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In this section we're actually going to explore how we represent spatial,
tactile and gestural meanings.
And of course we're going to use the five questions.
Now, I just want you to imagine, just in terms of the issues related to space.
A meeting of two people.
A senior person and a junior person.
So they enter a space in order to do some things.
How is that space arranged?
Is there furniture?
What kind of furniture?
Is it round, is it square?
Is it close, is it far?
Is there a bigger piece of furniture and a smaller piece?
Is one person located in one part of the room and the other at the other end?
All these things that happened in that space, the way we navigate and
see the space, will impact on the meaning that's made.
So we need to ask the question, the arrangement of that space,
what does it mean when the choices are made?
Is it supposed to mean power?
Does it mean doing things together?
How is it organized in the first instance?
And secondly, how do the meanings connect to the people who are interacting in them?
If there is somebody sitting behind a big desk and another person sitting
at the other end, how does that impact on the way they're going to interact?
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And of course, structure.
The whole structure of a space, how does it impact on
the overall meanings that are created in this particular environment?
And of course the fourth question we ask is about situation.
How are the meanings shaped by the context of the location?
Is it in an open plan?
Is it in a closed room with closed doors?
Is it very regal?
Is it very ordinary?
All these things impact the context of the way in
which space is shaped is important for the situation.
And finally, the question we ask is intent.
Whose interests do these meanings serve?
In that particular space, how is it set up
to create a sense of either relationship, or power,
or distance, or togetherness, or the type of work that you might do in this space?
So, for space and for touch and for gesture,
we will be asking these five questions in order to
analyze the components of the designs that are made when
meanings are made through any one of these meaning making modes.
Space, touch or gesture.
>> What I want to do now is I want to apply the multiliteracies grammar
to gestural meanings.
So there's a particular gesture, hey you, stop, right?
I'm telling you to stop one gesture, one moment.
But by the way, there's a concept, that means stop.
That's a generalized concept which I have learned in the language of gesture.
So me telling you stop is like a common noun.
Telling you to stop is me and you proper noun.
And the general concept, it's like a common noun.
This stop is a general thing which you recognize is a common noun repeatable.
Also, gesture has characteristics.
There might be gestures which are subtle.
So I'm looking bored.
I'm trying not to look bored, and subtly, somebody picks up that I'm bored.
Or there might be things that are really obvious.
Because I really want to make them obvious.
They're really out there.
And this is kind of like adjectives, if you like.
And there are relationships like prepositions, like possessives.
Now the next question then is to dialogue, how people position.
Well, they position through the gesture.
I'm pointing to you, you, that second person, yep.
How are things structured?
Well, we spoke about the gestural elements like gesticulation.
There is preparation, stroke, retraction.
There's a kind of a syntax to this stuff as well.
That's just one example.
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And we use media.
The media are my hands, my clothes, my cosmetics.
Whatever it is I'm using, they are media for representing meanings and gesture.
They're also in context, right?
So what does the gesture point to?
What kind of context?
This doesn't have any sense, like outside of what I'm pointing to,
context in situations are absolutely essential to that meaning.
And how is it like other gestures?
Which is fashion, the certain casual style or
formal style or a thousand, million fashions in the world,
there are always things about similarity and differences or demeanor, right?
Demeanor is about similarity or
difference to other experiences of a particular set of gestural patterns.
And finally, there is intention, right?
So in other words, I have reasons for my gestures.
Which are about my stance, my identity, my feelings, and
there are interpretations to those gestures which is power relations.
You're dominating over me by the way you're standing over me and talking to me,
for example.
Or, I might take offense.
That's an interpretation.
So in other words, I put meanings into particular context as well.
Again, my synesthesia point I want to make a round the metaphorical
power of these gestures.
When I say, I'm going to point something out to you, that's literally pointing out,
but I might be metaphorically pointing something out to you, which is like this.
I might have a kind of an aura.
I might demonstrate forms of behavior.
But behavior, actually things which are represented in embodied kinds of ways.
And also, I might have ways of acting things out.
I might have ways of, by my actions, representing a certain kind of meanings.
And that might be acting in the sense of literally up on the stage of a theater
acting out, or it might be little moments of acting out where I act something out
because I want you to act out being upset or act out being offended or whatever.
So that's me as an actor representing a meaning to you, communicating
a meaning to you via bodily configuration, these kinds of bodily meanings.
Now, I want to end here with the same point that I made about braille.
Remember I said about braille, incredible,
you can represent the whole of human meaning.
You can say as much in touch as you can in language.
Well here, you can say as much in gesture as you can in language via these much more
explicit, much more elaborate gestural meaning systems in deaf communities.
So these are examples here from American Sign Language,
these are the days of the week.
So this is using gesture in exactly the same way that we use language, and with
exactly the same scope, exactly the same depth, exactly the same meaning potential.
So in a way, these are kind of proof that there's nothing in human meaning that we
can't make in all the modes.
Dr William CopeProfessor
Dr Mary KalantzisDean
