Analyzing polysemiosis: language, gesture, and depiction in two cultural practices with sand drawing

Abstract Human communication is by default polysemiotic: it involves the spontaneous combination of two or more semiotic systems, the most important ones being language, gesture, and depiction. We formulate an original cognitive-semiotic framework for the analysis of polysemiosis, contrasting this with more familiar systems based on the ambiguous term “multimodality.” To be fully explicit, we developed a coding system for the analysis of polysemiotic utterances containing speech, gesture, and drawing, and implemented this in the ELAN video annotation software. We used this to analyze 23 video-recordings of sand drawing performances on Paama, Vanuatu and 20 sand stories of the Pitjantjatjara culture in Central Australia. Methodologically we used the conceptual-empirical loop of cognitive semiotics: our theoretical framework guided general considerations, such as distinguishing between the “tiers” of gesture and depiction, and the three kinds of semiotic grounds (iconic, indexical, symbolic), but the precise decisions on how to operationalize these were made only after extensive work with the material. We describe the coding system in detail and provide illustrative examples from the Paamese and Pitjantjatjara data, remarking on both similarities and differences in the polysemiosis of the two cultural practices. We conclude by summarizing the contributions of the study and point to some directions for future research.