Gesture can be considered an obvious and illustrative means of communication. The results of its anthropological research enable the hypothesis that there exist culturally settled rules for the gestural information processing. Most of the gestural sign systems are based on the iconic code that implies a structural similarity between the signifier and the signified. Still, under certain circumstances gestures can be coded digitally, i. e. arbitrarily. The possibility for the formation of the gestural sign system, which is supposed to be structurally similar to the verbal one, caused many endeavours to develop a science about gesture. The latter should be a subscience of semiology, analogous with linguistics. This aim was achieved by Birdwhistell by creating kinesics. Unfortunately, he has not been followed by any important scientist, for in reality there is usually no need for such an elaborated gestural language as the verbal one.
|