady hand, can bring it to the same niveau as the other parts of the expressive theory. But at least, it has not been forgotten. Engel (I, 98) writes the following: The thought sequence determines the walk, so that it sometimes becomes slower, other times quicker; sometimes more rigid, other times more languid; sometimes regular, other times irregular. Each particular disposition, each inner state, each passion has its distinct walk, and from it, one can say for all characters in general what the wife of Hercules said about Lykus (Seneca, Hercules, act II, scene 2): "Qualis animo est, tails incessu".

Wundt forgets the walk in his discussion of pantomime and assures

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us, without foundation, that the pantomimal organs of human beings are only the hands and arms. As in that constituent of mime (the qualitative symptoms), so in this constituent (the imaginative symptoms) of pantomime, the main sphere of action is that of the mimal muscles in the narrowest sense of the word. This narrow concept includes the arms and hands. Other parts of the body, the head, the trunk or the organs of walking can only temporarily contribute (126).

That sounds strange, but becomes somewhat more comprehensible when one considers that at the time he was writing this, Wundt was investigating the gestural communication of deaf-mutes. The symbolically formed and developed pantomimal characteristics of this gestural communication are indeed predominantly in the realm of hands and arms. We should make another general comment at this point: we do not find a single mention in Wundt's linguistic work about theatrical gestures. The events on the stage concern him neither as a source nor as an object of theory. And with this, the entire dramatic moment in the speech of men escaped him; a moment, in which the lively daily intercourse of the homo politicus sive socialis, uses and forms the most fleeting expressive signs, and uses them most delicately. The psychic atmosphere, so to speak, in each situation of social contact and social occurence, as we well know, is combined with subtle (or often outright coarse) alternating play of addressing and replying of the mimal and pantomimal organs of the contact partners. And this, equally well, is language, in the broadest sense of the word, as in the symbol communication of the Cistercian monk. Wundt looks past all this so completely that one is aware of the omission not only in the chapter about gestural communication, but also in that about speech, where it would have been suitable to discuss this fact. In the last analysis, it is this omission that condemns Wundt's fragmentary remarks about pantomime to sterility. The facts force themselves forth and present themselves to the methodical person surveying the 'main forms of pantomimal movements'. But few things penetrate through the coat-of-mail that Wundt

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wears. He guards himself as he believes, against every "ineffectual, practical-aesthetic mode of observation" (127). He once more quotes Engel at this point; he has consulted him. But the only thing that appealed to him was the distinction between demonstrative and sketched gestures. In fact the relationship of the movements to the objects of our environment, to which all our concepts refer, becomes immediately evident. From earliest childhood the arms and hands are the organs for grasping and manipulating objects. Compared to highly-developed animals, man differs in degree, but not essence, in the original use of grasping organs. From their movements arises one of those gradual changes, which is actually of a regressive nature. In its effects, however, this change produces important components of a progressive development to the first and most primitive form of pantomimic motion: the indicative gesture. Genetically, it is no more than a grasping motion reduced to indicating. (129) This is not the first derivation of finger gestures from grasping movements, but it is objectively carried out and contains the only positive yield of Wundt's exposition on pantomime. (4) We can speak more, and more positively, about the expressive regions of the human face and the symptoms that produce it, about mime in the specific sense of the word. At this point, Wundt must have had Piderit's lexicon in front of him, and he made extensive and beneficial use of Piderit's research. The symptoms around the mouth are excellently and more subtly analyzed than Piderit does. In keeping with his polar scheme, Piderit recognizes only two opposite expressions of taste: bitterness and sweetness. Wundt adds a third, that of sourness; and in accordance with Kussmaul's observations on infants, develops and presents them in a manner that is still used today. I shall now take the opportunity and present a few systematic observations. Nothing new needs to be said about the straight-forward description of the taste reactions of infants, as they are described by Kussmaul, Genzmer, and Preyer. They found, as was to be expected, diffuse and indefinite reactions among infants. From these diverse reactions, a positive and two negative responses to stimuli

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could be recognized. The positive reaction was an assimilation of the tasted liquid by sucking and swallowing. This was unequivocally obtained with sweet tasting liquids. The two negative responses could be described as a rejection of the liquids. The two negative reactions were: the bitter liquid was expelled by the infants with choking; the sour liquid was taken into the mouth, but not allowed to go down into the esophagus. In this case, the liquid was not expelled through choking, but the gums and tongue were locked, so that the liquid flowed out through the gap in the wide open mouth.4 This is the passage that we must keep in mind in order to understand the observations 'biologically'. For no other passage indicates the biological significance; and this one has the advantage that it alludes to its usefulness. From it, one can speculate and try to answer the technical question regarding reactions: why are the three test areas (the taste buds that respond to sweetness, sourness, and bitterness) located in three different areas of the tongue: on the tip of the tongue, on the sides, and at the base; and why does the organism undertake the demonstrable selection in the mouth? The researcher of expression had better leave comments about this to the physiologists. In this, we have somewhat wronged Wundt, for he neither clearly sees the technical difference between the two negative reactions, nor decides in favor of an unequivocal and thoroughly teleological significance. Nevertheless, he was heading in that direction when he stipulated: "A teleological connection of these movements to the taste stimulation cannot be mistaken" (105)5. 4

If I correctly understand the objective data in the experiments of A. Eckstein (Zeitschrift für Kinderheilkunde 45, 1927) and K. Jensen (Genetic Psychology Monograph 12, 1932), they prove that the reaction to sourness is younger than the other two. It would be superfluous to delve more into the very precise findings of these two works. 5 Darwin was heading in this direction. However, he terms it in a coarser manner and thinks of vomiting; it is vital to remove objectionable foodstuff from the stomach and therefore the repulsive taste and the more repulsive smell result in vomiting. Modified traits of this nature can be observed around the mouth towards aversion and abhorrence (265).

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(5) Until now we were concerned with describing the taste reactions of human infants. These same reactions are completely developed among adults, when they are confronted with tasting various liquids, especially the two negative reactions if the liquid or morsel has proved to be exceptionally bitter or sour. This play of muscles around the mouth occurs in test situations as well as in actual daily life, as has frequently been depicted by artists of all times; and one generally associated this play of muscles with taste. For our analysis, they must be viewed as partial actions, initial symptoms, or pale schemata of reactions in reference to nutrients. Insofar as these movements of the mouth organs are connected with actual tasting, there is nothing surprising in it, even if this taste is an aftertaste in the memory or a foretaste of the anticipated, as is well known today from the experiments performed by Wundt's contemporary Pavlov. The results of Pavlov's experiments were not yet widely-known in Wundt's time. That the most subtle and specific appeal to the salivary and stomach glands should produce a muscular taste syndrome is clear, no matter how the individual glandular and muscular reactions may be joined. But the psychologist is called to consider and explain those situations when the same muscular actions can be observed although there is no material tasting at hand, nor in the foreseeable future. These situations need to be explained, and Wundt summarized the matter thus: The taste reflexes are significant as mimic expressive movements because they are present in sensations arousing pleasure or aversion, even if these sensations have nothing whatsoever to do with the sense of taste, or in sensations toward anticipated experiences of a similar character. Thus the 'sweet' expression of the mouth signifies each agreeable, pleasant, or gratifying emotional state. The 'bitter' expression accompanies all possible unpleasant feelings. The 'sour' expression, too, is unambiguous, for it is defineable because of its peculiar emotional colouring, particularly its intensity and its concomitant mimic movements. It follows from this that the two opposed movements of laughing and crying, generally expressing heightened feelings of joy and aversion, are recognizable by the same broadening of the mouth that is produced

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by sour tasting stimuli. The laughing face cannot be differentiated from the crying face to any noteworthy degree on the basis of the mime of the mouth alone. (106)

We did not have to wait until the introduction of laughing and crying to realize that we are discussing basically human phenomena. Others have compared the symptoms of laughing and crying not with taste reactions, as Wundt and Piderit do, but have brought the breathing process into close correlation with speech gestures, a fact which has a lot to recommend itself. The research branch of mimic etymology, to use that comparison once more, is here confronted with one of its most important tasks, a task that no one until now has been able to formulate better than Wundt. It is valid to try to find a physiological or psychological justification for the proverb that united into one both the expression and the expressed suffering when it says 'bitter', and unites both the expression and the expressed joy when it says 'sweet'. Wundt immediately grasps the problem in its entirety and knows that the same justification must be found for all the so-called sensual metaphors of the language as must be found for the pair of words 'sweet' and 'bitter'. Discourse about a 'transfer' of names from the field of sensual impressions to an ostensibly non-sensual representation and 'analogy', the term used by many linguists but not defined by them, are not satisfactory for Wundt. There is an abundance of secondary and arbitrarily invented metaphors, and these alone point back to a realm of 'immediately-experienced' correspondences that must be proved. This is the starting point of his thesis, and from it Wundt sketches in just a few printed pages a 'theory of mimic expressive movements', a theory rich in ideas, although not exactly unified. The historian has a choice: he can underline what he wishes in Wundt's work, or he can let fall by the wayside what he wishes. But lest he overlook what Wundt meant or falsely evaluate it, he must be wary of a pitfall that scarcely anyone today is able to avoid because of the idiosyncrasies of his age and because of his aversion to the manner of expression of the psychologists of association to whom Wundt belonged.

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Wundt does not exactly reflect the approximate construction of a primitive sensualism, but pushes it into second place. By the taste EXPRESSIONS of sweetness, bitterness, and sourness something of the same taste IMPRESSIONS is actually present in our consciousness. But the actual taste sensation retreats far behind the sense of touch associated with it. With this limitation, the expressions 'sweet joy', 'bitter agony', etc. do not have a metaphorical meaning, but rather 'an actual sensual meaning'. (119)

As we can see, he pushes the 'sense of touch', or more precisely, kinesthesis, into the foreground. The investigator of today, when he adjusts what Wundt says, by merely straightening it a bit and adapting it to the modern point of view - a point of view that stems from the behavioristic reaction experiments -, does exactly what he, as a historian, ought not do. He selects from an earlier concept the more recently approved ideas, and dismisses the disapproved ideas, the ideas that have outlived their time. Wundt is and shall remain, just as he has been in the entire realm of his psychophysical statements - an analyst (to be sure, a sensually oriented one) of experiences. The cornerstone of Wundt's theory is that the producer of the bitter, sour, and sweet motions feels his own muscular action and with the thus-felt movements perceives something of the taste impressions associated with these movements, although this perception is 'very weak and indistinguishable'. He who has the desire, can dispute the matter with Wundt. In any case, it is undeniable that Wundt puts his finger on what happens in the muscular system and on the connexio rerwn of this muscular occurence; he does not place it temporally after the sensation of taste, but before it, or at least concurrent with it. An action theoretician of expression consentingly accepts all this and views Wundt as an ally. The description of the findings by an action theoretician sounds very similar to the sentences of the behaviorists' protocol. It reads approximately so: The newborn child and the adult, in taste test situations, show three different reactions toward substances that are sweet, exceedingly sour, and bitter. If the proverb, or the artist or the lexigraphical mimicker

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are not mistaken, in certain classes of life situations Χ,Υ,Ζ, which imply no material tasting, there appear around the mouth initial symptoms or transitional movements from the realm of taste situations - exactly those symptoms which one had perceived in fruitful moments and had designated as bitter, sour, or sweet traits. These movements toward that which brings the organism nourishment are a fundamentally vital matter of life, and thus, are also found to a slight degree in the reactions of infants. "As soon as a new, composite emotional state develops, whose pleasure or aversion qualities are related to an earlier, simpler emotional state, the new state is aroused by these earlier associations, and with it arise the physical expressive movements related to this earlier state" (117). I shall not discuss whether Wundt described the development of experience in childhood correctly and sufficiently when he wrote 'from the simple to the composite', but only want to underline the idea of new situations to which organisms respond by a system of reactions already at hand. This is the essence of Herbart's apperception theory and still deserves attention today. We are also not interested further in those cases where, because of the difficulties of that specific situation, the performance capabilities surpass the former system of reactions. But it certainly is noteworthy that the responses of the premature system of reflexes to nutrients are extremely conservative yet persistent, and that they occur extensively where nutrient stimulation is not present. We are not particularly amazed that in the early stages of grasping with their hands, infants act as if the mouth were the court before which all things must be brought in order to determine if they should be assimilated into the body. Should we or shouldn't we be astonished that during the entire lifetime, the old system of reflexes toward nutrients responds in its positive or negative manner to almost everything that humans experience? The 'in its manner' is to be understood in analogy to the facts from the specific sensory energy. The eye can respond to sensory stimuli only with its own peculiar modality from impressions, and similarly the ear and all other sensory organs. Granted, in this case, it is a more intricate response; but it appears

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that for this class of responses there must be some kind of law of modality or category. The modality of the mouth responses is determined by the traits for sweet, sour, and bitter. What I have said is not written in these same words by Wundt, but the sense and ideas are found in his work. A conscientious translator of Wundt's thoughts from the language of experiential psychology into another language, the language of action theory, will read it the same way. (6) The second region of expression in the human face is the region around the eyes and the forehead, areas that belong together. The movements of the forehead assist the closing and opening of the eyes: and its visible effect, frowning in its typical forms, is generally considered by symptomaticians as a part of the eye and lid group. An incidental remark: the less accessible traits of the nose are usually discussed somewhere in between. It is somewhat different in Wundt's work. He makes a few remarks about the reasons for the lack of nasal symptoms. The sensualistic trait in his thinking dictates the statement that "because of the much larger number of smell qualities, we cannot arrive at sharp, characteristic forms of expression" as was possible in the simple system of taste qualities. At most, we can differentiate "those impressions that are sought by the sensory organ, and those that are avoided by it"(119). We should refer once more to Piderit's polar scheme which arranged impressions as sensorily harmonic or disharmonic. The notion of 'seeking and aversion' is sufficient, if it is correctly understood as biological and not impressionistic; it is completely insufficient, as we have shown, to construct the system of taste reactions. If we wanted to transcend the purely sensualistic observations about the resistance to unbearable tastes and smells, we need only to imagine organisms as deprived of their sensitivity to stenches and repulsive tastes. This is not so far removed from the police (chemical) surveillance of nutrients as it has been adapted in many cities today. But we can hardly think of this absence as progress

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in the biological provisions of the living creature. It is only valid to keep away the source but not the sensual impressions from a living being. It seems somewhat strange for a theoretician of today to find a motive for these kinds of trivial remarks; but in reality, one finds them again and again by the impressionistically oriented psychologists. As historians, we shall ignore the above mentioned observations of diversity; for one can only say that the mistake was not in answering the questions, but in posing them in the first place. And now to the eye symptoms. A man like Wundt naturally did not fail to recognize the importance of the expressive movements in the eye region, although he arranges them in a peculiar systematic manner. Wundt thoroughly searches the face for tension-relief symptoms and finds them especially pregnant in the cheek muscles as well as around the eyes. Because of their nature, degrees of tension and their opposite, degrees of relaxation and slackening, are, above all, decidedly phsysiognomically relevant traits, especially when they are maintained for a long time. And thus, Wundt now logically and just this once, becomes a physiognomist. The word should be understood in Piderit's sense. Wundt's images and descriptions progress from a middle position toward two extremes. A well-padded, wrinkle-free, round face stands before us. It belongs to a pyknic man in a sleeping cap and has, of course, rosy cheeks and a greasy sheen. According to Wundt, it illustrates "a moderately-tonic tension of the cheek muscles as a visible sign of abiding satisfaction, especially when it is combined with a weak tonus of the mouth and eye muscles" (111). He calls his model the 'complacent man'. He is the complacent man in the literal and figurative sense of the word. We cannot object to both diagnoses, unless we interject the question: would the characteristic trait of a "moderately-tonic tension" be equally well-founded if the sleeping cap and the rolls of fat didn't exist? It would be inadmissible to explain and interpret the other images that now follow and are meant to illustrate both extreme cases, extreme tension and extreme relaxation. Extreme tension is illustrated by arrogance, disdain, and suffering; extreme relaxa-

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tion and slackening, by the pathological passivity of an imbecile, terror, worry, and fear. Wundt certainly does not assert that all these are only expressed by various degrees and distributions of tension, and he continuously presents markings from other domains. If one became absorbed in these pictures, he could add many similar supplementary characteristics. The question is whether these other characteristics would not be just as decisive or even more decisive as the tonic degree for the total expression. The painter can amass attributes when he shows the valence of an abstract moment like tension or relaxation in a picture, but the theoretician of expression must isolate them.6 Wundt approaches the facts from one side, but others have practically ignored them altogether. The pure moment of tension certainly has a high valence of expression, and as such, deserves special attention. Therefore, the symptomatician who exploits the region around the eyes ought not forget something as important as the expressive valence of the GLANCE and the EYE OPENING. Piderit, and more recently Lersch, have lexically accepted them and have carefully explained them. It is remarkable that Wundt mentions scarcely a word about them outside his tension analysis: or maybe this is not so remarkable, for it consequently follows his neglect of everything that develops from the chapter on reflexes. Above all, the glance reveals a reflex of the viewer, and the formation of the eye opening reveals subtle and supplementary matters about the character of the action of glancing. Piderit's comments on this are very informative; those of Lersch even more so. That Wundt neglects this, just as he had neglected the walk in pantomime, follows from his highly theoretical focal point toward the expressive facts. The purely individualistically determined and totally introverted man, Diogenes, says logically again and again: the world is what I imagine. He displays, at least primarily, nothing that cannot be derived through glances directed toward things, contact partners, and reflections in general. 6

Piderit recognized this and made it the first rule for his illustrative images. The expressive images of Piderit are much better than Wundt's.

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(7) Our last topic of discussion: the importance that Wundt places upon the regions of the circulatory and respiratory system. Modern critics have, with predilection, made use of what Wundt writes about this as an example of the historically obsolete viewpoint in his teachings, and ofthat in which we no longer believe. Vanquished and rejected is the constructive arrangement of affects and moods arising from elemental feelings; vanquished and replaced by a better one is the striking interpretation that the vasomotor and respiratory occurrences of expression reflect, above all, the intensity of the emotional state. Should the historian once more very carefully erect this 'card house' for the museum and then set it aside? It seems to me that there has been enough of this kind of criticism done (totally justified),7 and I am enticed to express it somewhat differently. It has certainly been documentarily attested that Wundt must have perceived the three fields that appear in his presentation as somehow independent from his psychophysical end construction, as the natural branches of expression. He endeavored to make productive for the theory of expression a third branch (according to our numbering), the results of cardiac and respiratory physiology of his time; e.g., the recognized important findings of Engelmann. Let us therefore, with Wundt, once more consider these findings. Perhaps we will arrive at passages in his concepts where one can and must say: "the manner in which you present that could not be possible, considering the regulations of the organism". The knowledge of technically inextricable construction problems is important and fruitful not only for the inventor of machinery, but also, now and then, for the biologist. We have made discoveries since Wundt's time that he could not have suspected; the question is, do the new discoveries fit into and round 7

W. H. von Wyss wrote a criticism of this kind in "Vegetative Reaktionen bei psychischen Vorgängen", Schweizer Archive für Neurologie 19 (1926) and Handbuch der normalen und pathologischen Psychologie 16, II, 2. A shorter work is Körperlich-seelische Zusammenhänge in Gesundheit und Krankheit (1931) f. A.G. Boring, whom Wundt discusses extensively in his Geschichte der experimentellen Psychologie. Boring also rejects the pulse and respiration investigations in Wundt's theory of sensations.

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out the deficient and imperfect passages of his system without making the other passages obsolete ? If one thinks systematically and from an elevated viewpoint about the psychophysical regulations in organisms, as the theoretician of expression must for his purposes, he needs a model. One of the first noteworthy models was devised by the distinguished pioneer of systematic neurology, Charles Bell; many are working today on another, more detailed model. I refer particularly to the group of researchers working with W. R. Hess, who are particularly concerned with finding out what is necessary for the theoretician of expression to know. Their efforts have been very successful. Wundt, too, has a model before his eyes. What kind of a relation do these three models have to each other? Wundt formulated two postulates from the experience analysis of feelings and affects of the nervous system that provided innervations for expressive movements. We are not concerned, for the time being, with the first postulate. Because of the unified character of experienced affects, it proposes a highest 'center of sensations' in the brain. Our concern is the second postulate. Because of the formal properties of polarity in the realm of feelings, it infers an antagonism in the realm of innervations. This antagonism has been located, he continues, and is called stimulation and inhibition by the physiologists. In this respect, the clearest relationship is shown by the innervations of the heart (64). The double provisions of the heart with sympathicus and vagus nerves can be explained by this. This is the peculiar schemata of crossed end effects from the stimulation of one or the other set of heart nerves (vagus -> suppression of heart beat; sympathicus —> acceleration of heart beat). The normal durative effects of the vagus, its so-called tonic stimulation, and the role, in all of this, of the nerve cells present in the heart itself are also explained by it. We must view a certain mediary tonic degree as the neutral starting point representing an indifferent state of sensation. Changes in innervation start at this point and proceed in four different ways. First, a continuing increase of tonus; second, a decrease of the same; third, a temporary process of contraction; fourth, a sudden inhibition of

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tonic Stimulation. When we consider that these four innervations occur both simultaneously and consecutively and can be combined in various ways and spread over a large number of muscles, we see the incalculable complications that are the basis of a single expressive movement. (68)

It is well known that the mimic muscular system of the face is innervated by the nervus facialis, and in it, according to the findings of Duchenne, can be seen an extraordinarily highly differentiated distribution of impulses. Occasionally, only a single fibre span of a muscle that appears anatomically centralized is aroused; on other occasions widely separated muscles are aroused at the same time. This wealth of partially tonic, partially passing arousals is coupled with ceitain manifestations of restraint and can be divided and classified in this manner. Already the simplest affect expression then becomes a unison of innumerable individual forces, all obeying a ruling force, and could at most be compared to the perfoimance of a symphonic composition of the most intricate contrapuntal nature by a well trained orchestra. (69)

At this point, the astonished layman in these matters may very well stop and think, and with unabashed common sense interrupt to ask: "What is the purpose of the 'well-trained orchestra'?" According to the sole axiom of Wundt's theory, the orchestra reflects the unified emotional state, and without the orchestra, the emotional state would not be present, at least, not as fully and completely as it is: on one occasion, a wave of mental agony; on another occasion, a wave of triumphant joy. When the wave has gone past, it disappears; the sea of experience is once again calm, and with it, the visible mirror, the expressive regions of the entire body, of the face and the heart and the respiratory system. This theory of proceedings certainly sounds ceremonious, as if it were describing a part of the regimen of a thinking and feeling being who acts, and is allowed to act unpunished, like the proverbial lilies of the fields and the birds in the sky: they sow nothing, they reap nothing. Men do both. The question is: should the so-called expressive movements be observed, in the last analysis, from the prerequisites of practical behavior ? Bell,

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somewhat primitively, incorporates the mimic movements into the respiratory system. Our contemporaries have incorporated the changes in cardiac and respiratory activity that occur in affects into an extensive system of regulations. The observable behavior of animals renders this system feasible, or at least extensively supports it. Let us now cite the pregnant summary remarks of the model of W. R. Hess and his associates, as presented by von Wyss. One is reminded of the three ministries concerned with the steering of events of interacting organisms. The sympathicus is a servant of the animalistic system, for it heightens all those achievements of the various functions and organs whose elements are required for the increased achievement of the entire individual. Then he lays claim to the animalistic system. This is especially true in icspect to the functions of respiration and circulation. Arousal of the sympathicus increases respiration, accelerates and magnifies cardiac activity, and increases the blood pressure. This conducts more blood to the working muscular system and the central nervous system, at the cost of other organs like the intestines. The results of the inhibitoiy effect of the sympathicus impressions on the stomach and intestinal canal are immediately perceivable. The activities of the digestive tract cease immediately, as does the secretion of gastric juices. This is true for each increased achievement of the total organ. This is especially true for situations of psychic excitement, as was shown by Cannon.8 He proved by innumerable experiments that the sympathicus effects are greatly supported and increased by the secretion of adrenalin into the blood. Adrenalin is similar in its effects to the sympathicus arousal and makes the sympathicus effects more general. In contrast to this is the manner of function of the parasympathicus. It represents the interests of the individual parts against the whole. It saves energy and replaces the consumed energy. Respiration and circulation are restrained under the influence of vagus. Like a break, it retards the requisites of the cardiac activity and eases circulation. The parasympathicus is the assisting nerve in the digestive processes, for the secretion of the gastric juices and the regulation of the digestive tract are under its influence. And because of this, it directly regulates the kidneys and the bowel movements. 8

Cannon, Bodily Changes in Pain, Hunger, Fear and Rage (New York and London, 1920 and 1915).

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Hess maintains that the morphological terms sympathicus and parasympathicus generally represent the principles of the manner of function, as we have just described them, of these two branches of the vegetative nervous system; but they are, nevertheless, purely anatomical terms. In order to give his interpretation special emphasis, he speaks of ergotropes and histotropes. The ergotropes are the principles of the vegetative nervous system directed toward achievement: the sympathicus effect. The histotropes are principles directed toward restitution: the vagus or parasympathicus effect. But one would be incorrect in thinking that there is an antagonism of the two systems, and imagine that the physiological relation is a dominance of one system over the other. The actual situation is an interference or adjustment, whereby each of the two systems fulfills its functions. (16 if.)

What is the difference between these two models? In its own way, each of them, appears anchored in scientific research; at least, if one takes Wundt's postulate seriously from the beginning. But should one take it seriously ? The bold classification of the polarity of excitation and restraint was a research hypothesis that could be called a good stroke when one looked backward from the success of its daring attack. But the attack could just as well have been thwarted. I think one must abandon both postulates today. The first postulate, with its extensive omission of the older localization ideas, has become without support. The modern aphasia theory and the animal experiments of Lashley have shown localization, in the sense of a single center of feelings and apperceptions, as an indefensible theory. If one needs to specify brain centers that are most important for the steering of emotional life and expressive phenomenon, one would have to look for them in the center of the brain, in the thalamus opticus, not in the cortex. What remains ? In the model of modern physiology the region of regulation has become much more extensive than Wundt and his contemporaries imagined. But it is almost more important that the processes in the internal regions of the body be brought into a meaningful relation to the outward actions, to that which we can see on the acting individual. The key word in Wundt's theory is 'experience', the key word in the modern model is 'action'. A man who does not devote himself solely to contempla-

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tion works hard and persistently. His thoughts and endeavors are upon the completion of the task, and his organism is steered by the ministry of the exterior, by the animalistic system in the spinal cord and brain. This is what Bell means when he describes the Original class' of nerve inosculations. The modern model describes in detail what occurs in the spheres of other relatively autonomous central areas. There are many things that accelerate the actions outward and make the attainment of the highest goals possible; one should read about the blood supply to hard-working muscles. Wundt tried to make affect understandable in terms of the changeable cardiac and respiratory activities. The modern model tries to make it clear and understandable from the demands that action places on the ministry of the interior. The modern model has, without doubt, a scientifically firmer and broader foundation. But this does not mean that the model that has now been pushed into the background must remain rejected in every form and forever. The opposite is probable; namely, in a new version, it might once again be acceptable. Cannon has made a start in preparing the way. Should this succeed, affects will not stand before us as waves (or as the Stoics said, perturbationes animi; i.e. disturbing whirlwinds in an otherwise rational and well-ordered regimen), but as incorporated in the biological regulations. Wundt's model brings the theoretician to an insoluble problem. A sensible analyst twiddles his thumbs when he reads the comparison between the complexity of the achievement with the symphonic composition. It is quite possible that this is difficult for the analyst as well as the organism; for even with the most complicated technical apparatus there is a limit to achievement. Cannon's observations were the first to show that insertion of the inner secretive regulations signify a relief of the nerve regulations. Wundt's representation of accumulation, its stratification of arousals and relaxations over the individual arousal and relaxation impulses, was perhaps too monstrous for the living nerve apparatus itself. The analyst can stop twiddling his thumbs when he sees the degree of freedom which the new model provides become a

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reality. We recognize today that each system has a relative autonomy, autonomy within limited boundaries. The steering impulses in each concrete case pass from one region to another with some inexactness. It simply can not be true that a rigid coordination goes through the entire body, as Wundt imagines in his principle. Such coordination would have justified the mirror-image of Leibnitz and Wundt. If one abandons the idea of a rigid coordination, many other ideas in psychology fall with it. One of the most important assumptions of the one-sided experience psychology is proved to be intractable. Wundt with his proud renunciation of axioms other than that of polarity and Diogenes in his barrel belong together and must be read and then rejected so that the way is open for new models in all of psychology.

THE LANGUAGE OF GESTURES1 WILHELM WUNDT

I. FORMS OF DEVELOPMENT OF GESTURAL COMMUNICATION

1. Concept and general characteristics of gestural communication

It is customary to define gestural communication as an "expression of thought through visible but not audible movements" and, accordingly, to allot this gestural means of expression a place between script and speech. Like the former, it depicts concepts by means of visible signs, although signs pass quickly, as speech sounds do. Thus gestures appear as pictorial script, or letters, with which its symbols are sketched in the air by means of transitory signs, rather than on a solid material which could preserve them.2 Since writing, when compared with speech, is a relatively late and highly challenging activity, involving greater invention, the widespread belief that gestural communication (in most cases of its success) is a substitute for speech, and that it arose, according to its original aims, out of the intention to create such a substitute becomes understandable. Hence, as far as this particular point is concerned, gestures are considered to be wholly the product of systematic invention, or at least more so than speech. 1

From Völkerpsychologie: Eine Untersuchung der Entwicklungsgesetze von Sprache, Mythus und Sitte, First Volume, Fourth Edition, First Part, Chapter 2, Stuttgart: (Alfred Kröner Verlag, 1921). Translated from the German by J. S. Thayer, C. M. Greenleaf, and M. D. Silberman (Indiana University). 2 E. B. Tylor, Forschungen über die Urgeschichte der Menschheit (from the English by H. Müller, pp. 105ff. P. 144, 1).

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This conception, however, is frustrated by another no less significant difference between gestural and spoken communication. Sign language presents itself to us as an immense profusion of individual figurations whose clearer or more obscure connections are only disclosed with the aid of linguistic analysis. For the practical purpose of communication, each language appears to be a conventional system of signs, the use of which requires special practice and instruction. With gestural communication the case is substantially different, as Quintilian already stated, "omnium hominum communis sermo"? In its most important and prevalent forms, even if not in all, it is a kind of universal language having many components in common, frequently despite the most varied conditions of origin. Notwithstanding different forms of its development, comparable to the 'dialects' of a spoken language, communication is often possible. But this universal nature is obviously specified by the relation in which gestures and their meanings relate to each other, as determined in direct observation. By means of this relation, gestures gain an originality and naturalness such as speech neither possesses today nor has ever had in any forms hitherto uncovered by linguistics. Moreover, if one accepts the fact that certain expressive movements of animals are similar to man's own gestures, and so have an easily understood meaning, it is easy to be led to the assumption, outspokenly held by many anthropologists, that gestural communication is the original means of communication. This would mean that gesture, as the natural aid of communication, preceded spoken language. The antinomy that comes to light in these differing interpretations makes it immediately obvious that gestural communication is hardly such a unified whole, interrelated since its beginnings, as is customarily supposed due to its characterization above as a universal, original language. Indeed, from the outset, gestures present us with many developmental forms necessitating differentiation according to the diverse conditions of origin.

3

Quintilian, Instilutiones oratoriae XL, 3, 87.

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2. Gestural communication among deaf-mutes Among all forms of gestural communication, that of deaf-mutes has no doubt drawn the most attention to itself in our time. This practical interest in the teaching of deaf-mutes has been most useful to the subject. Frankly, though, this interest has had to some extent a detrimental effect on the nature and scope of gestural communication's advances, due partly to the conflicting pedagogical views and standards which have arisen from it. Among other factors, the influence of surroundings is, of course, foremost. Next, the degree of hearing deficiency and the time of its onset come into consideration, because the lack of hearing among deafmutes is among the higher-grade mental defects, lesser auditory defects not resulting in the loss of speech. Of course, this is not in all cases an absolute; the conditions of gestural language are formed differently, according to what degree of hearing remains or even what memories of former sound perception are present or absent. No less important is the question of whether a deaf-mute grows up in an institution with those like him, or whether he is raised exclusively among those able to hear; and, finally, under what system of teaching he was educated. Understandably, the spontaneous development of gestural communication is most disadvantaged by the isolated deaf-mute living in an auditory-oriented environment. The deaf child receives his first impulse to communicate his desires and ideas from grown people, as does the child able to hear. The inability to express himself orally leads him to the simplest, then to the almost exclusively demonstrative gestures. But as soon as the child's intelligence has developed sufficiently, the surroundings tend to supplement the spoken word with the written. Since writing is not always practical, imitation of the letters with the fingers takes place. Thus there arises a completely artificial language of gestures based on written letters, all, as it were, by natural means. These circumstances make it understandable that the finger alphabet was the first attempt at systematic education in gestural communication for deaf people. Discovered in Spain, home of

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this branch of teaching, it spread through the civilized lands in varying forms, here as a one-handed, there as a two-handed system of signs. It later persisted especially with teachers of deaf-mutes who see in natural gestures an impediment to the attainment of this kind of education's highest goal: the acquisition of articulate speech. The complete opposite of this kind of wholly artificial gesture is that arising when a number of deaf-mutes live together from very early in life, or when those who can hear seek to accustom themselves to fit the needs and means of expression of those unable to hear, a situation which, to a certain degree, can substitute for an environment of deaf-mutes. This self-formative sign language can rightly be called a natural system of gestures. It by no means demands a pre-existing medium of communication, such as speech or script, and thus does not require a long, continuous tradition, but can of necessity arise among a group of deaf-mutes, or among deaf-mutes and those able to hear. Admittedly this seldom occurs, since some sort of tradition is generally present, particularly in those cases where deaf-mutes are in each other's company for extended time periods, in other words, in institutions, in which case the tradition tends to play so predominant a role in the system of gestures prevalent in any one institution that, by dint of being handed down, it comes to be regarded as appropriate and conventional, quite like any local dialect of a spoken language. Even so, the natural character of such a system manifests itself in two phenomena which are either lacking in speech, or which manifest themselves in it only somewhat remotely. One of these phenomena is the fact that neologisms occur extraordinarily frequently within a spatially limited area: they are encouraged by the very nature of gestural communication and permanently unite themselves with the use of the traditional signs, often without a clear consciousness of the neologism. The second, of more conspicuous appearance, is that systems of signs that have arisen in spatially separate environments and under doubtlessly independent circumstances are, for the most part, very similar or indeed closely related; this, then, enables communication without

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great difficulty between persons making use of gestures. Such is the much-lauded universality of gestural communication. Further, it is self-evident that this universality extends only to those concepts of a generally objective nature: for example, you and I, this and that, here and there, or earth, heaven, cloud, sun, house, tree, flower, walking, standing, lying, hitting, and many other such objects and actions perceived according to their basic features. All form the basis of a rich supply of gestural signs recurring constantly, without any great variation. The individuals who live in a given community, those who are bound by place of residence, conditions of their time, customs, and memories all naturally differ with regard to the signs they use for the above concepts. With changing experiences from year to year, and the different make-up of successive generations, variations are bound to occur, even over very short periods of time. In this respect, gestural communication gives a much more lively picture of the constant flow of life's events in smaller, as in larger, communities than speech is capable of doing. Speech is bound to a greater degree to a certain set of signs; hence, it tends to assimilate the new to the familiar quite readily. Even though more radical neologisms thus occur in gestural communication than in speech, which is much more stable, the former also provokes arbitrary neologisms to a greater extent, whereas in speech, if neologisms are somehow adequate for the idea expressed, they fall into the general reserve of signs. With gestural communication, the question is not one of conservatism guarding against new intrusions into the vocabulary, admitting them into use only occasionally, such as is the case with speech. Rather, it must embrace all neologisms in an attempt to enrich the constant paucity of vocabulary. This need is often more evident to those in a deaf person's environment who hear, for they must express in gestures that which is conceived as a thought to be spoken, As soon as this influence of the environment becomes compelling, such elements (although they are possible only in speech) force their way into the gestural language. Thus, artificial signs must be invented. Still, this invention of signs can take place within the limitations of gestural communication

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itself, if all powers of consciousness are concentrated on thought in terms of gestural images only. In this way, the artificial elements of gestural communication are to be further differentiated from the finger alphabet. The question whether and to what extent such an enlargement of the ranks of natural gestures by arbitrary, although insofar as possible invented, signs is admissable, has played an important role from the eighteenth century up to our times in the dispute between the French and German methods of teaching deaf-mutes. This dispute has both an ethical and a psychological side. The French school demands the psychologically fitting, the German, the ethically worthy. Now, the language suited to the capabilities of the deaf-mute is obviously that of gestures. By dint of his natural capabilities he would never truly succeed in other types of communication. The French school, founded principally by Abbe Sicard after the beginnings made by l'Abbo de l'ßpee, sought to further natural gestural language by developing more signs and certain logical or grammatical aids by which the acquisition of speech was to be made more accessible.4 "We are not the discoverers of signs", said Sicard, "but rather the deaf-mutes themselves are, and we have only to describe their true discoveries if we seek to arrive at the theory of these signs". Even if this method seems to adapt best to the psychic capabilities of the deaf-mute, the goal itself is ethically unsatisfactory: it sentences those without hearing to a special existence in which they can participate in the joys of life only to a limited extent. Also, by following the fundamental effort of the French school to bring the level of gestural communication up to that of speech, it is difficult to avoid having the invented sign become an artificial one, contradicting the natural conditions of gesture. When, for example, the up and down movement of clenched hands, thumbs turned out, on the chest, is supposed 4

Sicard, Theorie des signes pour instruction des sourdsmuets, Paris (1808), 2 vols. Concerning the history of deaf-mute instruction in general, compare Ed. Schmalz, Über die Taubstummen und ihre Bildung, (1838), (1948), pp. 120ff.; A. Hartmann, Taubstummheit und Taubstummenbildung (1880), pp. 125ff.; W. R. Scott, The Deaf and Dumb (1870), pp. 95ff.

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to signify the verb 'to be'; when the thrusting forward of closed fists, thumbs upward, is supposed to mean the adverb 'still' or 'yet'; and when moving the fingers from the temples outward is to stand for the conjunction 'when', then these signs can no longer be extensions of original gestural communication, as no such verbs and particles exist in it. They cannot exist in accordance with the very character of natural gestures. Because it has to be tediously and painfully learned by the deaf-mute through some remote or obscure association if it is to be understood at all, the interpretation joined to the natural sign by the artificial is something he forgets, along with the sign, as soon as he no longer feels pressured by school. In contrast with the French school, the German places the ethical goal in the fore: the deaf-mute must become as far as possible a complete member of society. Along the model of the school's founder, Samuel Heinicke, this school uses signs merely as a transitory aid by which speech is made accessible to the deaf mute.5 For one unable to hear, this conversion to speech necessitates the acquiring of two capabilities: the use and the understanding of speech. This is more difficult in this instance than for a young child, whose ability to make sound is there as soon as he has the impulse to mimic what he hears. For this child, sound and the perception of sound articulation are concretely associated from a very early date. Because the deaf-mute lacks that auditory sense which is the natural intermediary for this association, use and understanding of speech are separate activities from the beginning and must be linked by new, artificially practised associations. He learns to understand speech from the mouth, that is, by reading a series of visual images. He learns to use it by imitating the articulatory movements of the person able to speak and hear. Thus, the French system seeks to develop in the deaf person those senses left him, being concerned with only those senses he has in common with fully capable individuals. The German efforts are 5

Samuel Heinicke, Beobachtungen über Stimme und über die menschliche Sprache, Hamburg (1878), pp. 54ff.

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to give him a replacement for the deficient auditory sense. Sight furnishes a way to understand speech, and a sense of touch teaches both the inner and outer movements of articulation through felt sensations. But the cultivation of being natural in gestures, which some consider a narrow aim, here loses its meaning to a certain degree. The articulate speech of deaf-mutes (as well as of normal people) depends on the tracing of certain associations between the impressions of various senses.6 If the associations between the sounds of speech and the perception of articulation which affect speech are prepared by general development, thus encouraged by the individual's innate capabilities and eased by the control provided by the sense of hearing, then the teaching of the far more difficult association between visual images and perception of articulation is by no means impossible. This is made possible by the deaf person's more active sense of sight; hence, indicating a natural substitute to a certain extent. Admittedly, though, the more difficult task of teaching these associations to deaf-mutes brings about its own limitation: the level of mental ability needed to attain speech is higher than that of the person possessed of all his senses. Also, this attainment must come at a later time in life and is denied to many. This is one restriction that does not exist to any extent approaching the same degree as in gestural communication. Such is the state which has thrown the advantage to the French school in the romanic lands. Insofar as it attempts an artificial expansion of gesture governed by grammatical concepts, its psychological significance is questionable. On the other hand, there is the complaint that the German method of instruction has all-too-strong a tendency to repress natural expression in gestures, thereby reducing material available for psychological observation.7 6

W. Gude, Die Gesetze der Physiologie und Psychologie über Entstehung der Bewegungen und Artikulationsunterricht der Taubstummen (1880), pp. 40ff. As a further associative means, in more recent times the associations of written signs with the corresponding verbal and written movements is used in the so-called 'imitative language instruction'. Consequently, it is essentially concerned with an increase in the extant means of association in the area of sense of touch and facial expression. 7 Heidsiek, Der Taubstumme und seine Sprache (l 889), pp. 127ff.

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The English seem to take the retaining of natural gestures into earnest consideration, but without disdaining artificial means, in the sense of the French system.8 3. Gestural communication and primitive peoples

Just as the gestural communication of deaf-mutes affords no unified (and only a partial) indication of their actual consciousness because of environmental and pedagogical influences, so do primitive peoples offer a similar condition, especially as observed in North American Indians.9 There can be two conditions which underlie the development of gestural communication, and it is logical that they be interconnected. First, members of a single group tend to combine closely word sense and affective expression in lively intercourse. Here, it happens that accompanying words are often omitted, be it because the gesture alone suffices or because a silent means of communication is preferred. Secondly, when different tribes or dialectically separate branches of the same tribe encounter each other, the gesture comes forth immediately 8

W. R. Scott, The Deaf and Dumb (1870), p. 108. Compare, further, the report on the entire question by H. Gutzmann, Archiv für die ges. Psychologie, Vol. 1 (1903), pp. 67ff. 9 These communications are chiefly based on the following analysis which we have from Garrick Mallery concerning the gestures of the North American Indians, in his work (complete with numerous illustrations): "Sign Language among the North American Indians", First Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution (1879-1880), pp. 269-552. Another catalogue of Indian gestures, assembled especially among the Indians of the Rocky Mountains and surrounding territories, has been collected by Prince von Wied (Reise in das Innere von Nordamerika (1832-1834), Coblenz 1841, II pp. 645-653). Wied notices, one would assure him, that the tribes of the Rocky Mountains could understand each other by gestural speech, but that they could not communicate in this way with the Dakotas and other nations. In fact, between his collected signs and those of Mallery there are many distinctions, and yet there are also many agreements. There is a similar relationship between the Indians and races of other parts of the world, such as the Australians, Africans, asiatic peoples (Arabs, Japanese) of whom we certainly possess for the most part only incomplete reports. Concerning the gesture speech of the Australians, who have formed an elaborate gesture speech under the influence of commerce, see Howitt, The native Tribes of South-east Australia (1904), pp. 723ff.

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when difficulty in verbal communication arises. But then, the accustomed habit of communicating with people of different origin through gesture must have an encouraging effect on its use among the tribal group. In this way, one can understand the fact that gestures have become highly developed among several of the North American Indian tribes, where such conditions as the above are provoked by the unsettled, nomadic life of war and hunting. It is plain to see that not a few generations have worked at this, and even if gestures permit a much more continuous formation of signs than does speech, a tradition going back perhaps hundreds of years has been created and handed down to each individual as a more or less complete system of signs. Evidence of this is that many an Indian commonly uses gestures for which he can no longer explain the connection between sign and meaning.10 Partly this long tradition and partly other connected conditions differentiate this sign language from that of deaf-mutes. If one ignores the deliberately invented signs of the French system or the finger alphabet (the two being incomparable here), the particular system of gestures described above is not only richer in signs, but also more plentiful in those signs understandable only to the initiated, for whom they become in some cases merely conventional signs. 4. Inherited gestures among civilized peoples In this connection, a third form of development of gestural communication is clearly related to that of the primitives, even if it does deviate considerably from the effects of civilization on the nature of the signs. This is the form of communication common among the peoples of southern Europe, notably the southern Italians. It tends to be spread among the lower strata, but it is also partly understandable to the educated classes and used by them in communicating with the people. The segment that has 10

Garrick Mallery, "Sign Language among the North American Indians", pp. 409ff.

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been studied most exhaustively is the Neapolitan.11 It is singular in its richness and in its manner of persistence through the centuries. Many of the southern Italian signs still in use are found in analogous form on ancient monuments of art or are referred to by the older writers.12 In this way, the Neapolitan development shows itself as the product of centuries of tradition. Just as old heathen superstitions persist (in Christian disguise) among the southern Italian folk, so the gestures one encounters in our time in the streets of Naples are, with few exceptions, the ones used in Augustus' time, and probably long before. This extended tradition stipulates that many of these signs become completely conventional, as in the case of the North American Indians, and that the original meaning loses the significance it had at the sign's inception. Since gestures have not infrequently displaced the spoken word, without completely replacing it, as happens with primitive tribes, the possession of the constantly growing and developing spoken word has had a very marked effect on the development and preservation of gestures. The sign language existing among the southern peoples of Europe today appears (as a survivor of the formerly much more lively accompaniment of language with gestures) to be a manifestation of the importance placed by the ancients on the pantomime accompanying speech, that is on the gestus. But then there is the false concept that this is an indication of a primitive culture, and thus, that the existence of gestural communication parallel to speech is considered indicative of uncivilized groups. Today 11

Andrea de Jorio, La mimica degli antichi investigata nel gestire napoletane, Napoli (1832). In its antiquarian section this work naturally no longer satisfies contemporary claims. However, the collection of the widespread Neapolitan gestures remains valuable. It may, even though it is over a half century old, correspond to present circumstances and even in his hypothesis that most of the gestures used today go back to ancient times, the author has found this undoubtedly to be the case. 12 De Jorio has already produced many of the relevant features. The archaeological and historical-literary material has been collected in recent times by Sittl in his work about the gestures of the Greeks and Romans, in which, however, the relationship to present-day signs is not more closely pursued. In the reports of the older authors, the above mentioned treatise of Quintilian concerning the Gesture in Book XI of his Institutiones oratoriae is still the most complete and valuable document.

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the southern Frenchman and the Italian continue a far more lively play of gestures than, say, the Englishman or the German; this difference tends to include all levels of society. It is not the degree of education but rather the degree of emotion or the constant affective tendency, the temperament, that is important for the formation of gesture. If, due to this tendency, there exists a leaning toward a more lively pantomime, it not only accompanies speech, but even takes its place should thoughts be difficult to communicate aloud. As such, an esthetic joy in meaningful gestures naturally arises. The ancients were more familiar with the pleasure of gestures in casual communication than we are today. In fact, conventions actually demanded a superfluity of affective expression, whereas we now tend to suppress it. So the ancients had a more lively feel for the meaning of gestures, not because theirs was a more primitive culture, but simply because it differed from ours, and especially because the ability to discern outer signs of inner feeling was more developed. In this one area, that culture was esthetically more sophisticated than our own. If this more lively means of self-expression has preserved itself in the lower rather than in the higher classes, it is due to a particular trait of stratification. For the phenomenon reflects the general rule that the remains of old customs and attitudes persist longest among the masses. There are many similar traditions of highly developed systems of sign languages on our planet. Here, particularly, the East offers us a field for observation. Among Islamic Arabs, gestural expression seems to have been a much-used aid to speech, recognized by the philosophers of that people not only as a means to assure understanding, but also as a sentient interpretation of the spoken word (the Prophet himself preferring it).13 Others, similarly based on old traditions and mostly, again, developments of independently created gestures, are found in the heritage of the Japanese, the Chinese and other Oriental peoples.14 What we know about these 13

Goldziher, "Über Gebärden- und Zeichensprache bei den Arabern", Zeitschrift für Völkerpsychologie und Sprachwissenschaft, XVI, pp. 369ff. 14 I acknowledge gratefully the friendliness of Mr. J. Jrie in Sendai, Japan, for the communication of a number of common gestures in Japan which are

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means of expression generally leads to the conclusion that their relationship is not dissimilar to that of the Neapolitans' gestures to those of the American Indians. The different conditions of culture, whether or not they are of any influence in the case of specific signs, do not alter the character of expression through gestures to any substantial extent. Not only are there certain gestures which signify such generally accepted concepts as I, you, he, here and there, large and small, sky, earth, clouds, rain, walking, standing, sitting, hitting, death, sleep, and so on; but there is also the enlargement of the system of signs and the capacity for extending symbols of a concrete nature to meet non-concrete situations in which the chain of thought must be mirrored in the gestures. All the above characterize the many different gesture forms as phenomena which admit neither basic dissimilarities in the whole nor variations in the structure and quality to be discerned. In that respect, they approach being a kind of universal language, even if not in the customarily accepted sense; but it is not, so to say, as if the signs used by one particular group of people were understandable to just anyone, or even to those whose gestural communication has developed in other ways. In reality, that is only partly the case. A Dakota Indian, placed in the middle of the streets of Naples, would probably understand at first very few of the gestures used in his new surroundings. Nevertheless, he would learn to understand them incomparably faster than is possible with speech. Yet there is another factor of influence on the basically conventional forms of gestures, which is stronger than that of cultural difference. They were intended, above all, to be comprehensible in the original forms which replaced or supplemented speech. Under the effect of efforts toward this end, demonstrative and indicative gestures were developed which did not need closer interpretation or pre-agreed understanding, due, of course, to the physical circumstances to which they are directly related. similar to or exactly like those signs used in the West to denote general symbols for politeness, reverence, love, respect, mockery, etc.; but there are also particular forms represented which the West is lacking.

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Even so, gestural language can be used as a secret means of communication. Secret speech is equally possible, the most important example being criminals' jargon. Yet the gesture, by nature, remains the most natural aid to this end, however it defies the original purpose. The gesture offers in its extended, significative forms quite a graphic image, and whoever is familiar with this kind of communication is aided by the connection to other signs. It has also the great advantage of being silent. It is easily hidden from others, so that one can easily elaborate on or even negate what is said in speech, but only to one who is initiated. Hence, many of the signs employed by Neapolitans are plastic images transitory signs or pictures sketched in the air - which can escape the notice not only of those from whom they are meant to be concealed, but also from those to whom they are directed; unlike speech, though, such plastic hand gestures can be held as long as necessary until they fulfill their purpose. Here the ritual use of gesture is the complete antithesis to the occult pantomime of thieves and ruffians. As a rule, it serves as a particular accentuation of certain parts of spoken language by an expressive movement. Even this does not intend any continuity of thought communication. Since the accentuation results from a strong emphasis on emotion and at the same time becomes a fixed part of ceremony, these ritual gestures take on an augmented form, which is both intense and extensive. It is intense in so far as the expressive movement accompanying the affective idea is emphasized; it is extensive in so far as it lasts over a period of time. Thus we have gestures of prayer, humility, administration of the blessing, and so on. A special off-shoot of ritual gesture is seen in the traditional signs of legal proceedings. Having religious origins, these signs have been partially secularized in dealing with civic functions. Nowadays, this kind of ceremony is being reduced to the bare minimum, yet it still figures in the judicial customs of all peoples; especially in the ancient law of Rome and in German medieval law, these signs played a very important role. The book of law of the Saxon Code (Rechtsbuch des Sachsenspiegels) has preserved for us in its illuminations various illustrations of these signs.

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They are clearly hand gestures: for example, there is the hand raised heavenwards in oath (directive), or the taking hold of an object to signify seizure (demonstrative), and finally, the hand-shaking that accompanies the conclusion of an agreement (symbolic).15 A characteristic difference between ritual gesture and gestural communication (as of the deaf-mutes) is that the former takes on a stronger and more ceremonial nature through its long duration. Also plastic gestures mentioned earlier are almost totally lacking, for ritual gestures are meant to be as clear and impressive as possible. The movement, itself a passing thing of the moment, yet immediately understandable as directive or demonstrative, becomes a plastic image because of its prolonged, ceremonial form. One particular off-shoot of ritual signs is the world of magic gestures, an important class of enchanted signs and formulae. The concept that gestures are empowered to bind and to dissolve has been retained as a lively modern belief in the world of superstition. But this goes beyond gestural communication as such, and on into the world of magic cults, which is to be discussed later.16 5. Gestural signs among the Cistercian monks A final example of gestural communication, one to which we can assign a more purely conventional and arbitrary development than to any other, is found in such cases as when groups of hearing people voluntarily renounce the use of speech and so artificially place themselves in the position of the deaf-mute. The vow of silence has played a part in the life of religious ascetics since antiquity, whether it was imposed as a test for novices, as in the 15

K. von Amira, "Die Handgebärden in den Bilderschriften des Sachsenspiegels", Abhandlungen der Bayrischen Akademie der Wissenschaft I, Kl., Vol. 23, pp. 163ff. 16 Only one type of these magic gestures is thought of here, in which the original magical character of the corresponding ritual gestures can be clearly recognized. One could call them the 'turning gestures' because they are contrasted with the binding gestural symbols, and they also intend a dissolution of all binding ties. The gestures made known by A. Hellwig (Archiv für Religionswissenschaft, Vol. 12 (1909), pp. 46ff.) for the dissolution of an oath also belong here.

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instance of the youthful Pythagoreans, or, whether it was eternally binding, as in the Cistercian order of monks. Leibnitz left us two volumes cataloging the Cistercian gestures: a Latin one with no indication of its origin, and a Low German one from the former monastery of Lockum (Loccum, in Lower Saxony, founded 1163). The Latin register counts 143 examples, the Lockum one 145 examples of gestures.17 An older list (11th century) from an English monastery, written in Anglo-Saxon and containing 127 signs, was published by F. Kluge.18 None of these catalogs is very extensive or elaborate, presumably because communication between monks restricted itself to the absolutely necessary, but they are sufficient to enable a comparison with other forms of gestural communication. In fact, this reveals a great conformity in many aspects. On the one hand the Cistercian system is rich in arbitrarily invented and arranged signs. On the other, compared with other forms, it seems far more in accord with the more easily understood communication of the deaf than that of the Neapolitans and Indians, which rests on a far longer tradition. Hence, the systein makes a mixed impression of fragments from natural gestural communication and from an artificial sign language. Since the signs of the Cistercians make it beyond any doubt true that they result from arbitrary planning, psychological questioning about this form is less meaningful. Nevertheless, it is instructive in demonstrating that such a prearrangement (in the case of easily perceptible ideas) will appropriate easily understood signs similar to those gestural expressions that develop naturally. This shows that just that which is customarily called 'naturalness' in gestures really has nothing much to do with the question of their origin. A gesture having an origin with no appreciable relation to its present meaning, either directly or in some historical way, is most certainly an arbitrary 17

Leibnitii opera omnia, ed. Dutens, Tom. VI, Pars II, Cottectio etymologica page 207. 18 F. Kluge, "Zur Geschichte der Zeichensprache" (Angelsächsische indicia monasteriala), Techmers Zeitschrift für allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft II (1885), pp. llöff. In the introduction to the Kluge work there are a few other similar lists mentioned. Such a list is also found in Ducanges Glossarium nov. ad script, med. set. v. Signum n. 9.

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invention.19 In contrast, a gesture related to its meaning can be either natural or contrived. Thus, the actual character of the gesture can never replace knowledge of the real conditions of origin. If one now visualizes the developmental conditions of the forms of gestural communication mentioned above, one finds all evidence pointing toward the fact that they are composite systems; that is, not one of the forms available for observation can rightly be traced to a psychologically coherent beginning. All the systems are, if we care to make use of the popular concepts 'natural' and 'artificial', both at the same time. The fact is, the two psychic functions of unpremeditated reactions and inventive effort not only produce individual signs, but unite reasonably often in the development of one and the same gesture. This process ties together the many forms of gesture more closely than other circumstances might make it seem. The influence of time has proven the most important factor in differentiation of manifestations. More decisive than the level of culture or even than the probable degree of restriction or freedom, is whether a certain form of gestural communication has a long tradition (the Indians and Neapolitans) or whether, in contrast, it is a neologism which can be traced only through a few generations (the deaf-mutes). As we shall see shortly, since these differences of time and tradition are connected with the noteworthy quirks in individual gestures, we shall want to keep the two phenomena of neologistic and inherited gestures very separate as we continue. Of course, these phenomena are to be understood only in the relative sense. There is obviously no totally original formation of a new system of gestures, independent from a certain degree of influence by tradition; nor, even more seldom, is there one in which sporadic neologisms do not constantly occur.

19

For the most part artificially invented, the so-called 'secret markings' ('Kenn-zinken) of criminals belong here because of the over-all associations with signs of natural gestures. (Zinken is perhaps of folk etymological origin from the Latin signum). We will return to them below (V,3) in the discussion o f the connection between gestural speech and pictography.

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II. BASIC GESTURAL FORMS

1. Psychological classification of gestures If one typifies the various forms of gestures as being similar to dialects, to borrow a concept from the realm of spoken language, one can venture a classification of gestures according to their origin, thus making a sort of etymology of them. But of course, the sense of the expression 'dialect' changes considerably in this application, and this change throws some light on the nature of gestural communication itself. Omitting completely all artificial sign languages, one can talk of various dialects, but never of differing language families. Moreover, the apparent differences of dialects are more dependent on external influences and on the existence of long tradition than on original association or common descent of the peoples involved. The inference thus arises that an etymology of gestures can play only a limited part in indicating the origin of any given sign from the gestures preceding it. An indication of this kind is possible only where a gesture, in the course of time, either has undergone change itself, or has changed its original meaning. We can prove that the latter happens by observing the shift of certain signs. Even so, we must realize that this development is a limited one. Since even in such forms of gestural communication that rest on a long tradition the number of signs is relatively small which appreciably change in character or meaning, it follows that the question of the origin for the majority of gestures can be understood only in the psychological sense. If the etymology of speech must content itself with the investigation of original forms, it has to accept them as historically given and not as derived. For just this reason, then, they remain inexplicable. The 'etymology' of a gesture, on the other hand, is indicated when its psychological meaning and its connection with the general principles of expressive movement is recognized. So the problem begins right where the etymology of spoken language usually ends. Here, the meaning of gestural communication for over-all psycholinguistic problems becomes more appreciable. To some extent, the gesture always seems to remain on the level

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of its original condition, and what we observe in traces of historical change tends, in this connection, to establish the character of gestural communication as a language. One might go so far as to say that the concept of original language, which is only a hypothetical peripheral question in speech investigations, becomes an observable reality in gestures. But this fact, even if it has no other discernible purpose, proves the necessity for the supposition of an original language in the psychological sense: that is, the necessity for a time in the development of every natural form of communication when the relationship between the sign and what it signified was immediately apparent. Of course, gestural communication has shown that this time need not have occured at the very same instant for all elements of the language. For in gestural communication, original elements and neologisms are parallel to metamorphosed forms, which have transformed the original meaning into an apparently conventional sign. An etymology of gestures investigating the psychological origin of the individual gesture must begin by taking expressive movements into account; gestures themselves are nothing more than movements of expression which have been given special qualities by the urge to communicate and to understand. Actually, there are two basic forms of affective gesture which regularly confront us as the original elements of this means of communication demonstrative and imitative gestures. Of these two basic forms, the demonstrative is the one most indicative of the original way of expressing emotion through gestures. Just as its external manifestation is incapable of much development, the meaning itself is no less limited. With imitative gestures, the situation is markedly different. To be sure, they share genetic roots as imitative movements, since the drive to imitate the object that has stimulated interest has a similar psychological effect on them. These gestures, however, sprung from the same roots, have gone their separate ways to such a great extent that the word 'imitative' applies to them just about as poorly as would the epithet 'imitative arts' to all the fine arts. For this reason, we shall want to designate this second class with an expression encompassing all the pecu-

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liarities of its application: we call this class DESCRIPTIVE GESTURES. We then divide it into two sub-classes, MIMED and CONNOTATIVE. Of the two, the mimed are the closest to mere imitation, as their name implies; in the simplest cases, they can be considered one and the same thing. But on the whole, we encounter even in them a more sophisticated level of expression since the transformation of an object that takes place in the fantasy of an onlooker has begun to play a role before the gesture is mimed. The mime thus embodies the image in a way similar to but freer than pure imitation in the fine arts. Also, in this relationship lies the reason for differentiating between mimed and connotative gestures, for the latter necessitates a connection between the sign and its object which occurs only through the supplementary help of the imagination. Finally, we may well call a third class SYMBOLIC gestures. They are of a secondary nature, insofar as they are traceable to demonstrative or descriptive gestures, or some combination of the two. Also, the number of symbolic gestures will definitely increase with the development of the gestural language. Even then, the simplest symbolic signs will often reach back into the earliest, if not the beginning stages of the system. The over-all character of the symbolic gesture, though, consists of transmitting the concept to be communicated from one field of perception to another, e.g. implying a temporal conception with spatial means or depicting an abstract idea physically.20 2. Demonstrative gestures

That the demonstrative gesture is not only the simplest, but also the most primary gesture in the effort to communicate is seen in a number of ways. With children, pointing at objects occurs earliest and most independently in the effort to communicate, that is, in the general meaning of linguistic gesture. In the same way, 20

Compare this classification and the following, also with consideration of Delbrück (Grundfragen der Sprachforschung (1901), pp. 48ff.) and Sütterlin (Das Wesen der sprachlichen Gebilde, pp. 14ff.), to my writings: Sprachgeschichte und Sprachpsychologie, pp. 35ff.

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simple demonstrative movements predominate among the neologisms of gestural communication; whereas the traditional forms consist mainly of miming gestures, employing the demonstrative element only as some sort of composite. Their greater primitiveness is easily explained by the psychological conditions of their origin. Where an object referred to by a given gesture is in the realm of visible things, direct pointing at it with the index finger is the simplest, surest, and most straight-forward way of drawing attention to it. It is a means derived from the desire for direct communication and is by nature unpremeditated. Where an individual gesture system is formed from scratch, where perchance a deaf-mute is raised in isolation among hearing people, a demonstrative gesture directed at an object is practically the only one to occur initially. This suffices all the more because, at first, the interest leading eventually to communication focuses only on such things as are evident to immediate perception. Of course, this is a situation which changes when memory begins to play a greater role and when in the use of gestures there are not always objects at hand to relate experience, to give commands, or to express wishes. The urge to communicate then leads to making the idea to be depicted apparent through reference to its peculiarities. But even here, the deaf-mute grasps at the demonstrative gesture in the event that the appropriate objects are present, or he at least makes use of it as an aid to the mimed sign. Together they cooperate: the imitative element reveals the absence of the object and the demonstrative, by pointing at a similar object, does away with the uncertainty of the mere imitative gesture. In the case of inherited gestures, the situation is somewhat different, due to the various kinds of mimed signs having attained a more fixed and stable meaning through habituation. Moreover, the occasional suppression of the simplest gestural forms is also conditioned by the fact that gestural communication takes on the character of a secret language in which the pointing at an object comes to be avoided for the very reason that it is so easily deciphered. In its original meaning, the demonstrative gesture indicates

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quite simply the object present, serving the purpose of drawing attention to it. But since objects of our surroundings may occasionally be absent from our own presence, there arises (after a certain tradition has developed, of course) the independent mimed sign capable of successful reference to most external objects despite their absence. There remain two types of concepts for which the directly demonstrative gesture is fitting because there will always be instances where the object is present. The first type is that of the PARTIES OF A CONVERSATION, the second, that of SPATIAL RELATIONSHIPS. For example, 'you' and T are constantly recurring concepts in speech: even if the parties change, the connection, the situation, and relationship remain. To some extent, if less invariably, a third person (singular or plural) can play an analogous role. Similarly, spatial directions - up, down, left and right, in front of and behind - cannot be expressed in any other way than demonstrative gestures, which originate in the person's own body as the center of all spatial orientation. Furthermore, certain other demonstrative gestures might be mentioned which are not very different in form, yet are no longer considered of a purely demonstrative nature. To these belong those gestural forms describing largeness and smallness, that is, dimensions of height, as well as some other dimensional concepts. Then there are those demonstrative motions directed at the parts of the body, in order to indicate either the parts themselves or certain aspects of their nature or function. Finally, there are gestures which place the three dimensions of space into the context of past, present, and future. These three forms, along with the simple demonstrative gestures, are the most wide-spread of all. They are to be found consistently in the signs used by deaf-mutes, the Cistercians, and in many other forms of inherited gestural communication. We are therefore completely justified in considering these demonstrative gestures a natural means of expression of the highest order. Of course, they tend to take on the character of intermediate steps between primary demonstrative forms and various imitative gestures. Mimed gestures, however, have a greater depth of idea which, even though indicated like demon-

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strative ones, goes beyond the expressive movement itself. The demonstrative gesture, in the concept of size, for example, has been fully assimilated by the mimed sign. The indication of the body's organs, their properties and functions, by the communicator's pointing to parts of his own body, seems much closer to the primary meaning and thus, may be regarded as a special form of the simple demonstrative gesture. In this way, the head, chest, leg, ear, eye, nose, tongue, and so on are shown; similar movements depict and indicate the function of the organ: vision, hearing, smell, taste, and others. In all these cases, a broadening of meaning, extending from the person to the parts of his body, has come about in comparison to the simple demonstrative gesture. Such a sign usually serves no longer only as a means to indicate that which is associated with the person himself, but also as the closest available means of getting the idea across. For this reason, still other possible developments in meaning arise, a good example being the indication of an organ to call forth its function, as with the sensing organs. Or, other gestures, movements which already possess the quality of descriptive gestures, can reinforce the demonstrative ones. As an example, we take the wide-spread gesture which points first to the eye, then away from it, thereby distinguishing the organ itself from its function. Or another: flesh is conventionally indicated by Cistercians and deaf-mutes alike by pulling a small fold of skin on the forearm; this is a gesture serving to differentiate between the flesh and the arm itself. Just through this action, it loses the character of a demonstrative gesture. So this kind of gesture, in addition to indicating function and peculiarities related to the organ, can merge with any other concept related to it. For example, the color 'red', indicated by pointing to the lips or cheeks or even, as among the Cistercians, pointing to the nose ('that which is reddened'), connotes 'wine', a gesture whose uniformity through centuries of monastic language throws a remarkable light on how this symptom must have arisen among the pious monks. Naturally, these are already all secondary extensions entering into the realm of meaning change.

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3. Imitative gestures Incomparably greater in size and much more variegated is the class of descriptive gestures. They fall, as mentioned above, into several forms which are best ordered according to their genetic relationships. Whereas in the case of demonstrative gestures, the secondary form is always extended to the descriptive, thus making apparent the natural deficiency of mere demonstrative gestures; in the different levels of development of gestures themselves there remains constantly the close tie with the primary form from which they came. This primary form is, however, that of the MIMED gesture. These are a direct development of imitative movements, with which they coincide completely in their original form. Those fully-developed gestures in this class may be differentiated into two clear types: either the outline of the object is drawn in the air by the index finger, or the image of the object is imitated threedimensionally with the hands. The first we call the INDICATIVE; the second, the PLASTIC form of imitative gestures. Both the transitory sketch and the more enduring hand form are capable of occuring together, and this is usually the case where gestural communication is well developed. Generally, though, the transitory sketch drawn in the air is considered the more primitive of the two. It predominates in the natural gestures of deaf-mutes, while the more-developed sign languages, having a longer tradition, make use of hand-formed shapes more readily, augmented where necessary by outlining and demonstrative gestures.21 A deaf-mute indicates the idea 'house' by making an outline of the roof and sides with his index finger. Similarly, Cistercians do the same, not forgetting to distinguish the church building from the house 21

This preponderance of indicative gestures is clearly illustrated among the deaf-mute if one goes through the detailed list collected by Ed. Schmalz (Über die Taubstummen und ihre Bildung, pp. 314ff.) and compares it with the lists of G. Mallery and A. de Jorio which relate to the inherited gestural languages. Schmalz is, moreover, the only one of these authors who has ordered the gestures in distinct classes - to be sure, in classes which are borrowed from the grammar of speech and thus, since these categories do not exist in gestural speech, they have no meaning for it.

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by adding a cross to the top of the roof. 'Room' is shown by drawing a square; 'yard', 'town square', and 'garden' are signified also by a square or, more frequently, by a circle. The relationship of speech or further demonstrative and descriptive gestures separate again these different concepts. By adding the sniffing of a flower onto a circle that has been sketched, 'garden' is rendered distinct from 'place', 'scent' being rendered by a repeated movement of the index finger and thumb toward the nose. 'Smoke' is expressed by a spiraling movement of the index finger in an upward direction to approximate the agitation of a cloud. Obviously, if this scent were to come from a house, one would know just what was meant by the addition of a roof sketch. Should smoke from a burning flame be in mind, this is shown by blowing on the upheld index finger: these two signs for 'smoke' and 'flame' together also mean 'fire'. Similar alliances of indicative and descriptive gestures manifest themselves in abundance. To communicate 'bread', the deaf-mute traces a circle to stand for the loaf, and makes slicing motions. Deaf-mutes and Cistercians have the same symbol for 'book': they place the two hands in the form of an open book, while making reading movements with their lips. Also, the deafmute expresses 'hat' (in the context of men's headwear) by tracing the shape of a top-hat above the head. Prince Wied tells of the same symbol among the Rocky Mountain Indians; the sign is extended to mean the white man himself, the 'hat-bearer', as opposed to the natives of the region. The Negro, due to the fact that he is generally in European clothing, came to be indicated by passing the flat of the hand above the head - a reference to the kinky hair. Animals are drawn by Indian and deaf-mute alike in outline showing usually not the whole beast, but its most distinctive feature or features. 'Deer' is shown by drawing antlers above the brow; by a very similar motion, one indicates an ox; a goat is signified by its beard; if thumb and index are moved so as to mime a beak, we have 'bird'. Finally, other such transitory signs appear readily where they are needed to express process or activity during an elapse of time (those usually expressed in speech as verb forms). Fingers walking down the arm imitate 'walking';

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two fingers astride the forearm easily show the action of 'riding'; lip movements communicate 'speaking'. By pointing the index finger from the mouth to a specific object or person, one adds to the lip movements the idea 'is called...' or 'has the name...', the object pointed at being named. The same movement of the lips means 'singing' when it is accompanied by the motions of keeping time with the arm. Similarly, there are other such motions: 'hitting', making hitting motions with one arm; 'hiding', concealing the right hand beneath clothing on the left side; 'buying', by alternate picking up and laying down of two objects, thus expressing, in turn, giving and taking, and so on. Besides these indicative signs, the inherited systems of gestural communication have developed plastic gestures too. They originate because the hand is an easily used and extremely flexible tool for depicting natural or artificial form, improving greatly with practice. This plastic gesture is almost entirely lacking among the deafmutes, while, on the other hand, it plays a major role in the speech of the Indians and the Neapolitans. Figures 1 through 3 represent a small collection of such signs.22 Those in Fig. 1 are Neapolitan; Figs. 2 and 3 are of American

Fig. 1. Neapolitan Hand-gestures

origin. Gesture a of Fig. 1 is a much-used Neapolitan gesture for a 'horned head'. The index and little fingers are the horns; the rest of the hand, the mass of the head. The original meaning is, 22 The drawings in Fig. 1 are taken from the work of A. de Jorio (La mimica degli antichi, Fig. 19 and 20), those in figures 2 and 3 from the work of G. Mallery ("Sign Language among the North American Indians").

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of course, that of a horned animal. Likewise, b is an ass's head: the 'V between the little fingers and the other three fingers is the open jaw while the thumbs represent the ears. If both hands are pointed downwards, still joined as before, while the thumbs press closer together (Fig. Ic), we have the ass's head once again, but in a frontal, not a profile view. A gesture frequently used by the Neapolitans is the 'bottle', reproduced in d\ the uptilted thumb is the neck of the bottle and the clenched fist the body. The Indian's plastic gestures are even more manifold than those of the Neapolitans. In Fig. 2e we see their way of expressing

Fig. 2. North American Indian Hand-gestures

'money'. This mimes the form of a coin and as such is a widespread sign the world over, for example, in Japan. Fig. 2/is the Indian sign for 'sun'; it is nothing more than another depiction of a round object, as in e, but the use of both hands shows its correspondingly greater size. To delimit the meaning somewhat better, the hands forming the circle move from East to West to signify 'the round object that goes from East to West'. The possible ambiguity of such a sign renders it useful in other contexts. Prince Wied states that it can stand for an Indian village, where to be specific, the user separates the hands slightly in order to indicate

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the two gates of the enclosure. 'Tent' is shown by hollowing the hand and bending it forward, as in g, crossing the finger tips to imitate tent poles. If this same symbol, with fingers uncrossed, is directed downward (Fig. 2A) with the palm hollowed a bit more, it means 'drinking gourd', by extension also 'drink' or 'water'. A more complete way of showing a tent is in Fig. 2i. The interweaving of the fingers of the two hands reproduces an image of the tent poles even more graphically than the above sign. If one presents the backs of the hands, fingers interwoven, as in k, he expresses 'log hut', the fingers representing the overlapping logs. A hand turned upward, each finger pointing up, is a 'tree' (Fig. 21), and the same sign directed downward is either a 'bush' or 'grass'. Figure 3 shows a further series of plastic hand gestures. If a hand position as that in Fig. 21 (but with the fingers extended more

Fig. 3. North American Indian Hand-gestures

horizontally) is moved upward (Fig. 3m), the meaning is 'smoke'. Both hands held in the same position, but made to move downward, mean 'rain'. The Indians, as the Neapolitans, indicate the animais they wish to describe by outlining parts of them. The hand posi-

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tions in Figures 3p, q and r show, respectively, a bear's paw, a horse's head, and an antelope's head. One must always take into account that these signs are recognizable only when placed in the context of conversation or when 'modified' by additional signs: e.g., adding to 'horse' the sign for 'riding'. In many other cases, the actual sense of a certain plastic gesture is more precisely signified if there is an accompanying indicative gesture. Hence, the sign for 'sun' (Fig. 2/) may be clarified by the East to West movement. This gesture takes on the connotation 'day' if the hands forming the circle (in simpler cases, the single hand) make the quick movement from East to West, then return just as quickly along the same path. The sign for 'cloud' usually consists of the hands' being held over the head, formed into the shape of a cloud's underside,while a gesture relating this sign to the sky is executed. Mallery has already shown that these and other gestures are conspicuously like the signs of Indian picture language, while at the same time, there is a universal relationship between independently originated forms of picture writing of numerous peoples as between the corresponding gestures.23 Apart from the hands, which are the most fitting means of creating plastic forms, the mimicking muscular disposition of the face aids in this production also. But while the hand is able to mime every conceivable external circumstance, the face is only capable of reproducing itself in the different conditions of affective expression. Just as the hand refers to objective concepts, so the plastic, miming muscles of the face express subjective conditions. Accordingly, we have, first, feeling and emotion, then the other states of consciousness such as sleep, death, or tension which are best perceived through mimed aspects. The moulding of the face consists of the utilization of natural mimicry for gestural communication. The gesture is no longer a direct expression of the corresponding state of mind, but rather relates the concept of this state itself. This extension is so suggestive that the gestures, in contrast 23

G. Mallery, "Sign Language among the North American Indians", pp. 349ff. Compare also E. B. Tyler, Urgeschichte der Menschheit, pp. lOSff., just as below V,3.

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to those more developed systems with only the plastic forms of the hands, are an early, widespread and very stable element of gestural communication. Thus 'joy', 'pain', 'sorrow', 'worry', 'anger', and other emotions are usually represented by facial expression with indicative and demonstrative gestures helping to some degree. In a similar way, deaf-mutes and savages convey the idea of 'attentiveness' with a tense facial expression reinforced by raising the index finger. To indicate 'sleep' and 'death', the head is laid with eyes closed against the right hand. If the index finger points toward the ground, it implies 'death', comparable to saying, 'he who sleeps down there'. 4. Connotative gestures In an earlier portion of this chapter, the connotative gestures were distinguished as being a second sub-type of descriptive gestures. Their characteristic effect consists not in outlining an object completely or partially, but in singling out arbitrarily one of its secondary traits to represent it. It is difficult, of course, to draw a sharp line between connotative gestures and the previous form. For example, one may regard the lower row of examples in Figure 3 (p, q, r) as belonging to the previous class. Representing a goat by quick outlining of its beard, or depicting the ass by its ears these one may already call connotative gestures. The gradualness of the transition to this form is due to its nature. All descriptive gestures are forms developed from similar or the same early sources. Where some kind of secondary sign will suffice in lieu of a sketch or a hand form, the gesture is enough to prompt recall of a specific image by association. Just as the mimed gesture appears in two ways, sketched and plastic, there are also two such forms for the connotative gesture: a transitory one and one able to be held indefinitely. An important difference between them and the mimed gesture is that they are much more easily intertwined and are easier to exchange. Moreover, in this case it is also true that the transitory sketch is more characteristic of primitive, neologistic gestural communication, whereas

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the prolonged, plastic form is true of traditional, inherited systems. The deaf-mute will usually indicate the concept 'man' by making the movement to lift his hat. This is, naturally, a purely Occidental custom, as there is no such greeting in the Orient. But as it serves to indicate only the male where it is in use, it is completely satisfactory. The customary way of indicating 'woman' is to lay the hand on the breast. The Cistercians had a variant form: they made a horizontal gesture to the forehead with the index finger, referring to the shorter height of the female. That this is not an accidental and isolated instance is witnessed by Prince Wied in his statement that the very same gesture is part of Indian communication. However, the gesture the Indians used to indicate the idea 'man' consists of raising the index finger above the head. One might go so far as to identify a reinforcing symbolic meaning, that of the dominant male position. German deaf-mutes tend to indicate 'child' by rocking the right elbow on the left hand, as if to say, 'that which one holds in one's arms and rocks'. The Cistercians expressed the same by directing the index finger at the mouth, and Mallery states that this is also so among Indian tribes, as well as in the hieroglyphics of the Egyptians and in the drawings of Harpokrates, 'the god of silence'. In fact, it would seem as though the infant's inability to speak were indicated here. In Japan, a related gesture in common use means Old woman'; for this purpose the finger points at the teeth or the place where they were, referring apparently to 'the toothless one'. The following are further connotative gestures from the vocabulary of the deaf-mute, all of which are characterized by their transitory, sketched nature. For 'fire', blowing on the index finger; 'butter', a spreading motion; 'salt', a sprinkling motion; and 'stone', lifting from the ground and then tapping the teeth to indicate hardness. This last example can also mean merely 'hard' by itself, and in another context 'white'. Other gestures have already been mentioned as movements that accompany and determine (to some degree) a mimed gesture's meaning and hence, are plastic signs (e.g. the movement of East to West, expressing the sun or daytime; the upward movement of the hand formed in the tree sign to represent the growth of a tree).

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In contrast to all these signs consisting of variable movements, communicated for the most part solely by the hands, the plastic connotative gestures have a character all their own in that they are formed through the cooperation of face and hands. The facial expression sets the over-all tone needed to interpret the emotional direction of the gesture. The actual execution of the connotative gesture falls to the hands in some connection with the face. This plastic sub-form may also be seen as a modification of those gestures in which an emotion is expressed with mimed facial expression. Figure 4 shows a few examples from the Neapolitan gestural system;

Fig. 4. Neapolitan Mimic Hand-signs

the same gestures occur elsewhere in the same or similar forms.24 The gesture in a is the old, well-known way of signalling 'quiet', first as a warning or a request directed at others, then as the idea itself. It comprises two elements: a mimic and a pantomime part. The former, being closed lips, stands for 'silence'; if a fixed stare is added, it means 'watchfulness'; and if a certain individual is fixed with the eyes, it becomes a request. The pantomimed part of the gesture, the raised index finger, lends the character of a command to the facial expression. Both components of the gesture are thus closely allied and can be interpreted only by means of each other. A gesture which is not quite so straightforward is Fig. b. Taking hold of both cheeks has a demonstrative function drawing attention to the face, particularly to the cheeks, which are 24

A. de Jorio, La mimica degli anficht, Fig. 21.

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essential for the sign. What this means is decided by the accompanying mimed expression, as in the previous example. If the face is a smiling one, as in the illustration, it can have an over-all pleasant effect and mean 'beauty'. If twisted into a snarl, it is 'ugliness'. Long and drawn, cheeks pressed in to look hollow, it stands for 'emaciation' or 'meagerness'. The reverse - swelled-out cheeks - signifies 'in good physical state'. In c, the mimic and pantomimic gestures work together to show 'hunger' or 'indigence'. The mouth opens greedily, the mimic gesture indicates the uncomfortable state of a hungry person. In addition, the right hand is directed toward the mouth supplemented by the fingers' being bent to imitate biting. A common gesture in Japan, a finger placed between the teeth and with the same needy look on the face, also expressed 'hunger' originally; however, it has taken on the general meaning of 'wish', thus becoming a symbolic gesture. At a somewhat similar half-way point between connotation and symbol is the Neapolitan movement which consists of placing a flat hand over the forehead, with a strained expression, making plain the act of wiping sweat from the brow, as during hard work. The first meaning is physical exertion, but further implications are 'effort' arid 'fatigue'. In many other cases the connotative gesture borders on the third and most important form of descriptive signs for the internal development of gestural communication, that of symbolic gestures. 5. Symbolic gestures If we subordinate gestural communication to the general category of language, we may speak of its symbols in the same general context we do when we talk of the WORD as a symbol of the CONCEPT. Here, symbol means merely a sign of some sort that calls to mind a mental 3oncept, whether the connection between them is concerned with an ordinary external object or with a more subtle relationship. In our modern way of thinking, the word, with few exceptions, is indeed just such an external sign. It is as different from the concept it represents as an algebraic symbol is from the

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value it replaces. At most, it has the advantage of a more fixed association with its meaning. Yet this is where speech is differentiated from gestural communication. The gesture appears to us not as a haphazard, external symbol, but as the ADEQUATE symbol of an idea. By this means, hcwever, the more confined concept of the symbolic gesture is distinguished from the general classification of 'gestural signs' that is applicable to almost any movement expressing an idea. We may use this kind of gesture if, through some kind of conceptual extension by association, it refers indirectly to the idea it represents, in contrast to the direct indication of the previous examples. Since one thinks of a 'symbol' as a sensory image that is supposed to represent a concept differing from itself but related to it by association, then a 'symbolic gesture' will be, in this general sense of the meaning, one which stimulates a certain sensory image in order to tie together different thoughts associated through inner qualities. Accordingly, we must distinguish the indirect symbolic gesture from all other direct ones. To point at an object is to indicate it directly. The same is true if a picture of it is drawn in the air, or if a plastic hand form is used to mime it. Even when some quality or external relationship of the object is emphasized, it is still considered a direct sign. With indirect signs, however, the situation is substantially different. In them, the idea to be communicated is expressed by a gesture which itself is not the idea, nor does it seem allied with the idea by any natural similarity. Rather, it connects the idea and the gesture by obscure psychological links. The difference from the closely related connotative gesture is that the symbolic one implies a completely distinct idea which can be represented only by the attached qualities of that idea, rather than by the idea itself. Here one should not confuse the term 'symbol' with its extended use in the arts. The symbolic gesture does not need to express either the thought which is far removed from the physical perception or the abstract idea. The essence of the symbol consists, rather, only of its conceptual content which is connected to its sign by some link. The relation between each gesture and what it indicates relies

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on association. The signs we have encountered up until now have been such that the relationship between sign and meaning have led directly to one another. The demonstrative gesture, therefore, refers directly to its meaning. Mimed and connotative gestures also arouse their corresponding images directly, because their traits are like those images they depict. This changes with symbolic gesture because there is always at least one intermediate idea between the gesture and the concept to be expressed, allied as closely to one as to the other. The difference between these examples corresponds precisely to that between direct and indirect association. Thus;, a hand cupped like a ladle is directly associated with its meaning, 'drinking gourd' (Fig. 2/z). The Indians use the same gesture to indicate 'water'. This is where an indirect association arises between the object and the means used to indicate it. The gesture suggests the ladle or gourd, which in turn implies that which it holds. This new application makes the gesture a symbolic one in the most general sense: the concept expresses an idea not for its own sake, but for one that is different from it. Despite the symbol, the actual meaning remains a concrete one, capable of being replaced by a direct indicative gesture, such as one pointing directly at nearby water, or one connoting drinking. The symbolic gestures are extremely instructive as concerns the psychological development of symbolism, since they offer every possible level of transformation from the most primitive to the most highly developed, where a concrete image becomes the expression of a concept which cannot actually be represented by concrete means. The number of associative links between the sign and symbolic value tends to increase, however. The plastic hand form of an ass's head or ear, for instance, is very seldom used in its original meaning (Fig. \b, c) but has taken on the well-known connotation of 'stupidity'. The symbolism is still simple on this level because there is only one link between the idea and the symbol - that of the proverbial stupid ass. Here we see already how a symbol replaces a concept that cannot be expressed in another way because it possesses no physical properties. From such simple symbolic gestures it is now easier to recognize how complex

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symbols derive from several intervening associative links. They are more ambiguous and only understandable through the relationship of the thoughts. Thus, the plastic mime of the horned bull's head (Fig. la) among the Neapolitans carries the symbolic meaning 'strength', besides the literal one. Further it implies 'danger' in relation to a charging bull. Finally, through extension, it may indicate 'the wish to be protected from danger'. In this way it becomes clear how the increase of associative links separates more and more the symbolic from the imitative meaning. If one starts by looking at the symbolic gestures in the preceding paragraph in terms of their relationship to mimed and connotative gestures, they fall into two large groups: those having come from an easily discernible earlier form or those having existed from the start as symbols. We can differentiate these two groups as secondary and primary symbolic gestures. Of the two groups, the secondary are the most original. Probably not until after the other forms of gestures had begun to shift their meanings gradually through the chains of association did a primary symbolism become possible. One must not exclude the possibility, though, that some nonsymbolic sense is easily incorporated into symbols; it is the nature of the symbol that an abstract concept is expressed concretely. This concrete form may always be considered the direct meaning of the symbol. The concrete expression is often so far removed from the abstract concept in primary symbolic gestures, however, that without some knowledge of the real relationship, it would be impossible to derive the one meaning from the other. This is so because the concept in its general form preceded the physical gesture. The primary symbolic gestures correspond to abstract concepts from the start, which helps explain why they are a late development. Moreover, it is hard to be sure whether such a gesture was symbolic from the very beginning. One can decide this with sufficient probability only in certain borderline cases. So we consider it a secondary symbol when, for example, the Indian places his hand above his head to mean 'chief; the simple concrete meaning of a body size greater than normal is clear enough. On the other hand, when Indians and deaf-mutes move

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their index finger of the left hand from the mouth down and to the left to indicate 'lie', as if to say Oblique, off-center speech', we have every right to call this a primary symbol. It is evident that after the concept lie existed, this concrete sign was chosen, but no one can ascribe to it any direct connection between the meaning and the physical motion's appearance. In contrast, it is virtually impossible to ascertain whether the sign of the ass's head originally signified the animal itself or the mocking of a stupid person. In still other cases, the gesture may have a primary and a secondary symbolism: for example, the Indian gesture for 'peace', which consists of the indication for a pipe plus the gesture for greeting and friendship, clasped hands or linked index fingers (Fig. 11). The pipe is a secondary symbol coming from custom, whereas the friendship sign is apparently primary. Due to the overlapping of symbols of varied origins and the often doubtful state of others, a classification of gestures on this basis would hardly be possible. Yet the difference remains important because the secondary symbol shows us the way to understanding the origin of symbolism: whether it belongs to the realm of gestures, or speech, or is an element in the graphic arts. Finally, the genetic connection of the symbolic and directly mimed gestures is also visible in the recurrence of the two distinct classes of transitory and plastic signs among the symbolic gestures. The downward motion of finger from lips, 'lie', and the straight motion from lips, 'truth', are indicative gestures, just as the Indian's placing his hand over his head to mean 'chief and the sketch of a pipe to denote 'peace'. Moving the finger from the eye of the person communicating toward that of another person or from heart to heart signifies agreement of disposition or view among the Indians; and there is the sign for 'anger', as used by the Cistercians: moving both hands quickly away from the heart to stimulate the welling up and overflowing of feeling. The widespread signs for assent, dissent, doubt, agreement, submission and liking, all of which are transferred from the movements accompanying speech into the systems of gestures, can also be counted among the above related indicative and symbolic gestures.

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Modifications observed in them offer excellent examples of the changes a gesture may undergo. And symbolic gestures are especially susceptible in this respect. When one regards this free-play, the similarity between various symbolic gestures throughout the world is surprising, particularly in the case of general ones. However, a subject of some contention is the way to express assent and dissent. The lack of any internal connection between gesture and meaning in this case is apparent in that the head movement in the Orient is opposite that of the Occident.25 If the modern Arab wishes to express assent, he shakes his head; in denying or negating, he throws his head back, clicking his tongue at the same time. This is certainly no complete opposite. The southern Italians use a sign similar to this negation for expressing rejection or disdain. It consists of placing the hand beneath the chin and moving it in the direction of the person addressed, then tilting the head back.26 Snapping the fingers - the widely known gesture of pressing the middle finger against the base of the thumb - is closely related. In these three cases the motion of rejection, at the same time expressing the insignificance of the object indicated, differs only in the parts of the body used. The snapping of fingers is actually just a variant of the eastern tongue-clicking. Throwing the head back is even more directly related. A strange phenomenon, though, is head-shaking to express assent. As it would appear, this is a modern gesture that, for some unknown reason, split with an older one related to our own, since the Mohammedan habit of head-shaking and throwing back the head for 'yes' and 'no' stems from the time of the Prophet.27 Likewise, the shaking of a garment or the motion of dusting it off is mentioned as another Eastern way of expressing negation. In addition, the Indians of North America have analogous hand signs for agreement and disagreement. Assent is shown by moving the right hand forward 25

Goldziher, "Über Gebärden - und Zeichensprache bei den Arabern", p. 377. 26 A. de Jorio, La mimica degli antichi, Fig. 21, fig. 2. 27 Goldhizer, "Über Gebärden - und Zeichensprache bei den Arabern", p. 378.

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from the chest, opening the palm upward; negation is a movement that starts similarly, but ends in a quick downward slash to the side.28 This confirms that all these symbols developed independently and thus exhibit various external forms; but they are all related in essential character. The same situation arises in encountering the many and varied gestures of greeting, friendship, and liking. The relationship of the Oriental gestures of greeting to the Occidental ones is such that they may be considered different manifestations of the same general form, although the former are intensified and the latter subdued. Accompanying gestures have become attached to them, however, at times displacing the primary movement of the body and especially the head movement. There is the Mohammedan custom of crossing the arms over the breast with the accompanying words of prayer. There is the specific western habit of baring the head, which one can trace back to the days when the Romans as well as Germans regarded headgear - hats and helmets - as a sign of freedom, so that removing them became a symbol of submission.29 Similarly, it appears, the kiss of greeting is a custom limited to the cultures of antiquity. Yet everywhere the kiss is lacking, there is some other original means of expressing the same idea. Nose-rubbing, beating or rubbing the arms, breast, or other part of the body are among these, expressing the drive for intimate contact corresponding to love.30 The handshake as a sign of greeting is another usage unknown outside of Western civilization. Among the Indians, this gesture was once a sign of peace - probably its oldest and primary use. As a greeting of friendship it served 28

Prince von Wied, Reise in das Innere von Nord-Amerika, II, p. 648, Nr. 34, 35. Mallery, "Sign Language among the North American Indians," pp. 454ff. 29 Grimm, Deutsche Rechtsaltertümer*, p. 152. 30 Darwin, Ausdruck der Gemütsbewegungen bei dem Menschen und den Tieren (German edition 1872), p. 218. R. Andree, Ethnographische Parallelen und Vergleiche, II (1889), pp. 223ff. The nose greeting, for which Andree points out very definite regions of diffusion, could, as this author supposes, have come from smelling, which, with the finer development of the sense of smell among primitive peoples, might have established in a primitive condition the distinction between fellow tribesmen and strangers Then it would also be at the same time a secondary symbolic gesture.

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only in contact with white people. Among themselves, the Indians supplant it with other signs of greeting - embracing and rubbing arm or breast against each other.31 The examples just presented offer in their several forms proof of the various differing psychological origins of symbolic gestures. The signs for truth and lying, or those for agreement of point of view using references relating to the eye and heart, are feasible only in the context of gestural communication. It is inconceivable that they stem from any cause other than the urge to communicate. In contrast to them, the simple yes/no, as well as the gestures of liking, respect, and friendship are partially the product of natural expressive movements that initially satisfied only subjective situations, secondarily letting emotions themselves play a part, and finally communicating the concept as such. They became mere vestigial diminutions of the former expressions. Moreover, they underwent changes in meaning; for example, the transition of the handshake from an expression of peace to one of greeting, or the baring of the head as a sign of submission becoming a gesture of respect. Like the first appearance of symbolic gestures out of expressive movements, the metamorphoses of meaning are also in themselves processes resulting from the constant change in psychological conditions. On the other hand, the signs which have arisen purely out of the urge to communicate, such as those for 'truth' and 'lie', possess to a greater degree the character of arbitrary creations and occasionally even of deliberate inventions. This naturally does not exclude the conditions of their development being based anyway on generally valid psychological qualities and capabilities. In fact, only through these can we explain how gestures of this sort come about, and how, despite their seemingly deliberate creation, they develop similarly but independently in analogous situations. If, in this way, there is a certain universal validity ascribed to those symbolic gestures connected to imitative ones (a state that does not, by any means, preclude the possibility of variants), 31

G. Mallery, "Sign Language among the North American Indians", p. 385.

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the plastic gesture also takes on, once more, a somewhat divergent position. It is found chiefly in those systems having a long tradition, many having thus become quite conventional in a certain region. Since the ambivalence and vagueness of all symbolisms is coupled with the conditions of local restriction, the direct comprehensibility that is usually so much a part of gestural communication is often lacking in plastic gestures with symbolic meaning. According to the external aids which complement them, they may be classed into two groups: that in which hand and face work together, and that in which the hand alone presents the plastic form. The first falls together with those plastic mimed gestures that evoke the nature of emotion through facial movement and the precise aspect through the hand (Fig. 4). Among the symbolic gestures, too, mimic expression is absolutely essential for an understanding of the gesture. It determines the over-all feeling with which the hand gesture must be interpreted. This in turn gives rise to the idea corresponding to the gesture as a whole. In the first illustration of Figure 5 (d), this appears in the Neapolitan gesture of mistrust.

Fig. 5. Neapolitan Mimic Hand-signs

It serves first to warn, its most obvious meaning. The left hand pulls down the lower eyelid in order to inform the person at whom it is directed that he should keep his eyes open. The facial expression of wariness, reinforced by the raised index finger of the right hand, strengthens the image; a slightly smirking element would imply slyness. The second illustration (Fig. 5e) shows a

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very remarkable gesture. It is the Neapolitan concept of 'deception' or 'lying', used also as a warning. A look of wariness and craftiness similar to, but more tense than the one above, is used. The left hand, stuck between the collar and the neck, seems to try to give an oversize bite room to pass. If one associates this with such expressions as 'swallow a big one' or 'too much to swallow', the concrete base is clarified. Figure 5/ stands for 'slyness' and 'dishonesty'; in the proverb and in gestural language, the nose is the embodiment for sharp perception, sensitivity, and craftiness. The fingers holding the nose show this, and the wide-open eyes exhibit wariness. The nose plays the principal part in another expression, too. It is a common gesture of mocking, when the thumb is placed on the tip of the nose and the little finger wagged

Fig. 6. Symbolic Neapolitan Hand-gestures

at someone. In spoken language, obviously, this taunt is "to thumb one's nose at someone". Since the source of this sign is probably the waxen nose used in masques, signifying both a joke on oneself and the distorted mockery by others,32 the gesture can be considered either as an original mimed gesture of facial distortion or as 32

Grimm, Deutsches Wörterbuch VII (Lexer), p. 407.

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a mimic imitation of the subject of mockery. Similar in form and meaning is the derisive 'donkey's ear' - the ear replaces the nose and, once again, the little finger wags at the object of derision. Both gestures appear to be entirely European in nature. In Japan, one way of expressing mockery is to poke out the tongue, a common gesture the world over. They also possess the derisive sign known in the West of slapping the protruding buttocks, an action which is probably aimed at comparing the face to the hindquarters. Finally, they express another's haughtiness or self-satisfaction by extending the nose with an uptilted fist. The meaning approaches our own expression, "to have one's nose in the air".33 Even more significant than these half-mimed gestures with symbolic meaning are those consisting of plastic hand forms.

Fig. 7. Symbolic North American Hand-gestuies

Figures 6 and 7 show some Neapolitan and Indian gestures, respectively. Many of these forms, having much to do with natural movements and indicative gestures, are familiar everywhere. 33

This is from a communication from Mr. J. Jrie in Sendai. The symbolic gestures of the Neapolitans cited above are taken from A. de Jorio, La mimica degli antichi, Fig. 21. The gestures d and e (Fig. 5) are already mentioned by J. J. Engel in his Ideen zu einer Mimik. He means both, and especially the second, may be inexplicable. (Engel, Fig. 1 & 2,1, pp. 92ff.).

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Among these is the gesture demanding 'silence' (Fig. 6α), used by us too. It expresses the diminishing noise level spatially, by lowering the flat of the hand. When the hand is moved outward as well, as in Fig. 7/z, this is a sign of refusal, repulsing a suggestion, opinion, or something of the sort. For the American Indian, it has thus become a general sign of negation. A gesture opposite to that for 'silence' and 'refusal' is the one in Fig. 7/, in which the palm of the hand is upturned. Like the previous gestures, this one is used in many areas and, according to slight moderation and changes of expression, can be an invitation to speak (a question), a strong agreement (when energetically executed), or the granting of a wish. The warning finger (Fig. 6b) especially denotes a command to be aware and, generally, attentiveness. Further, mime and modification of the movement adds more derived meanings. If a firmly closed mouth is part of the whole gesture (Figure 4α) the idea is the command to 'silence'. The same movement with a threatening look is 'warning'. Unaccompanied by any modification whatsoever, the concept 'unity' is expressed. In the general sense, it is 'counting', the other numbers formed by the use of additional fingers. Each finger, starting with the index as One', is a unit. The whole hand is 'five', and both make 'ten'. To this, one connects the uncertain quantitative concept of 'a bit', thumb and index finger turned upward and pressed together as if holding a tiny pinch of some minute quantity (Fig. 6c). This plastic rearrangement of the descriptive gesture for 'sprinkle', 'powder' and 'salt' is commonly used, originating from the movement of the above finger position in a fixed, upright position. There is no plastic gesture for 'much'; instead motions imply the gathering of large quantities of objects or heaping up. Many Indian tribes use such motions, the hands held outstretched at hip level and brought inward and upward as if to heap pile on pile. For the same concept, deaf-mutes customarily grasp in all directions with both hands. All these quantitative signs lie on the border between mimed and symbolic gestures. On one hand, they are of the group of gestures that reproduce concrete ideas with single examples, characteristic of mimed signs; on the other hand, an idea executed in this way

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is of such general nature that the reproduction loses the essence of example and transforms the general concept into a representative one - that is, a symbol. It is these borderline cases that permit us to see symbolism at the moment of its origin. Certain other forms of plastic gestures should be observed for more than their sake as symbols. These appear as developments of the upright index finger (Fig. 6b). The index fingers of both hands laid side by side, as used by Indians and deaf-mutes, has the meaning 'comrades'. It has developed further into 'spouse' and 'sibling', although the thumb and the index or the index and the middle finger are also used occasionally. A closely related sign in Naples is the kiss of thumb and index finger, meaning 'love', 'marriage' or 'spouse' (Fig. 6/). Introducing to the last gesture of close unity the use of other fingers to indicate value, the contrast of thumb and little finger gains particular significance. Thus, they can indicate 'strong' or 'weak', 'good' or 'evil', the 'stronger' and 'weaker sexes', 'man' and 'wcman', 'brother' and 'sister'. Besides these signs, which occur in the same or similar form, because they are based on generally valid associative and perceptive conditions, others have arisen out of special observations. A characteristic example is the Neapolitan sign for 'justice' (Fig. 6e). Consisting of the gesture of holding a balancing scale in the usual way, it implies the free balancing of the opposite sides. This sign is obviously no more than a pantomime of the same thing found in the classic personification of Justice in the fine arts. Another Neapolitan gesture reminds us of the symbolic use of the little finger just mentioned. It is the conventional way of signifying 'falseness' (Fig. 6g) in which the little fingers are linked around each other, a unique but wide-spread custom. Probably there is symbolism here beyond the general one of the little fingers - that of false friends as represented by their intertwining. The Indians use, in the same sense, the linked index fingers to mean 'friendship' (Fig. 71), the false friendship indicated by linking the little fingers, as above. This friendship gesture is, in any case, only an emphasis of the above mentioned parallel index fingers, a further

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extension of which is portrayed in the Australian friendship sign (Fig. 7k). We mention, as a counterpart to the gesture for 'justice', the one for 'thievery'. The sign in Figure 6dis a plastic gesture showing the taking and hiding of an object, occuring, as the previous sign of falseness, only in Naples, the chief area of plastic gesture. In most other areas, the same idea is put across with sketching motions, as most other concretely perceivable actions are. Deafmutes communicate the idea with snatching motions, followed by a quick poke into a pocket. The Indians, too, make a grabbing motion, and follow it up by closing the hand as it is withdrawn, symbolically tying together the seizure and the appropriation of the object, and thus being more mimed than symbolic.34 Only the limitation of the plastic forming of the hand lends the gesture in Fig. 6d both a symbolic and a conventional character, because it only seizes upon one of many possible aspects in the movement. To an even greater extent, the same is true for two Indian signs, reproduced in Figure 7, m and n. Fig. 7m is the North American sign for 'barter' and 'trade'. One is tempted to place this gesture, along with Figure 71, 'friendship', among the original symbolic components of gestural language, but there is a more accurate interpretation. In Indian pictography, the usual sign for 'barter' is two strokes crossing each other - 'X'. Since m is of late origin, one may then suppose it to have been an extension of picture writing.35 If symbols of a relatively abstract meaning have developed in such a way, whether directly from mimed gestures, or through borrowing from pictography (as in the last example), others can be associated with them that are symbolic from the beginning. The signs that have come about in this manner always bear the mark oi their deliberate creation, not of natural development. Or at most, they are inferred, only in so far as artificial gestures proceed from natural ones. One instance, Figure 7«, should be 34

G. Mallery, "Sign Language among the North American Indians", p. 293, fig. 75. 35 Concerning the presumed origin of signs in pictography, see below, V, 2.

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regarded in this way, a gesture among the Indians having the meaning 'purchase' and apparently an invented variation of Figure 7m. III. AMBIGUITY AND CHANGE OF MEANING OF GESTURES

1. The vagueness of the conceptual categories

According to a remark made rather frequently, gestural language dispenses with all grammatical categories. It has neither inflection nor any other trait to distinguish a given sign as noun, adjective, or verb. Of course, we cannot talk of particles, because the more abstract conceptual relationships inherent in these words are totally absent in natural gestural systems.36 This assertion is correct to the extent that it holds there are no formal traits that isolate a gesture and place it in a strictly delineated category, as in the case of our better-developed spoken languages. Yet Steinthal has already remarked that this formal differentiation is also not present in all spoken languages, although the differentiation of such concepts themselves is not absent. In such cases, on the contrary, the meaning is made quite clear in context. For the very reason that position is primary, many languages that once possessed this means of grammatical order have been lost. Here, then, we have the logical categories, but the words themselves lack the traits which could identify their relationships to one or the other category. If we apply this manner of thinking to gestural communication, there can be no doubt that there are certain categories here too, but they are shown only seldom through a modification of gestures analogous to the grammatical differences in spoken language. In contrast, they derive from context and the order of individual signs. Categorizing this differentiation is hampered by an essential 36

Steinthal, "Über die Sprache der Taubstummen" in: Prutz und Wolfsohn, Deutsches Museum, I (1851), pp. 919ff. E. B. Tylor, Forschungen über die Urgeschichte der Menschheit, pp. 20ff.

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limitation. First, natural gestural communication consists chiefly of content that is concretely perceptible; second, it extends exclusively to concepts falling into three basic, logical categories: objects, qualities, and condition. In this last category, in addition to prolonged states, we include changing and developing conditions, i.e. process and action. Where one would at least expect the aid of grammatical categories, such as prepositions, conjunctions, and abstract adverbs, one finds them completely lacking; or rather, one finds in their stead concrete concepts referring back to the three main categories. Even the three main classifications - objects, features, conditions - are not distinguished by individual gestures as such. Yet the category into which a gesture fits can sometimes be determined simply by the way it is executed. This is acccomplished more clearly through the gestures accompanying the principle ones. They are comparable to the purely form-determining elements of speech, since they serve no other function than to signal the logical form of the concept. They are different from the form-giving elements of speech in that they occur concurrently as independent signs. These modifiers can also indicate the most varied degrees of independence, from adding mere nuance to the main gesture to linking two normally independent gestures, creating in this way a single concept. The deaf-mute's touching a tooth can have four interpretations: the first meaning is 'tooth'; then the two qualities of 'whiteness' and 'hardness'; and finally the connotation 'stone'. The way the gesture is used or the way it is combined with accompanying gestures easily isolates each interpretation as distinct from the other. Touching the tooth suffices to indicate just plain 'tooth'. To indicate 'white' one touches the whole row of teeth, the eyes beaming at the same time. To express 'hardness', one need only tap on the incisors. Adding a throwing motion after tapping the teeth will define the concept of 'stone' clearly. Similarly, touching the lips can mean 'red' as well as 'lips'. In the event that the person communicating wants to specify his lips, he need only take them between his fingers. 'Lifting' is expressed by repeated lifting of the palm, but 'weight' or heaviness

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is indicated by lifting once, slowly and with the appropriate strained expression. 'Light' and 'lightness' are communicated by a quick upward lift, to show the ease with which the action is done. To indicate 'sky', one need only point heavenward, or the same gesture can be used to indicate the religious concept of the 'world beyond'; it can also be extended to the idea of 'God' or even to indicate merely the color 'blue'. In the first of these, the executant has a neutral bearing, in the second a devout or pious air; in the third, a gesture of praying is added to the second; and in the fourth, the mimic expression of excitement accompanies the gesture. Should one follow these expressive movements which help to qualify and define more clearly a given gesture's meaning, one might possibly find only a few cases in which one gesture suffices for more than one meaning. Most often, instances of true ambiguity like this consist of activities and their results, or objects and the goings on concerned with them which have not been differentiated. Thus, sprinkling with thumb and index finger does mean the action itself, but also signifies a powder of some sort - the association made far and away most frequently being 'salt'. The gesture of drinking (hand formed like a cup) means not only just that, but also 'beverage', and by extension, the most frequently drunk liquid, 'water'. If concepts are formed out of many gestures, so that a number of determinant gestures modify or delineate the main idea, the ambiguity is usually augmented all the more. For such a situation still leaves it unclear as to which gesture actually carries the logical category. By way of illustration, if the deaf-mute imitates grinding a coffee mill held in his lap, then mimes a drinking motion, this gives us three choices of meaning - the 'grinding of coffee', 'coffee drinking', or simply 'coffee'. In the first of the three meanings, the first gesture, grinding, is the principal one; in the second, the other gesture, drinking, is; in the third, both are only determinant, while the object of the activities is implied. The following is a similar case. When an Indian makes eating motions and simultaneously makes a knife's slicing motion in front of his mouth, he is using a gesture associated with his custom of cutting

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the piece of meat he is about to chew and swallow from a large chunk already held between his teeth. Accordingly, the gesture can stand for either 'cutting up meat' or 'eat'; yet it can even be 'knife' or 'meat'. These examples serve to show that there are two instances in which such combinations bring on ambiguity. The first is where one and the same gesture can have a different logical sense, depending on whether it is determined by the principal gesture or a qualifying one. The other instance is where each gesture signifying an action is used in practically limitless different ways to represent an object having some relation to that action. For there are not only such transformations in which the logical categories change and the basic meaning remains, but also those where completely different objective concepts result due to richness of association. Naturally, it is the context of the concept that actually determines the meaning in such cases. If this transformation of gestures that express actions or conditions offers an unmistaken analogy between the concepts of objects and the transformation from the verbal to the substantive (the sole difference being that gestural language performs it less restrictedly and with freely changing associations), the reverse (transformation from the substantive to the verbal) occurs also, just as in spoken language. Whereas the indicative gestures exhibit the capability to produce the first transformation, it is generally the plastic gestures that bring about the reverse displacement. As hardly need be said, this lies in the original nature of both these forms. The most natural mime of an action is the action itself. Thus, it may be executed most adequately by an indicative gesture, itself an action. On the other hand, an object allows two possibilities of imitation: first, by way of an action arousing the idea of the object, that is, once more, an indicative gesture; secondly, through a plastic image reproducing its form. Here we uncover the direct psychological reason that causes the transformation of the conditional element of a gesture indicating an object to a more general one. Even so, the nearly limitless associativeness of ideas permits the transformation from the plastic gesture as well. The fact that tradition and conventional symbolism play quite a part here,

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reinforces the contention, so that even a single gesture can stand in place of a whole sentence. To this end, the Neapolitan makes use of the plastic hand form for 'bottle' (Fig. Id) more often to say 'drink' than 'wine' or 'bottle'. Generally, though, it replaces the sentence Ί want to drink now' or the suggestion, 'let us drink'. The sign for 'theft' (Fig. 6d) means just that, or 'thief. But it can also signify 'something has been taken' or 'he is about to steal'. Indian gestures are similar. Their symbolic signs are generally rather ambiguous, often having only the main component of the whole gesture for a concept, leaving the secondary parts open to all kinds of variation. Here we come in contact with one peculiarity of gestural systems in general. They are always a sort of communication by abbreviation, rushing through snatches of thought which appear clear in context, yet trying to correct possible misunderstandings by constant repetition of certain concepts in different forms. Thus, they are at the same time a more precise and a more diffuse way of communicating than speech. In connection with these qualities, there is another peculiarity which distinguishes natural from artificial gestural systems. Its basis is the above limitation to the three logical categories. All further aspects of objective, qualitative, and conditional concepts remain uncertain. Gestures per se depict a train of ideas in series. Since they express visible ideas, they can be thought in visual terms. What spatial, temporal, or logical relationship they have is not revealed by such signs; these conditions are determined in context alone, according to consecutive position. Thus, in relating a past event, it cannot be distinguished from a present or a future one. Only upon the occasion that concepts of time form independent thoughts can they be expressed in symbolic signs in which spatial images represent them through demonstrative gestures. Aside from that, though, gestural communication puts every event firmly in the present. This is the reason for the liveliness that is so much a part of it. It turns all - from narrator to onlooker - into participants of that which is communicated. Even where the three dimensions of time are symbolized spatially, gestures tend to present concepts concretely as far as possible by showing in the

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manner of movement if an event lies in the far or near past and future. The Indian even loves to go so far as to show the number of days, months, or years with special gestures. Here, the means of expressing the three levels of time approaches that for expressing elapse of time - a typically characteristic part of gestural language. If a deaf-mute has the desire to relate a past event, he is not satisfied with the mere reporting of it but also must illustrate how it happened. The walking movements of two fingers on the left forearm can be made quickly or slowly, with mimic expressions of haste or of caution. Or, the same action is repeated with changes of direction backward and forward. In a similar manner, modification of the indicative movement itself, attempting to show how an action took place (or of accompanying mimic expressions having the purpose of filling in the details) is tied to such gestures as to carry, to ride, to work, to gather, to barter, to buy, and others. Gestures make use of similar means of expression to take the place of those elements of thought corresponding to our abstract particles. Hence, the idea behind a preposition, if it is a spatial one, is made into a demonstrative movement. If the object brought into spatial relationship with another is present and visible, the same gesture pointing to both explains their relationship. An example of this is a deaf-mute expressing 'cat on the roof. There are four possibilities, depending on whether the contents of the relationship, one part of it, or no part is directly visible. In the first case, a demonstrative gesture can show the whole at once. In the last, the cat alone must be signified by some connotative gesture (for example, by imitation of whiskers around one's mouth and by forming a claw); then, a roof is outlined; finally, the index finger points upward. We then have 'cat roof above'. In the same manner, other spatial prepositions (in, out, through, from, etc.) are expressed by demonstrative gestures. But gestures do not coincide with the important metamorphoses of concepts by which our prepositions have become means of expression for the most complex logical relationships. Whenever logical or causal relationships occur, gestures either leave interpretation of them up to context or replace them with something concrete. In gestural

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communication, one does not say 'someone was hanged for theft', but rather, one adds to the sign for person the gestures of theft or stealing (Fig. 6d) and strangulation by a rope around the neck. Gestures do not say 'he died because he was addicted to drink', but 'he drank and he drank and he died', or rather, due to the absence of any verb forms, 'drink, drink, die'. The gesture for drinking is repeated many times, and the head rests on the right hand, the other hand pointing at the ground, to say, 'that which sleeps underground'. Finally in order to transmit the verbal concept as quickly as possible where abstract adverbs in speech are associated with verb forms, gestures, true to their nature, clarify the uncertainty by using individual concrete examples to elaborate, or by expecting the logical connection in context. 2. The transition of concepts and the change of meaning of gesture

The admirers of natural gestural communication, found primarily among teachers of deaf-mutes, tend to praise it by claiming that it is not only a universal language but also one distinguished by a clarity of conceptual signs which precludes any misunderstanding. Synonyms are completely excluded in this connection because of the direct, concrete visibility and comprehensibility of gestures.37 That such an opinion could arise through the observation of deafmutes is indicative of the specific character of this branch of gestural communication. With such forms as those of the Neapolitans or the North American Indians, which have developed over many generations, that opinion would be impossible. Here the great ambiguity of many of the signs immediately becomes apparent, especially for plastic gestures which, for the most part, are of earlier origin and lean toward conventional usage. It is safe to say that, in general, they are more ambiguous in meaning than words tend to be. One easily recognizes that these distinctions depend upon the different psychological nature of the gestures. The least-complex 37

Steinthal has collected several expressions of this type, see Prutz und Wolfsohn Deutsches Museum, I, p. 906.

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in meaning comprise the sub-class of indicative signs in the category of mimed gestures. Here ambiguity is possible only within the boundaries of the categorical shift mentioned above. The fact that such terms as 'give' and 'gift' or 'thief and 'theft' and 'steal' become identical for gestures as such, does not in reality mean an ambiguity of the basic conceptual meaning, but is rather a formal characteristic of gestural communication. On the other hand, it is evident that the basic meaning of a mimed gesture must be perfectly clear if the image is to bring forth the concept it attempts to show. Only a house can be indicated by a rough sketch of the house, the emotion of anger by a mimic expression of anger, and the activity of going with a movement which imitates going. Since deaf-mute gestures belong predominantly to this class of indicative gestures, it is clear that especially their clarity of gesture is acclaimed. However, in the plastic sub-class of mimed signs, it does not apply in the same degree because here the concept and its meaning lie much further apart. Hence, even in this case one plastic gesture can have very different meanings, as a glance at Figures 2 and 3 will demonstrate. A still greater variation of meanings is possible with the connotative gestures. While the meaning of directly mimed gestures is, as a rule, left uncertain only in the logical and grammatical categories in which they are conceived, the connotative signs extend the possibility of ambiguity over the entire range of ideas which stand in some easily associated psychological relationship to the expressed quality or activity. Thus, the gesture of removing one's hat can mean 'a man', also a 'greeting' and, in a somewhat abstract sense, 'politeness'. The gesture of smelling an object by the movement of thumb and forefinger in the way in which one tends to hold the stem of a flower to smell it, can express 'flower', 'smell', or, in another context, can signify 'snuff tobacco' as well as directly indicating 'to smell', etc. The range of possible meanings extends furthest with symbolic gestures. In many cases ambiguity is compounded because the very same gesture may be used in its original, non-symbolic sense. Of course, that is the case only with the secondary forms, and even here fluctuation between direct mime and symbol is, on the

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whole, rare, because usually the symbolic meaning has entirely supplanted the original meaning, even if the latter still survives in the form of a slight association. One thinks, for example, of the plastic gestures, such as those of the horned head (Fig. la), of the head of an ass (Fig. \b and c), of the pantomimic imitation of the ass's ears, etc. Far more polymorphic is that branch of meanings which arises either when one and the same gesture has, from the start, different symbolic uses, or when another meaning develops out of a certain symbolic relationship. The former occurs more frequently in primary symbols, the latter in secondary symbols. If, for example, the apparently primary symbol of two index fingers laid side by side can mean 'two married people', 'two comrades', 'two siblings', or even 'two objects', it can hardly be established which one of these uses was earlier than the other. At most we may assume that the gesture as a symbol of the arithmetic 'two' is later than its application to any two single objects conceived of together, since, as a general rule, concrete concepts are earlier than abstract ones. On the other hand, there is no doubt in many other cases that a certain symbolic meaning developed from an already existing symbolic form. This phenomenon most often occurs with secondary symbols, for, as a rule, a certain sequence of development is discernible in them even after the mimed meaning has entirely disappeared. One criterion for later origin in such a case tends to be the fact that a meaning must be derived from a certain other meaning, which itself originated secondarily. Thus there can be no doubt that gesture 6e was used symbolically first for 'justice' rather than for 'punishment'. The concrete image of the scale directly indicates the symbolic attribute 'justice', although indirectly it leads to a concept of punishment through the intermediate link of justice. The symbol used by the Indians for a question (Fig. 7/) apparently comes from the direct meaning of giving, for it becomes clear only through its origin the request directed to another to give or to share, and by extension from objects to ideas, to share one's thoughts. Even more conspicuous is the later origin, assuming that one meaning presupposes the other.

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Thus, the gesture of the horned head can indicate on the one hand a threatening danger and on the other an entreaty or protection against it. Power, danger (which threatens from a force), protection against danger, and a plea for such protection, are a whole string of concepts in which each member follows sequentially the preceding one and therefore could not have developed very differently from the series above. In some cases, especially with secondary symbols, it may indeed remain unclear which of the two meanings is the earlier or whether they developed independently from one and the same basic meaning. Thus, one might very well doubt whether one of the various meanings (physical power, threat, or danger) of the horned head is earlier than the other, since all could have originated independently of one another from the concrete image of the bull's head. If such a sign is used, finally, as a symbol of marital infidelity, then one may view it as a translation into gesture of the proverbial expression 'to cuckold a person' or also as a pantomimic imitation of a sketch symbolizing infidelity. The expression itself is said to have originated in a folk belief according to which the infidelity of a woman is indicated by a horn which grows out of her husband's forehead. Since the origin of this folk belief is uncertain and any earlier use of this gesture apparently lies in the distant past, it is, of course, impossible to determine which meaning is the older.38 In this way, the transition from mimed to symbolic gesture, with its greater possibility for ambiguity, becomes visible. Naturally, this increase of meanings is sustained essentially by a change in the conditions which accumulate over many generations within the history of certain signs. Thus, the ambiguity of meanings is far greater in the inherited than in the neologistic signs. A. de Jorio counted up for the gesture of the 'horned head' mentioned 38

M. Heyne (Grimm, Deutsches Wörterbuch, IV, 2, Col. 1815) traces the proverbial expression mentioned back to a medieval legend. Yet the gesture, like the proverb, already existed in ancient times. Sittl (Die Gebärden der Griechen und Römer, p. 104) explains the gesture by the duality of men. A corrolary relationship may exist, as the Neapolitan proverbs quoted by Sittl seem to show. However, this relationship of duality itself is perhaps a secondary one, which originated in the gesture.

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above almost twenty meanings, which are, for the most part, of a symbolic nature, and most of which reach back to ancient times.39 However, because it can be proven that certain meanings are only seldom directly derived from others (the indirect form being all the more frequent) due to the existing dependency of the ideas, we can say that the gesture, as well as the word, is subject to change in meaning. Here the transition to further removed concepts tends to be established by intermediate stages, so that the entire procedure appears as a continuous development in which the associations, through which new concepts are connected with the older ones, bring about the change. In such a manner, these associations can connect the ideas, sometimes by their characteristic content, sometimes by purely external, partly fortuitous, relationships. It is apparently an inner relationship of ideas when the gesture of the horned head by association with the strength of the bull, first means physical strength and then, through other conjoined associations, comes to imply force as such, danger, threat of danger, insult, and finally protection from danger. On the other hand, it is based on a play of associations which is external and can therefore hardly be predicted in its specific effects, if the same gesture of the 'horned head', because of the reference to the superstition, passes from the depiction of the deceived spouse to the symbol of marital infidelity via the horn. For that reason, this meaning of infidelity probably stands outside the development of the other concepts belonging to this gesture, unless it might even be a further branch of the 'threat' idea, which could have originally passed from a general notion of abuse to this special form of abuse. But the connection with the proverbial expression mentioned above does not make this assumption very plausible. At the same time, the example shows how easily the tracks of a gesture can be lost when tracing a certain path of meaning development. Accordingly, gestural communication corresponds to the general principle of language in that it never remains unchanged. On the 39 A. de Jorio, La mimica degli antichi, pp. 90ff.

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contrary, gestures are, like words, subject to a development of meaning by which they adapt to the changing requirements of thought. It must be granted, though, that the presence of speech influences the change of meaning within gestures. The above mentioned connection of certain gestures with proverbial sayings offers obvious proof. Also, due to their nature, the change of concepts is much more radical with those forms which have come out of a longer tradition than with those of relatively recent origin. The former, however, because of the conditions of development, parallel the use of speech. The assumption, then, can be maintained that semantic change in gestures is promoted not only through the longer lasting traditions, but no less through its co-existence with verbal speech. In a narrow sense, such changes also take place in the newly developed forms of gestural communication which almost entirely lack this linguistic influence. For example, Tylor40 reports that in an institution for deaf-mutes in Berlin, one of the teachers was designated by the gesture of cutting off an arm because he was from Spandau where one of the children had once seen a one-armed man. This is apparently due to a change in meaning which includes two associated aspects - first the mimed gesture for 'man with the cut off" arm' became the secondary symbolic gesture for 'man from Spandau', and then the meaning was transformed to that of 'particular man from Spandau', i.e. the teacher. Similarly, in the same institution, France was designated by a gesture of decapitation. Here the concept of beheading - reminiscent of the history of the French Revolution - was first transferred to the beheaded king, Louis XVI, and then from him to the entire country. Similar developments happen all the time in gestural language, where, by chance, one and the same sign has more than one meaning. This divergence can be recognized most often in the signs of deaf-mutes as a result of a change in meaning. The gesture of the hand raised over the head, in the sense of an intellectually superior man, could have developed only from the concrete meaning of the physically large man. The 40

E. B. Tylor, Forschungen über die Urgeschichte, pp. 29ff.

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gesture of beating time in music or singing can only have come from the original gesture of beating time itself or from the directorial signs of a conductor. So it is in many other cases. The transition of meaning in neologistic gestural communication always includes only a few elements, whereas in the inherited, the examples approach far more closely the corresponding forms of verbal speech. Besides this general agreement between gestural and verbal language, substantial differences must not be overlooked. First of all, semantic change in gestures is rarely as directly observable as in the examples just mentioned, which are of the most recent origin and of the simplest kind. We do not have a history of gestures analogous to the history of words since, apart from random vestiges of monuments and in early authors, there is nothing that corresponds to the literary tradition. Where many concepts are maintained side by side, such as those of the 'horned head', the question of which is primary and which is secondary can be resolved only according to psychological probability. Secondly, semantic change, which has produced so many transformations in individual cases, is, as a whole, of limited range. Even the most important and original gestural forms, the demonstrative and the mimed, remain completely removed from semantic change. The former omission is explained by the normally short lifespan of gestural language, the latter by the faithful adherence to the conceptual meaning of these original signs. Apparently, even symbolic gestures, which show greater room for change of meaning, necessitate special inducements to generate numerous uses, both consequential and contemporaneous, of the same gesture. Thus, the horned head (Fig. la) in Neapolitan sign language experienced a much richer development than the plastic gesture of the ass's head (Fig. \b and c). This distinction is obviously dependent on the fact that the former already had a broad meaning in its general original form, to which certain cultural-historical influences may then have become attached, favoring the choice of the gesture as a threatening, mocking, or entreating sign. To these characteristics of change in meaning a last one may be

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added which indicates those gestures appearing as ramifications of or as additions of new concepts to extant ones, and which remain intact side by side. Thus, not one of the twenty or more meanings of the South Italian 'horned head' has been lost. At most, the eclipse of once-live concepts is found in the transition of the mimed to the symbolic gestures, since here the concrete meaning can be used only rarely, if at all. In all these cases the lost meaning tends to disappear from usage, but not entirely from consciousness. Thus, the hand gesture for the ass's head (Fig. Ib and c) and that for the ass's ears hardly ever occurs in anything but a symbolic sense, but they are hardly ever executed without the concepts calling to mind the real ass. Even in those cases where references are based on extinct usages or proverbial sayings which have become incomprehensible, as with the gesture of thumbing the nose or of swallowing a lie, there is always the tendency to ascribe some graphic meaning to the conventional sign, even if this deviates from the original.41

IV. THE SYNTAX OF GESTURAL COMMUNICATION

1. The sequence of gestures among deaf-mutes

It has been said of gestural communication that it is "without sentences, therefore without grammar". If the deaf-mute wishes to say 'father gave me an apple', he first gives the sign for 'apple', then the sign for 'father', and finally the one for T. Without a sign for 'give', the result is 'apple father Γ, which is less than a sentence because it lacks the structural essence, the actual predicate.42 Since a single gesture is equivalent to a word, gesture communication would, according to this interpretation, simply consist 41

The real psychic basic processes in semantic change in gestures is only briefly touched upon above. Since they completely agree with the indicative processes in semantic change of words, it may first enter in the change of meaning, which we recognize in similar phenomena to much greater extent. (Compare Chap. VIII). 42 Steinthal in: Prutz und Wolfsohn, Deutsches Miueum, l, p. 923.

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of the sum of individual words. It would lack that quality which makes speech really speech - the connection of a whole, in which every concept stands in a certain logical relationship with every other. This interpretation of the 'ungrammatical' nature of gestural communication is based partly on the fact that a gesture corresponding to a predicate can be left out in many cases and partly on the fact that the formal elements which direct the parts into grammatical categories are entirely lacking here. The first element that is missing is in no way a general one. The obvious is omitted in gestural communication, and perhaps the predicate falls prey to this Lex parsimoniae no more often than any other part of speech. Furthermore, in the example given above, the gestural expiession does not always lack a verb. If the gesture contains a request, it can be included in the mimic expression which accompanies the allusion to T. In this sense, the sentences 'Father, give me an apple', and 'father gave me an apple' are clearly distinguished in gestural communication. Wherever doubts may arise about the intention of the verb, the deaf-mute would scarcely neglect to express the action of giving itself by means of a characteristic gesture, perhaps of transferring an imaginary object from one hand to the other. Accordingly, gestural communication includes specific means of expression for all concepts which form activities or conditions such as going, carrying, hitting, working, reading, hearing, seeing, etc. The second alleged quality which hinders the formation of real sentences - the lack of grammatical categories - is, as we have already seen, only partial and to a certain extent acknowledged. It is partial because an absolute lack occurs only in certain abstract parts of speech, which are entirely left out or are replaced by concrete illustrations of the concepts. This may indicate a low level of development, but it is not an attribute by which gestural communication could be robbed of the ability to form sentences. This is even less true of the relative lack of grammatical distinction by which the individual gesture alone does not enable one to determine what the gesture's position is in the entire communication. Here the logical category, which includes

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the individual sign, is precisely identified by the context. Thus, it turns out that the very thing gestural communication was supposed to lack - the connection of individual gestures with a whole sentence - is the means by which the grammatical importance of individual gestures is determined. From this it may further be asserted that we can speak with full justification of a syntax of gestural communication, insofar as the syntactic placement of words and the sentence are related and reciprocal concepts. Wherever a sentence exists, there must be certain laws of syntax and, conversely, wherever syntax can be detected, there must be a sentence present. In gestural communication, instead of a lack of sentences due to the indifferent nature of certain syntactic laws, one can only deduce from the existence of certain syntactic laws that gestural communication does not merely consist of individual signs, but rather of sentences. The sentence, in fact, plays an even greater role in gestural communication, since it is that which bestows on the individual sign its grammatical meaning. Naturally, for the same reason, the features which connect words of speech in proper syntactic order are left out and we must, to a greater extent, infer these features from the complete context of the expression. For that reason the grammatical position can now and then become uncertain, as also happens in speech if the characteristic elements of inflection are missing. It may be uncertain, for example, whether a substantive is thought of as the subject or the object of the sentence, or whether a verb is active or passive. The ambiguity here may be greater than in speech due to the lack of means of syntactic word differentiation. However, we will be able to extend the syntactic concepts of speech to gestural communication with full justice, because the ambiguity is at most confusing for the receiver of the communication, but never for the speaker.43 43

Without regard to the confusion of the speaker and the hearer indicated here, this relationship is occasionally clouded by the assumption of a logical, specifically different psychological subject-concept. See Sütterlin, Das Wesen der sprachlichen Gebilde (1902), pp. 16ff. (Compare the section on the 'psychological subject', Vol. 2, Ch. 7, III). Very difficult to comprehend is the assertion of Delbrück that there is a syntax which comes into gestural speech from verbal

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We have information about the sequence of gestures in the natural gestural communication of deaf-mutes from their teachers.44 They agree that, as a rule, the subject of the sentence comes first, corresponding to the normal order in grammatical speech. On the other hand, the order of the gestures is different from that of the sequence preferred in German, English, French, and other modern languages. As long as the attribute is a simple quality, expressed in speech by an adjective, it is placed behind the concept to \vhich it belongs and the object is placed before the action to which it refers. This last phenomenon is also found in the syntactic rules of Latin and Greek, whereas the first does not apply here in the same way, since in these languages either the substantive or the adjective can precede the other, according to whether one or the other is being emphasized. Thus, the deaf-mute does not say 'an enormous mountain', but rather 'a mountain an enormous', whereas in Latin either mons ignens or ignens mons could occur. He does not say 'the teacher praises the boy', but rather 'the teacher the boy praises', which is analogous to the Latin magister puerum laudat. A deaf-mute would express a sentence like 'the angry man hit the boy' in the following manner. He would first point to or in some way indicate the person who had done the hitting, then he would assume an expression of anger, and then perform the gesture for child by rocking one arm on the other. If the child were present, he would refer to him directly, but would finally conclude the sentence with the gesture of hitting. Since tense and case are not expressed in the gestures, the result would be 'man angry child hit'. If we indicate the grammatical categories of subject, object, adjective, and verb by their initial letter and connections of these terms by curved lines, the structure of speech (Grundfragen der Sprachforschung, p. 69). The facts show the exact opposite; and if Delbrück himself had even once tried, it would hardly have eluded him that, under the psychological conditions of the order of gestures with its overwhelming power, gestural language shows great independence from verbal speech. Compare my paper: Sprachgeschichte und Sprachpsychologie, p. 41 ff. 44 Ed. Schmalz, Über die Taubstummen und ihre Bildung (1848), pp. 266ff. Scott, The Deaf and Dumb, pp. 134ff.

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the sentence in gesture communication is described as the following: S

A

O

V

This is compatible in its placement of subject and predicate, but in every other respect it is contrary to the grammatical order of modern languages, which is as follows: A

S

V

O

If adverbial expressions were added to the verb, gestural communication follows the same rule as with the substantive - the adverbial concept goes behind the verb to which it belongs. This happens whenever the adverb is not indicated directly by the verbal gesture itself (especially frequently with abstract adverbs), since the performance of this gesture is an obvious way of substituting for an adverb. Thus the expression 'he hit fiercely' is expressed through energetic motion, or another expression, 'he hit often', through many repetitions of hitting. In some cases, when the activity is being indicated pantomimically by means of the arms and hands, the more precise designation will be indicated by a facial expression. The verbal and adverbial concepts in the expressions 'he hit him angrily' and 'he winked at him amiably' can accompany one another simultaneously. The same thing can take place with the substantive and its attributive designations. The deaf-mute would express the sentence 'he talked loudly' or 'his voice carried a long way' in the following manner: he would first give the gesture for speaking and then make a movement outwards from his mouth and, with both hands, indicate a large circle. A more complete sentence could be constructed if we added to the initials above the sign A' to designate adverbs. Thus: S

A

O

V

A'

This scheme of the main constituents of a sentence naturally decreases whenever any one of the constituents is removed. However, it can also be expanded if perchance more adjectives or objects were to increase the combination. With these combina-

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tions, what is of special interest is the connection of two objects which show a possessive or relational condition which is expressed in speech by the genitive case. Where such a connection occurs, the attributive object usually does not follow, as the qualitative usually does, but rather goes before it. Therefore, the deaf-mute says 'man angry' but 'church tower', corresponding to the German word order for the word Kirchturm. The deaf-mute first expresses church by indicating a roof with a cross on it and then indicates the tower by lifting both arms over the roof. In this way all these rules are the natural results of the peculiarity of gestural communication, and not in the least, conventional forms. These rules occur everywhere in the same way, wherever deaf-mutes associate with each other or with non-deaf-mutes. They are, to be sure, established through usage, so that the deaf-mute who is being instructed in normal speech frequently extends them to this form of communication. Similarly, he retains for an even longer time the inclination to relinquish all inflectional forms and to use the paraphrasing which was needed in gestural communication, but superfluous in speech. Thus he might say at the beginning of his instruction in verbal speech 'teacher garden goes' instead of 'the teacher has gone into the garden', or 'teacher intelligent, write, read, work', instead of simply 'the teacher is intelligent and industrious'. Instead of 'rain makes the land fruitful', a deaf-mute wrote 'the rain falls, the plants grow', and instead of Ί must love and respect my teacher', another one wrote Ί hit, deceive, abuse not teacher, I Jove and respect'. It takes more time to learn the use of conjunctions and relative pronouns. The blind deaf-mute Laura Bridgman wrote the following definitions after she had already learned to make use of the gerund: 'Widow is woman, husband dead and cold', and 'bachelor do not have wife'. All these examples show that in this respect gestural language is not different from any other language. Forms of speech instilled by training are not simply an outer garment of thought. Rather, language influences thought to the extent that it first of all subdues every newly acquired form of speech.45 45 Concerning the gradual acquisition of the forms of speech, the deaf-mute

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Furthermore, many-sided variations of regular grammatical order can be found in the gestures of deaf-mutes. This applies to the main elements of the sentence, the subject and the predicate, since the presentation of the predicate can precede the subject of the expression, and in this new position it intrudes with special intensity on consciousness. If the deaf-mute wants to drink water, he will first indicate water while he imitates pumping at the well and holding a container; then he will make the gesture of drinking and lastly allude to himself: 'water drink , thus expressed in the signs V S, not S O V. Accordingly, an immutable law is evidently not indicated by the usual order, but is subordinated to a general psychological principle, according to which the concept, depending first on apperception, is always expressed through the gesture. The order S A O V, however, is apparently the order that corresponds to this principle of preferred apperception most frequently. 2. The sequence of gestures among Indians

This deduction will be confirmed by the fact that in reference to the syntax of the North American Indians, which has become better known only through the efforts of American ethnologists, this gestural communication in essence approximates that of deaf-mutes in its qualities. This agreement is of even greater note, since the spoken languages which developed in the same regions possess an entirely different structure. For the study of the syntax of Indian gestural communication, G. Mallery's collection offers a rich selection of expressions, conversations, and tales, from which only a few short examples will be cited.46 In order to ask 'where is your mother?' the Indian first makes the sign for 'mother' as he places the forefinger of the left hand in his mouth - a sign which, in another context, can Kruse has amassed a great many observations. (Kruse, Über die Taubstummen (1853), pp. 56ff. Cf. also Steinthal, "Über die Sprache der Taubstummen", pp. 923ff.). Concerning the language of the blind deaf-mute Laura Bridgman, see W. Jerusalem, Laura Bridgman (1890), pp. 41ff. 46 G. Mallery, "Sign Language among the North American Indians", pp. 479ff.

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also mean 'child'. Then with his right forefinger he makes the sign 'you' by pointing at the person in question. Then he indicates 'seeing' by holding his forefinger and middle finger stretched apart in front of the eye and moving them forward. Then, by a downward movement of the right hand with the palm turned down, he indicates the sign for 'no', and finally, he looks inquisitively at the person addressed while he looks around him, thus producing: 'Mother your to see not where ?' The concept 'mother' is apparently subject of the sentence. That we can change the word to an object is unessential; we could also construct the sentence in the following manner: 'your mother is not seen by me, where is she?' Therefore, S A V A' is the sequence of the concepts. At the same time, this example clearly shows how, in gestural communication, a single gesture is interpreted by means of another and in the context of the sentence due to the greater vagueness of a single gesture. The first gesture cited contains the meaning 'mother' only through the subsequent allusion to the addressee; in another context, it could just as well mean 'when you were a child' (literally, 'a nursing child'). The concluding gesture could also mean 'everywhere' in another context. However, by means of the preceding gestures and the accompanying facial gestures, it became the question 'where'. The Indian expresses the sentence Ί want to go home in two days' in the following manner. First, both hands with the palms down are moved downwards and back and forth at the height of the elbows and then the right is laid over the left. This is the sign for 'night' - actually, a combination of the signs for 'heaven' and 'covering'. Then the index and middle finger are raised, signifying 'two'; the right forefinger is then placed against the breast to indicate T, and then the same finger points along a road: 'go'. Finally the clenched fist moves downward towards the floor on which the speaker stands, signifying 'home'. Literally it says: 'night two I go home'. According to its meaning, this sentence can be analyzed into two sentences, in the first of which the predicate is suppressed: 'two nights (will pass), (then will) I (to my) home go', with the order of the concepts being S A (V), SVA'.

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Finally, a sentence from a tale of a Mescalo Apache Indian might be cited here as a somewhat complicated example. The sentence reads in translation: 'White soldiers who were led by an officer of high rank but meagre intelligence, took the Mescalo Indians captive'. The sequence of signs is as follows: 1) 'Soldiers' the thumbs are placed over both temples, the forefingers pointing forward and, with the other fingers together, the forefingers press against one another on the forehead (an imitation of the military visor); 2) 'Hair' is indicated by touching the hair; 3) 'White' is indicated by touching the teeth; 4) Officer' by touching the top of the shoulders (signifying epaulets); 5) 'high rank' by raising both hands above the head (also a sign for 'chief'); 6) 'foolish' by touching the forehead with the forefinger and drawing it around the face and the head (the usual sign for 'stupid' or 'foolish'); 7) 'Mescalo Indian' is signified by drawing the hands from the thighs to the head and then to the breast (the first gesture refers to moccasins, the characteristic footwear of the Indians, the second refers to the tribe of the speaker); 8) 'Captive' is indicated by drawing both hands together with the palms turned downwards and then by drawing both thumbs and forefinger together to form a circle (the gesture for contained and enclosed). Therefore: 'Soldiers (whose) hair white (under an) officer high rank (but) stupid the Mescalo Indians (took) captive'. This corresponds exactly to the order S A O V, only the attribute of the subject S designated here by the symbol A breaks down into more attributive meanings, and the connections between them actually conform to the very same rules which apply to the main concepts. The attribute closer to S (the soldiers) is 'white-haired' according to the rule S A (hair white); the following attribute, which is further away, is Officer', for whom a corresponding preposition is intended (under an officer) and to whom further attributes (high rank, foolish) are assigned according to the rule S A. From all this it becomes clear that the gestural communication of Indians throughout its ordering of signs agrees with the gestural communication of deaf-mutes.

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3. Psychological causes of gestural syntax It cannot be doubted that a regularity which recurs under such different conditions has causes of a general nature. From the outset it must be granted that these causes are psychological. They may, therefore, depend on the general laws of the process of conceptualization, as is supposed by the preferred placement of the subject before the predicate in both speech and gestural communication, or they may originate from the special conditions of gestural communication. The syntax of gestures, like every syntax, can be reduced primarily to three principles which we can briefly designate as the principles of logical, temporal, and spatial functionality. If these three operate in the same way, the position of the conceptual signs is unquestionably determined, but if, as often happens, they operate in different ways, one or another influence can become predominant. It is a characteristic quality of gestural communication that the temporal and spatial, which together we may call the vivid, is the preponderant operation. This quality can be understood readily from two others. The first of these consists of the concrete clarity and direct comprehensibility of the individual signs, which must necessarily effect their arrangement. The second consists of the much longer sequence of signs in comparison to the rapidity of speech, a slowness of movement which is often magnified by the necessity of explanatory gestures. These conditions cause a situation in which even the syntactic rule of preceding subject, which brings into play the logical function of the constituents of the sentence, is observed generally in gestural communication, but is also the first to be violated easily. Thus, whenever the predicate contains an object, it can be thought of as the subject merely by means of an insignificant shift of concepts. Furthermore, a series of gestures, which is equivalent to a single sentence of speech, must frequently be considered more suitable as a series of two or more sentences. Especially in those cases where the position of the subject and the predicate is reversed, such an analysis is usually required. Thus the deaf-mute can say

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'the man angry the child he hit', or he may choose another order, 'the child he hit the man angry'. However, we can also correctly interpret it, probably even more in the spirit of gestural communication, as 'the child was hit, the man was angry'. This corresponds to the fact that such apparent reversals of subject and predicate occur primarily in animated, excited speech. These are conditions, therefore, which equally provoke special emphasis and the forepositioning of the verb, as well as the analysis of speech into smaller parts, of which every part calls to mind a complete and rapidly passing image, just as single affective moments. Thus, both these qualities - the reversal of subject and predicate and the flow of speech in short sentences which can be analyzed in context as individual occurrences - tend to be part of affective speech also. However, in gestural communication, since the independent grammatical characteristics of individual signs are lacking in syntactic positions, the co-existence of both these qualities of affective speech inevitably leads to the fact that a sentence in which the object is preceded by its verb can always be interpreted as a sequence of two sentences with two different subjects. One more fact is crucial for this latter interpretation - gestural communication uses the fore-position of the predicate only in the case where this predicate contains both a verb and an object which can then be considered the subject of the sentence. It is not practical with pure verbal predicates. Thus, it would be impossible, or possible only under conditions justified by the preceding context, to say 'he shot the hunter' instead of 'the hunter shot', or 'it wept the child' instead of 'the child wept'. As soon as one imagines the expression of such a sentence in gestures, one can easily see the reason why these sequences, common to speech, are impossible in gestural communication. The more every single gesture must be understood, to a certain degree, as an independent concept because of its slowness, the more this very precept of vividness conflicts with those sequences. The signs for 'shooting' or 'crying' produced alone with no reference to a subject would simply float in the air. In order to be understood at all in their relationship to the entirety of the thought, these signs require the objects of

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the concept, to which they can be immediately referred and which precede them in the external order of gestural signs. As the agreement of both main parts of the sentence with the logical connection of the concepts corresponds in general with the condition of vividness, it is this latter quality that governs all the other syntactic phenomena of gestural communication. Thus the principle of temporal vividness is decisive for the order of the larger connections, and the principle of spatial vividness is decisive for the more restricted connections within a single sentence. Gestural communication reports events exactly in the order in which they happen. It describes objects exactly in the order in which they come to light. For that reason, it does not know the inversions, which developed verbal speech assumes for the sake of certain logical purposes. After all, the fact that gestural communication lacks abstract word forms, especially conjunctions, makes it essential that time be expressed in the simplest and clearest way, so that the time sequence in gestures is a replication of the temporal passage of the events themselves. It is, therefore, already compelled to this order because individual gestures in their most important forms are themselves mimes of sequential events. Thus, the principle of temporal vividness transfers only one quality of individual gestures to their context. In another sense, this principle for connecting attributive designations with the substantive, and verbs with the object, is decisive. Here the two concepts which belong together are so tightly bound that in any actual conceptualization they can almost never be perceived in a temporal sequence. The attribute is, in general, simultaneous with the object, for the attribute itself belongs to the features by which the object is recognized. The object is simultaneous with the action and this action is, in the given context, not to be thought of as lacking an object. But, gestural communication represents even more poorly than speech the simultaneous connections of concepts by a simultaneous expression. Rather, the correlated concepts remain separated because of the slow sequence of signs. Thus, the condition of vividness is defined by that concept coming first which can, if necessary, be thought of

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without the other, and then that concept following which, in a given connection of thought, requires the other. All these relationships, the attributive as well as the objective, can be analyzed as constantly independent and variably dependent concepts. In the connection of a 'large house', 'house' is the independent, 'large' is the variable and dependent concept. The house can be thought of with many other qualities, whereas 'large' is always bound to some object, in this case the house. In the predicate of the sentence 'the carpenter builds the house', the house is thought of as an independent concept, whereas the activity of building cannot be conceived of without the object that is being built. In this sense, both the rule of the placement of the adjective behind the noun and that of the verb behind the object are, on the one hand, simple sequences of the real co-existence of the object and its qualities of the activity and its object. On the other hand, they originate in the relative slowness of gestural communication, which requires that every single gesture be inserted in such a way that it can be directly understood by itself or in its relation to preceding gestures. This is essentially different in speech, where a noun and its attribute and a verb and its object can be connected in a syntactic unit. Expressions like mons ignens and ignens mons, puerum laudat and laudat puerum are, to our way of thinking, equivalent to simultaneous expressions. In gestural communication, where every concept is contrasted independently from every other, a gesture, which receives its position in the sentence primarily through the one that follows, could easily produce an unbearable check on the flow of images. Accordingly, the syntactic qualities of gestural communication can be traced to two general conditions: first, that the individual gestures follow one another in the order in which they are dependent on the perception of each other, and second, that, due to the relatively slow succession of individual signs, a given gesture, insofar as it is not clear in itself, takes its meaning through preceding, not succeeding signs. As soon as both these requirements are met, a third factor can be asserted: the need to express first of all those images which carry a more affective meaning than

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others. An important aid in satisfying this need without violating the conditions of vividness and comprehensibility consists, for gestural communication, in the fact that it segments a unified thought into several isolated sentences. The fore-positioning of the predicate is accomplished by forming an independent sentence from the verb and its object, with the object becoming the subject of this sentence. This all depends on the fact that, generally, in gestural communication, all distinctions which are based on the finer arrangement and periodization of speech come to nothing. A compounded sentence, then, always becomes a series of simple sentences. V. THE PSYCHOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT OF GESTURAL COMMUNICATION

1. The origin of gestures from expressive motions Gestural communication is a natural product of the development of expressive motions and a specifically human product, insofar as the range and extension of its developmental forms can be compared to those of speech. The higher animals show, to be sure, an abundance of characteristic motions which are related to those of man in their most general qualities. Nonetheless, that which makes human gestural communication a real language - the development of various elemental forms of gestures, the extension of meaning and semantic change, and finally, a syntactic order governed by certain rules - is not to be found among animals. A proof for this lower stage of gestural development among animals lies in the fact that the demonstrative gesture, which appears to be the very earliest among human beings and whose spontaneous origin may be observed in infants, hardly ever occurs among animals or, at most, has stopped at an intermediate stage between the most primitive grabbing motion and the demonstrative gesture. This is even true of the most talented apes by reason of the structure of the hands.47 47

See Chapter I of this book (Wundt, Völkerpsychologie4·, Vol. I, Part One, pp. 136ff.).

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Such is also the case with the class of descriptive gestures. They have their natural foundation in imitative expressive motions. But the great step, by which the widespread imitative movements of the animal kingdom, where one animal imitates closely the activites of another, transfers to imitations of any arbitrary activities, happened only in the development of human beings. It is only in this way that the various kinds of descriptive gestures could arise naturally. Within this category the mimed gestures are most closely related to the imitative expressions. What separates them from each other is merely the development which they undergo due to the influence of reciprocity on the part of the individuals. Returning from the one in which an affective expression is directed back to its originator, the expression changes its contents. Since this change also bears upon the conceptual contents of the affect and this to an even higher degree because of the greater complexity of these contents in one and the same basic mood - the back and forth motion of gestures gradually becomes an exchange of those concepts which are prominent in the consciousness of the individuals. These concepts are maintained at first in one and the same basic mood. Then they acquire the power, by a retroaction of the conceptual change, to give the affective content an altered character. The 'communicative drive' is, thus, no more a unified psychic power than the 'imitative drive', but is rather an inevitable product of two-way communication between individuals. If, in the 'imitative drive', the expressive motion of one individual is confused with someone else's feelings, from which the same motion stems, then the 'communicative drive' proceeds directly from the emotive effect which accompanies the perception of the sympathetic affect. For the emotive effect becomes an impulsive motivation, stimulating the same affect in the other person. Communication is thereby closely connected with the concepts accompanying the affect. Through repetition of the process, this communication can itself become a motivation. The more this happens, the more are mimed gestures associated with demonstrative ones. In such a way, the former are probably just as much products of the developing gestural communication, for, on the other hand, in

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their fuller development, they make gestural communication possible. Thus, instinctive communication is derived from an expression of a concept flowing unintentionally from the affect in any two-way communication. From this, finally, comes the arbitrary gesture as the actor lets the result of his action work back upon itself. The border remains blurred, however, between the original, self-sufficient expression and the one which originated later from the will to effect others. Even in fully developed gestural speech the arbitrary motions are reduced to single instances. Between them, in the original manner of affective expression, the gestures follow one another according to purely emotional impulses. The transition from mimed expressive motions to components of a unified gestural expression gave rise to the development of various forms of gestures. The general quality of gestures - to arouse a corresponding concept through any visually perceptible image - conforms to the original imitative motions, while the new forms may adapt themselves to the growing wealth of concepts and their interconnections. Of the forms created in this manner, the indicative gesture represents the direct and essentially unchanged continuation of purely imitative motions. It has retained the characteristic rapid, transitory movement, corresponding to the nature of affect, and at the same time, it directly indicates the object or the action. From this original form, the development diverges in two directions. On the one hand, as the accompanying emotion grows weaker, the drive for a longer-lasting and easily remembered visual form is aroused; thus, the motivation behind the plastic gesture. It implicitly presupposes that the original emotional basis of the movements has been reduced, for the affect stimulates more rapidly passing motions as it becomes more intense. Besides, plastic gestures demand at least a certain deliberation, and they depend on conventional acceptance of their specific meaning much more than indicative gestures. On the other hand, connotative gestures develop from indicative gestures. They originate with the need to express objects or actions which cannot be depicted (or at best can be depicted unclearly) by means of a

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sketch, since in connotative gestures the secondary characteristics of indicative imitations are present. The connotative gesture then, probably lies genetically closer to the mimed gesture in its original configuration than to the plastic imitation. But in its attention to isolated qualities to single out a useful sign for comprehension, the connotative gesture betrays an increasing reduction of affect and an increasing influence of reflection. The last stage of development is symbolic gestures. To this class belong, first, the most primitive associative transitions from one concrete concept to another. In its later development, symbolic gestures are applied to concepts which are generally not describable through a particular image, for which, hence, an indicative or plastic sign has the meaning merely of a representative concept. Such a representation in natural gestural language is only possible because a psychological relationship exists between the concept and the representative conceptualization. By this means, natural symbols are distinguished from the artificially contrived, in which every relationship depends on arbitrary agreement. Since symbolic gestures in their natural form already depend on complicated psychological relationships, it is understandable that in many cases the border between natural origin and arbitrary invention is obliterated. In general, the best criterion to determine the natural origin of a symbol is where a certain concrete image is presented for a concept so directly that no clearly conscious difference exists between the image and the meaning. Moreover, those symbols can be regarded of natural origin which originate from primary symbols, deriving from a simple development of meaning. According to this, primary symbolic gestures are those which stem from demonstrative gestures, such as the indications of the temporal forms of past, present, and future by means of spatial dimensions. The association here is even more intimate, since the spatial cannot really be represented without accompanying temporal qualities. The demonstrative gesture in its most primitive meaning, then, always signifies simultaneously a movement in a certain direction and, therefore, a spatio-temporal process. These symbols, which originated from mimed gestures as the

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simplest of associations, are nearest to those spiritual qualities such as power and courage, expressed through corresponding physical qualities, such as body size, muscularity, etc. Signifying the chief or lord as a large man or the courageous person as a strong man is natural to the primitive, because the leader in battle does tend to stand out through his body size, and because the primitive knows courage only in connection with physical strength. From these associations, then, others are formed in which complicated connecting links arise between the concrete sign and its meaning. If truth is indicated by making a straight line from the mouth and a lie by a sidewards gesture from the mouth, the concept of the direct movement from the goal and deflection from the same appears an extension of the activity of 'going' superimposed on that of 'speaking'. But here the extension comes probably from a direct association of the concepts and is, at the same time, experienced by the naive thinker as reality. The liar, as he lets his gaze timidly pass over the one deceived, also does not dare speak directly to his face, but talks past him. Furthermore, if the relative size of the fingers is extended to the area of moral qualities (the thumb meaning 'good' and the little finger 'bad'), then one must remember that for primitives physical strength and moral excellence fall together, as do physical weakness and low character. Originally the symbolism here did not imply that moral qualities were conveyed through the physical, but that generally, persons were illustrated by means of raised fingers. However, this widespread symbolism is also traced back to a simpler, non-symbolic association. As the index finger directly indicates the person to whom it is alluding (an allusion which may also be made by glancing at him), a means of representing the object by itself, so can an absent person be indicated, if the conditions are favorable, as long as the circumstances supply a similar completion of the association with the memory image. A frequent origin of such mnemonic devices is found in the concept of a certain number of people, where the corresponding number of raised fingers inspires the necessary association, each finger representing one person. Since these associations gradually fade,

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the fingers become true counting signs: they now represent any countable objects, whereas before they were regularly associated concepts. From this time, when the representative sign had still not been separated from its particular referent, the special relationships, which accompany the different fingers and their combinations in the developed symbolism of gestures, were undoubtedly preserved. Thus, after the index finger had once attained a representative meaning through the association with an absent person, it was a small step to the designation of any two connected comrades, brothers, or spouses, by holding up the index and middle fingers. And, after this had been accomplished, the further step of expressing the intimate quality of the connection by entwining the two fingers could easily be taken (Fig. 71). Here one may also assume that in the original perception reality and symbol flowed together, since the concrete meaning which the gesture expressed was associated directly with the gesture. If the associated concept, which in all these cases elevated the representative gesture to reality, became clouded through uncertainty, as in the course of time it must, then only under favorable conditions could the former sense of the gesture be understood, precisely because the more the association diminished, the more the distinction between the original and the new meaning grew. In this way, the road from the indirectly mimed, associative gesture was completely traversed to the more narrow sense of symbolic gestures. A further complication, which actually favors the transformation of intermediate stages in symbolic gestures, consists of the fact that different symbols effect each other and thus produce mixed symbolic gestures. Because of the interconnection of motivations, association with the former concrete meaning may entirely disappear. A characteristic example of this kind is the gesture for 'falsehood' (Fig. 6g) which, on the one hand, is derived from the gestures for 'friendship', 'trust', and similar concepts (Fig. 7/) and, on the other hand, from the symbolization of the opposite values through the size differences of the fingers. There is, naturally, no direct concrete reference in such cases when the gesture itself is a derived symbol, either by figurative representation or by

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custom. Such is the case with 'thumbing the nose' to show mockery, with the symbol for 'justice' (Fig. 6e), and with the sign among the Indians for 'commerce' or 'business'. Thus, the process of the development of symbolic gestures appears, as long as it is accomplished purely in the area of gestural communication, as a shift of concept mediated by associations, due to the gradual elimination of single associative links as a consequence of their obscurity in the consciousness. As long as all the effective associative links are active, there remains a latent symbolism, since the symbol and its meaning are completely connected or so closely connected that the symbolic sign is considered part of the concept itself. On the other hand, it is considered a natural, adequate symbol, if individual associative links have disappeared from consciousness, while the feeling of the connection and the corresponding analogy of the concepts still remains. The transition to purely conventional gestural symbols can proceed either through obscuring of the associative links through the joining of various signs, or finally by the miming of symbolic customs as well as hieroglyphics.

2. Gestures and the origins of graphic art Just as the hand as a grasping organ has become a means of demonstrative gesture (because of the reduction of single grasping movements resulting from a psychic development), we may relate the participation of the hands in forming various descriptive gestures to the more perfect activity of those grasping organs, an activity which progressed to the production of artificial objects from the material environment. The work, once created, is thereafter a prototype, which incites imitation. This duplicating activity gradually ceases to be restricted to the objects and activities which serve the needs of life, but passes beyond to an imitation of the objects of nature itself. Such imitation may have originated in the fact that, without planning, lines in a stone or a crag took on, by reproductive assimilations, an enhanced similarity with

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objects; and then spontaneous imitation set in.48 In other cases the remembrance of the sight may have incited such imitation. Such a primary sort is supported by the fact that especially cave paintings have been discovered without such claims of previous chance motivations. Here the twilight of caves, secluded from the external world, is particularly suited to conjuring images of remembrance and fantasy, which are transferred to the walls of the cave. Many of these images may have a cultic meaning; others plainly bear a memorial character, since they represent significant scenes from life (i.e. the cave paintings of the Bushmen). This is supported by the fact that such cave drawings are, among the Bushmen, intentionally preserved for a long time.49 In this way different forms of mimed gestures have a firm relationship with the beginnings of graphic art. The indicative gesture is to some extent a primeval form of drawing, not utilizing lasting materials as a medium, but consisting of transitory movements which recall the object, since these gestures call forth the same image from the viewer. At the same time, the range of purposes of artistic creation is much more disparate. On the primitive level, the intention to communicate with another is generally not yet associated with the fixing of a remembered image in permanent material. Either the drive to objectify in consciousness the firmly held image and the pleasure of gratifying this drive, or the motivation of magical cults - the magical effects of the object extending to the image - is at work. A certain analogy between gesture and the products of graphic art exists in signs of simple demonstrative meaning, which as yet certainly do not belong to the area of art, and apparently long precede graphic art. In these products, drawing is earlier than the plastic forms of art, just as the indicative gesture is considerably earlier than the plastic. At the same time, the products of primitive plastic art are, for the most part, further removed from reality than those of drawing, similar to the relationship between plastic and indicative gestures. The latter traces, 48

Th. Koch-Grünberg, Südamerikanische Felszeichnungen (1907). Moszeik, Die Malereien der Buschmänner in Südafrika (1910), pp. 15ff. Also Vol. 3, pp. 178ff. 49

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to be sure, only a transitory and imperfect image, but it attempts to reproduce reality as faithfully as possible. The former, on the other hand, is in its mimic form an intentionally exaggerated facial expression. Where plastic gestures consist of hand formations, they count on the fantasy of the observer, which accounts for the fact that the majority of symbolic gestures belong to this plastic form. The deviation from reality in early drawing usually stems from deficiency in the practice of art, not from the intention of the artist to produce something really different from nature. The plastic image, on the other hand, suggests from the beginning, exaggerated mutations or combinations of natural forms. Thus, the material employed, the tree stump or the block of stone from which the form is to be made, may already suggest by accident certain similarities with human or animal forms, which appear as grotesque mutations and thus, stimulate fantasy even more. Moreover, the purpose of magic, which from the beginning is served by plastic art, plays an important role here, as the fearinciting masks which are employed everywhere by medicine men and shamans indicate. In the course of time, this fantastic exaggeration and mutation is carried over to drawing. In a certain middle stage of primitive culture, as is represented in the artistic practices of North American Indians, a characteristic mixture of both is found in the drawings and paintings. But this corresponds also to the richness of symbolic extensions in the gestural speech of these tribes. 3. Gestural communication and pictography In a narrow sense of the word, script, as a system of visual signs which retains the phonetic structure of language and may thus be communicated regardless of time and space, lies outside the boundaries which folk psychology has drawn. Despite the very intense effect which writing has had on the speech of civilized peoples, it belongs entirely in the realm of technical discoveries, which possess a value impossible to overlook in the general medium of culture in which language developed. Yet these discoveries - the

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historical development of art and literature, costume and habitation, etc. - go far beyond the borders of pure psychology into the areas of the general history of civilization, art, and literature. In this connection, there remains only one common task for folk psychology and other more specialized studies (history, philology) where problems exist in the extension of general psychological motivations to specific cultural pioducts. Such a borderline case is pictography, which originates in the interaction of linguistic expression of thought and the primitive practice of art. At the stage where pictography penetrates speech patterns, lying between the natural expression of thought and the arbitrary use of art, it possesses (like gestures) a much more general character than later writing, which stands under the influence of arbitrary invention. At the same time, in this connection, it is a prototype for all cultural products which are based similarly on mental talents and drives and derive from the inventive activities of individuals. They all have a natural foundation. In this sense, pictography is a problem of folk psychology, whereas writing in its various forms, providing wider communication via language, is a specifically cultural problem in the history of civilization. As a product of the drive for linguistic communication and primitive artistic creation, pictography is related to gestural communication, which, according to its general meaning, can only be regarded as a still more primitive substitute for language by visible signs, more closely identified in its earliest utterances with natural expressive movements. The relationship of pictorial image to gesture is made manifest in that, here, as there, demonstrative and descriptive signs stand opposite one another. It is certainly true that in the pictorial image both kinds of signs are not only divided by a much longer span of time, but also that they diverge much further from one another qualitatively. To be sure, demonstrative hand and finger gestures can be observed in infants along with the earliest grasping motions, while drawn signs belong to a much later time. But both stand close enough so that they can be bound directly to one another. Thus, perhaps, the child expresses the wish to be picked up and

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rocked by his nurse through repeated rhythmic rising and falling of his outstretched arms. On the other hand, the demonstrative signs of primitive peoples, which can be considered the first forerunners of pictography, generally belong to another class of objective signs. A bent twig points out to one coming later the road that the person coming earlier had taken; or one laid across the road warns against traversing it. Other road signs, which have been preserved here and there to the present, are stones laid in the road, signs drawn in the sand, or arrows scratched on stone.50 Such road marks are, as Vierkandt correctly remarked, apparently not only discoveries, but also imitations of accidentally found objects which the wanderer first used for his own orientation. Having become first a means for communication to others, the natural road signs can then be connected with the notion of pictorial image. Thus, a fish drawn in the sand can serve as a pathmarker to bring attention to a favorable spot for fishing.51 Yet, as a rule, the systematic use of pictures for communication is involved in the more extended creation of graphic art. Originating without any intent of communication on rock walls and in rock caves used as sanctuaries, they presuppose a definite use of art, in contrast to the natural road signs with demonstrative meaning. For that very reason, a rather wide gap in the development of primitive art divides demonstrative signs from the images which serve as the equivalents of descriptive gestures. Also, the gap between primitive art as such and its use as communication is obviously a far greater one than in the accidentally found road marks. Whether the image originates chiefly in the artistic drive of the primitive artist sitting in his stone cave to depict to himself in a livelier manner than through his memory, the animals for which he lies in wait or from which he seeks protection, or whether in a somewhat later stage, the image might communicate the magical impression which clings to the subject and make it the 50

G. Mallery, "Sign Language among North American Indians". A. Vierkandt, Die Stetigkeit im Kulturwandel (1908), p. 49. 51 K. von den Steinen, Unter den Naturvölkern Zentralbrasiliens (1897), p. 232.

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object of a primitive magic cult, both motivations are nonetheless still far removed from pictography. The products of this graphic art may not be regarded as mere creations of fantasy either, practiced only for the sake of their pleasing effect. The primitive work of art may give pleasure after it has come into being, but wherever it is totally absent, it cannot exercise any pleasurestimulating effects. What, on the other hand, is peculiar to this primitive art is the drive to reveal the emotions in their natural expressive forms of mimic and pantomimic movements. The affective pantomimic expressions especially enliven and increase the contents of the affects themselves. As the primitive animal dance imitates the movements of the animals (memory calling forth affects similar to those which the animal itself aroused), so the drawing is at first only an expression of the lively remembrance of an object reinforcing itself by pantomimic movements. And just as the dance awakens pleasure through the lively play of rhythmic motions, so the satisfaction associated with the first practice of graphic art cannot be the cause of its origin, but only a result which, to be sure, further influences its development. Thus, the animal dance and painting stand opposed to one another as natural forms of expression in which the life of the primitive hunter is mirrored. In the dance, this is seen in the effect of the image on one's own body, and in the paintings, it is seen in the drive to retain the image. For this reason, it is significant that caves appear to be the earliest habitat of graphic art. The darkness makes pantomimic representation of memory images with one's own body impossible, and thus compels the artist even more to fix the transitory image drawn in the air with lasting materials. Accordingly, the primitive form of pantomime, the imitation of animals, long preceded the corresponding form of drawing, the animal painting; and between this and the extension to pictography lies perhaps an even longer period of time, perhaps mediated by various levels of successive change in meaning. The painted picture, which came about without any intention of preservation in time, becomes a memorial in two senses - it reminds the artist of earlier sights and experiences,

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and it also memorializes the artist by offering proof of his special skill. Thus, it is said of the Bushmen that they are reticent to cover any cave painting as long as they can remember its creator.52 At the moment in which this primitive art passed from an imitation of individual animal or human figures to a representation of entire scenes in which the artist himself represented a moving experience, then this memorial had to acquire independently objective significance apart from its creator. It was kept as a memorial because it could retain the memory of an event longer than the purely verbal tradition.53 However, this monument also lacks something on the border-line between the unintentionally created and the consciously created memorials in the transition to pictography: the intention to communicate. Certainly it is felt latently to a great extent. The prouder he is about the products of his art, the more the artist wishes them to be seen by others. But there is still lacking in this stage any purpose of definite communication represented by the drawings. By means of this communication the representation is composed of individual parts set in relation to one another, as is the thought which it expresses. This transition is mediated usually by the use of lines which, when drawn between the individual parts of the image, indicate the relationships, just as in gestural communication when the demonstrative gestures are inserted in an interpretive sense between the indicative. This last step is probably the greatest in its entire development; and the perfected pictography, to which the process led, lies, thus, on the threshold between primitive culture and developed civilization. However, pictography itself becomes in this way a transitory phenomenon. The more compounded the communication becomes, the more it is pressed to shorten the images and use a symbolic notational (therefore also artificial) script, as the older hieroglyphics of the Egyptians and the sign systems of South and Central American cultures illustrate. Within this zone of transition where pictography is still both 52

Moszeik, Die Malereien der Buschmänner, p. 27. Concerning the Bushmen which belong here, see Wundt, Völkerpsychologie*, Vol. 3, Ch. II, p. 187. 53

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image and writing - image in its directly perceptible meaning and writing in its purpose of communication - it is clearly recognizable that gestural communication and pictography influence one another. This connection manifests itself where there may be doubt whether a given sign of pictography is a fixed gesture or whether, conversely, a gesture is the transitory imitation of a picture. In both types of transference, no special invention, but rather a spontaneous association with the traditional signs as they are used to point out roads to be taken or avoided is required. At the moment in which this association arises, the demonstrative sign will be introduced into pictography, where it is assimilated by the addition of directional lines in the drawing, which make clear to the viewer how the individual parts of the thought are connected with one another. Only in this way did actual pictography develop; and through the connection of images with directional lines, the analogy with descriptive and demonstrative signs is complete. The reciprocity of both forms of communication is retained, gestures directly assimilating the signs of pictography and vice versa. Since an historical tradition concerning the origin of such signs is not at our disposal, only a certain probability for one of the two possibilities can be obtained from the character of the signs themselves. There are images, especially in pictography, which one can, however, identify at once as indications of gestures, while still others clearly refer to a subsequent symbolic image first imitated by a gesture. Figure 8 offers an excellent and at the same time typical example of the earliest pictography. It is a miniature of a finished document, colored on parchment, from the upper lake region of Michigan, which contains a message from the chief of the Eagle Totem (a) to the President of the United States (h). The indication of the latter is even more clearly evident in the original by the white color of the house and face of the figure ('the white man in the white house'). The content of the message expressed in the image is as follows:54 Ί (a) and a few of my warriors (b-e), together 54

The colored copy with explanation may be found in: Schoolcraft, Ethnological Researches resp. The Red Man of America (1851), I, PI. 62, pp. 418ff.

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Fig. 8. Letter of an Indian Chief in Hieroglyphics

with some other mighty chiefs of other totems (f, i), are gathered together and offer you friendship through me. We are all of one mind with you. Three sections of my tribe (c, d, e) want to live from now on in houses'. The totem to which the chiefs belong is indicated by the animal figures (a-e Eagle Totem, f Fish Totem, i undetermined). The dignity of the chief is expressed by the rising lines above his head; according to the number of lines it is possible to ascertain at the same time the power of the chief. The author places his own power - either out of politeness towards his guests or out of honesty - much lower than that of six and nine. The offer of peace and friendship is signified by the outstretched hand, and agreement of opinion by the line which connects the eyes of all with the message communicated to the right eye of the President. The willingness of three tribesmen (c, d, e) to settle down and, therefore, to give up a life of hunting, is symbolized by the three houses drawn underneath each figure. In such a way, the larger house under the larger bird might illustrate the more significant power of this warrior in comparison with both the others. One must confess that a letter in ordinary script and language could hardly express a message more succinctly and that a letter, in any case, would not give the message in such a graphically perceptible manner. The individual signs are partly imitative, like the president in his house (h) and the three houses under the warriors (g), and partly semi-symbolic, like the totem figures. Others are completely symbolic: the designation of the dignity of the chief, the assurance

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of friendship, and the expression of agreement. The images of the first type are possibly originally peculiar to pictography. Where they occur simultaneously as gestures, as in the indication of a house by lines drawn in the air, this can just as well be an imitation of a real house or of a pictorial image. Insofar as gesture and image behave in a certain way like a sketch and its execution, they might have originated like these in reciprocity with one another. It is a different story with the purely symbolic gestures, which really make up the principal content of the communication in the example above. To begin with, there can be no doubt that the outstretched hand is the direct imitation of the corresponding gesture. Worthy of note is the extension from gesture to pictography which brings changes caused by the divergent execution. To this category belong primarily the lines in Fig. 8 which indicate the dignity of the chiefs. These symbolic strokes become immediately comprehensible if we recall the sign which indicates the chief in the gestural language of the Indians, consisting of the movement of both hands upward from the head. Both lines which we notice over the head of Fig. a are probably nothing more than indications of this gesture. It may be, then, an autonomous development of the sign within pictography when we see that, in order to indicate even greater dignity and power, the number of lines is increased to five over the head of Fig. fand to seven over Fig. i. Furthermore, the intensification shows how much the remaining signs of nobility and royal dignity in our present civilization owe to this simple symbolism of the earliest pictography and, even farther back, to gestures. For when the two lines increase to five or even to seven, the reminiscence of the gesture becomes the primitive image of a crown. This heraldic sign, which still today distinguishes the various levels of noble birth, is directly descended from the simple symbolism, through which the pictography of the savages already sought to intensify the primitive sign for power. Likewise, the lines which connect the eyes of the collectively symbolic representatives exhibit a sign taken from gestural communication and transformed according to the demands of pictography. Gestural communication expresses agreement of opinion through demonstrative motions

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pointing from eye to eye; similarly, an agreement of feeling is indicated by a reference to one's own heart and then to that of the addressed, or the exchange of opinion by a connecting motion from one's own mouth to the mouth of another. The pictography of the Indians assumes all these signs in replacing the motion of the hand or finger in a certain direction with a connecting line. Connecting lines between hearts drawn in the bodies are also found often in other documents. In isolated cases of Indian pictography, connecting lines extend between both the eyes and the hearts, in order to emphasize the agreement of opinion and emotion.55 In other cases, a conversation will be symbolized by the fact that the lines connecting the lips are broken or even replaced by small finger-shaped bodies,56 not unlike the long strings of words pouring forth from the mouths of the saints and the Madonna in naive paintings by the old German Masters. It remains undecided whether only the division of speech into words should be indicated in this way, or whether a direct reference is contained in the back and forth motion of the index finger. In any case, these symbolic signs are derivations of gestural communication, even if they could begin to lead a kind of independent existence apart from it. However, there are contrary cases where the converse transformation took place, those where pictography borrowed certain signs from gestural communication. The class of symbolic gestures again offers examples. As was noted earlier, the symbolic gesture for 'justice' (Fig. 6e) can be understood only as a mime of the well known plastic representations for Justitia. Even the symbols of primitive pictography lent imitations to gestural speech. An example of this type mentioned by Prince Wied is contained in a letter from a Mandan Indian to a trapper.57 On the right a bison, a fish otter, and a weasel (Mustela canadensis) are portrayed, on the left a gun and a beaver with thirty strokes behind it. Between both groups there is a cross, which in the pictography of the Indians 55 56 57

Schoolcraft, Ethnological Researches, PI. 60, p. 416. G. Mallery, "Sign Language", Fig. 192-194, pp. 347ff. Prince von Wied, Reise in das innere Nordamerika, Π, ρ. 657, Appendix Β.

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is the sign for 'barter'. Accordingly, the meaning of the letter is as follows: "I offer the pelt of a bison, a fish otter, and a weasel for a rifle and thirty beaver pelts". We have seen that the cross in the form of two crossed index fingers occurs as the symbolic

Fig. 9. Business Letter of an Indian in Hieroglyphics

gesture for 'exchange' (Fig. 7m). One could therefore, suppose that here also the gesture was taken over into pictography. However, this presupposition obscures the origin of the gesture. It would have to be a far-fetched symbolism if business and exchange were to be indicated by crossing the fingers. On the contrary, the use of the cross as a pictorial image is obvious when one remembers the original conditions under which commerce arose among primitive people. Whenever there was a need of regular commerce, a place was chosen where roads from different settlements and hunting areas crossed. At the considerably higher stage of economic development in the Middle Ages, the market on the crossroads, with all the privileges bestowed on it, was integral to the beginnings of communal organization.58 Even if there are no firm paths through the fields, crossroads for commerce grow up according to the lay of mountain ranges, valleys, and river beds, and the expansion of different hordes in a certain area. Such crosspoints become markets, whether the traders personally 58

See Lamprecht, Deutsche Geschichte, ΠΙ, pp. 32ff.

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come together, or whether they simply deposit in these places the objects they want to trade. Therefore, this pictorial symbol is understandable without any further explanation if one conceives of it as an indication for the place where primitive commerce occured. Hence, the sign of crossing the fingers for 'exchange' apparently shifted from pictography into gestural communication. Similar reciprocity between gesture and script confronts us in the peculiar pictography which originated in the midst of our civilized world but which nonetheless still retains a natural similarity with the crude forms of primitives; that is, the secret markings of criminals. As do the Indians, they indicate night by a vaulted roof, and joy, or a joyful experience, by a heart. Two oblique lines leaning against one another and touching at the top means house or tent to the Indians, whereas to the criminal it means prison. If, therefore, the same sign is executed in reverse position, it is the symbol of 'release'. Symbolic signs play an especially large role: a vertical line indicates 'resolute denial', a horizontal line 'confession'.59 The agreement with the pictography of primitives is obvious if there are no distinctions made in regard to the specific interests and circumstances - i.e. that the signs of criminals have the character of a secret language. 4. The psychological character of gestural communication The question posed at the beginning of this chapter, whether gestural communication was invented, or whether it developed from the general conditions of the psycho-physical organization of man according to universally recurring psychological laws, can be considered settled after the conclusions of the sections above. Natural gestural communication, which, under similar conditions, develops spontaneously time and again in the same manner, bears its own proof that it is independent from outside coercion and arbitrary invention in its psychological regularity. But this regularity in no way excludes individual influences and 59

Hanns Gross, Handbuch für Untersuchungsrichter3, 1899, pp. 261, 275ff. Archiv für Kriminalanthropologie und Kriminalstatistik, II, p. l, 33ff.

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artificial inventions which serve to perfect gestural communication in the interests of achieving special purposes. Such influences come to mind clearly enough. They are recognized by the new meanings which signs acquire with the intention of making gestural speech a secret means of communication, or in some of the Neapolitan signs. Similarly, the obvious derivations from pictography and their further symbolic alterations point toward such influences. One may recall, for example, the various new meanings of the sign for 'justice' (Fig. 6e) and the development of the sign for 'exchange' (Figs. 1m and «). Motivations produced by such artificial extension and the arbitrary whim of an individual accompany the development of gestural communication from the start. Inevitably, therefore, the question arises as to the relationship of natural origin and artificial modification. Another closely connected question is, what, in both cases, are the psychic processes from which the outward effects originate, and how do the general processes based on valid psychic laws relate to the motivations of an individual consciousness. For the answer to both questions, the origin of gestures from expressive motions provides a firm foundation from which the psychological analysis must proceed. This law of origin leads by necessity to the presupposition that the primary cause of natural gestures does not lie in the motivation to communicate a concept, but rather in the expression of an emotion. Gestures are first and foremost affective expressions. Essential as it be that gestural communication rise above this level, it could never have come into being without the original affective motivation. Only secondarily, insofar as every affect contains strong emotional concepts, does the gesture become a conceptual expression. In the further psychic effects associated with this aspect of affective expression, however, lies the origin of the whole development of actual gestural communication. As conceptual expression, the movement is able to arouse in others the same affects, since only through the influence of similar concepts can the agreement of affects originate. Emotional expression can merely indicate and reproduce the basic directions of feelings. Both the affect itself and its reappear-

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ance in someone else gain a firm basis through the conceptual content and the movements in which these contents are outwardly manifested. Still another influence accompanies the expression of the concept in the reproduction of the affect. Since this expression provides a firm base for the reflection of feelings in the addressee, it excites further concepts associated with the gesture, develops the gesture, or perhaps even elicits its own opposite. Therefore, the gesture of the addressee is no longer just a simple reflex of the original movement; rather it has evolved from a co-gesture into a responsive gesture. If the border between them at first seems blurred, they will gradually separate, the more active the conceptual motions become in the individual consciousness. If the answer was little more than a reproduction of the same conceptual content at first, repetition of the perceived recedes behind the newly developed conceptual content. Thus, the private sign is transformed by the continual reciprocity of gestures to a general one of constantly changing affect. Furthermore, because of the predominant emphasis on the conceptual contents, the emotional elements of the affect, and thereby the emotions themselves, are reduced. This means, finally, that the commonly experienced affect becomes shared thought, set in motion by the interaction of gestural expression. According to its psychological character then, the motions out of which original gestures and their transformations to a more regulated gestural communication develop are instinctive drives, i.e. willed actions which follow from and are adapted to a single motivation, not betraying any noticeable clash with other motivations. As long as a motivation always consists of one feeling with a corresponding concept, or, as we can express it in the possible dominance of the latter, of an emotionally strong concept, the effect of the instinctive drive is anticipated in the content of the motivation. The indication of an object or, in the case of stronger emotions, the mime of a movement is, therefore, at the same time a symptom of the emotion and a symptom of the motivation. The gesture is the direct expression of the concept which at the moment governs the affect. In the original diffusion of affective

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expressions, it is the same motivation which produces the emotion in the communicator and recalls it in the addressee. Since the motivation in the latter, however, gradually calls forth other motivations, the gestural expression is correspondingly altered. In this way, the transformation from co-gestures to responsive gestures is completed always within the bounds of pure drives, and this is the true moment of birth of gestural communication. In any case, in the changes of the motivations and their outward effects in this reciprocal motion of gestures lie also the conditions which gradually produce arbitrary actions, tending to intervene at decisive points in the expression of drives and tending to determine strictly their further development. For as soon as an externally perceived concept calls forth other concepts, they must vary according to the special preconditions of the individual consciousness. In addition, several associations can now come into play simultaneously, since the impression offers associative relationships in different areas. Thus, the same impulses are repeated here which the development of the will shows everywhere. First there is a passively experienced struggle of motivations, which results in the predominance of a certain motivation. As pre-experiences work in growing numbers on the already finished process, the struggle becomes an act of choice or an active preference for the dominant motivation. This motivation is subjectively distinguished from the former passively experienced struggle by the stronger share of attention and feelings of activity. To the same extent, the associations begin to take shape in clear intellectual processes: conscious comparisons and relationships become prominent. The instinctive perception, repetition, and transformation of gestures, thus, gradually becomes a creative application to change of gestures. One may say of gestural communication - this very incomplete but, perhaps for that reason, the most instructive form of language - that it represents in its development all the stages of man's intellectual evolution. It is, therefore, also impossible that gestural communication be tied to a simple psychological formula. Language, and before that, gestural communication, is a faithful

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mirror of man in the totality of his psychic achievements. The basic law of all mental development - according to which what follows always originates from what precedes and nevertheless appears opposed to it as a new creation - this law of 'psychic effects' or 'creative synthesis', step by step stands the test in the succession of psychic processes which comprise the development of gestural communication. Every stage of this development is already contained in the preceding and is, at the same time, a new phenomenon. Thus, the responsive gesture is a powerful step forward in comparison to mere imitation, and yet, as we may assume, it originated without any outside interference but purely through the intensification of already operative, elementary psychic conditions. In the same way, instinctive reaction to outward impressions leads to an arbitrary, rational action and, finally, to the area of creative achievements. Because of the increasing complexity of unique conditions, the actions of individuals interfere more and more decidedly with the machinery of general psychic activities. In the entire development we see only the imminent progression beyond the reached limits, and nowhere the intervention of outside influence, nowhere the appearance of specifically new 'spiritual talents'. What we call rational choice between different motivations and creative action is, in fact, only the greatest intensification and, at the same time, the necessary end result of the earliest and simplest drives. In this natural and purposeful progression, gestural communication supplies a model example for the development of language, distinguished by the simplicity and clarity of its phenomena.