Everyone gestures while speaking, in a specific and generally unconscious manner. What are the functions of gestures? What relationship do they have to speech? How do gestures work to create meaning? In this valuable book, Genevieve Calbris undertakes to answer those questions.

Based on the author's own extensive experimental research, The Semiotics of French Gestures presents a systematic description and a detailed semiotic analysis of French gestures. The book aims to establish a structual semantics of the set of gestures and facial expressions that accompany or replace spoken...