Shapes Semantic Content

When speakers assume a viewpoint, their viewpoint limits the range of topics they can logically and consistently represent within the framework of a single narrative. Goldin-Meadow, McNeill, and Singleton (1996) argue that speech 

The effects of viewpoint on semantic content become apparent when we compare the viewpoints that Libby assumes in each of the five conditions. In the demonstration, she sets up the physical context for the demonstration ( Have 1 got my hole drilled ). In the scientific process condition, she explains how the mechanics of roof support (the layers, the bearing plates) produce the intended consequences ( to make it a solid beam ). In the gesture-only condition, she assumes a mimetic viewpoint as though she were following a checklist of instructions Check gas. . . Sound the top. .. Drill the hole to the desired depth. Each condition limits the viewpoints that Libby can assume and thus the range of topics she can represent in her narrative. 

When we compare conditions by topic, we also discover important absences in semantic content in each condition (Table 8.2). When Libby assumes an analytic viewpoint in her scientific process description, she describes the strata from a position outside of and above the spaces she describes. As a result, she does not talk about the nature of the steel bolt, the depth of the drill hole, or the size of the drill pod— features that would only be visible from a viewpoint inside the spaces she describes. When Libby assumes an analytic viewpoint, she omits the safety checks that she describes in other viewpoints (sounding the top or checking for gas), since these are presumably unrelated to the workings of the resin bolt within the strata. 

In her demonstration, Libby does not talk about the depth of the drill hole, the glue, the bearing plates, the wtrrking of the bolts or the strata—since these are invisible from the viewpoint of a working miner. When she assumes a mimeric viewpoint in her demonstration, her arm movements convey the depth of the hole while her speech focuses on how to insert the bolt as she was instructed. In her revision of the demonstration, Libby focuses on the patterns of movement in her arms rather than the steps in the process. In this condition, she speaks rhythmically and reduces the level of detail in her dem- 

If Libby lacks a language to express her embodied experience, it is also possible that trainers did not provide a language that could provide an adequate representation of the process. Written instructions without gesture are rhetorically incomplete—like Libby s sing-song chant—unless writers can capture the dynamic, imagistic constructions of experience that are expressed more naturally in gesture. 

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