Peirce's universal categories

On their potential for gesture theory and multimodal analysis

Bibliographic Data

ID4474940
AuthorsIrene Mittelberg (0000-0002-6820-4515, RWTH Aachen University, corresponding author)
Year2019
Volume2019
Issue228
Pages193-222
Publication date2019-05-07
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSemiotica (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0037-1998 • E-ISSN: 1613-3692
PublisherWalter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1515/sem-2018-0090
OpenAlexW2931613639
LanguageEN
Citations received12
References cited62

This paper presents an account of how Peirce's Universal Categories (UCs) of perception and experience may, as heuristic principles, inform gesture theory and multimodal analysis. Peirce's UCs - Firstness (possibility), Secondness (actuality), and Thirdness (law, habit) - constitute the core of his phenomenology and thus also the foundation of his triadic semiotics. I argue that compared to the basic sign-object relations icon, index, symbol mainly used in previous gesture research, the more fundamental UCs allow one to discern additional facets of how coverbal gestures act as signs. This notably pertains to the phenomenology, multidimensionality, and multifunctionality of gesture. The guiding assumption is that compared to Thirdness-laden linguistic symbols constituting written, spoken or signed discourses, gestures may exhibit the UCs to more strongly varying degrees and in different, modality-specific ways. The multimodal analyses discussed in the paper show how Firstness tends to draw attention to the articulatory qualities of gestural signs, including aesthetic and affective strata, Secondness to their experiential grounding and contextualized meaning, and Thirdness to embodied habits of perceiving, feeling, (inter-)acting, thinking, and communicating with others. I further suggest that particularly through interacting with embodied image schemata and force dynamics, such habits may give rise to flexible regularities and schematicity in gesture

Cognitive psychology · Cognitive science · Embodied cognition · Epistemology · Gesture · Iconicity · Linguistics · Modality (human–computer interaction) · Object (grammar) · Perception · Phenomenology (philosophy) · Semiotics · Artificial Intelligence · Communication · Computer Science · Hearing Impairment and Communication · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies · Language, Metaphor, and Cognition · Philosophy · Psychology