Multimodal languaging: Reification profiles in language and gesture

Abstract The paper explores multimodal languaging of objects and words as an encultured practice. We report the results of the experiment where the participants explained the difference between close synonyms, enacting them as either objects or words in speech and gesture. The basic claim of the study is that speech and gesture as second-order language reflect the way they were acquired in developing the knowledge of objects and words in reification image-schemas. We found that i) object reification occurs twice more often; ii) enacting objects and words is affected by the same image-schemas expressed in speech and gesture types, still there are differences in their distribution in speech. This observation evidences that both gesture-specific and language-specific notions are part of languaging since the speech and gesture patterns present the way of packaging the shared idea of objects of reference.