The palm-up open hand gesture across language modalities: A comparison of German and DGS (German Sign Language)

It is a well-established fact that the use of gestures is a ubiquitous feature of communication with language. This is true for both spoken and signed languages. However, while in spoken languages, gestures are produced in a different modality than speech (visual versus vocal/auditory, respectively), gestural elements in sign languages are produced in the same modality as sign (both are visual). This study investigates whether this difference in the modality of language production influences the discourse-pragmatic functions that gestures fulfill. We focus on palm-up open hand (PUOH) gestures and examine their frequency and contexts of use in German and DGS (German Sign Language) narrative productions. We find that German speakers and DGS signers use PUOHs similarly often, but differently on the functional level. Speakers deploy PUOH gestures for information structural purposes (in particular, to signal new(er) information), while signers use PUOH gestures on a discourse management level (in particular, to signal the ending of narratives). We argue that this cross-linguistic and cross-modal difference reflects the differing affordances that spoken versus signed languages offer, thereby revealing new insights into the language-gesture relationship, and the multimodal nature of language more generally.