LING 002. First-Year Seminar:The power of hands

We consider gestures that members of speech communities use and signs that occur in sign languages. How do they differ… how are they similar… and why? We will read gesture studies and form an inventory of types of gestures. Then we will look at a recent proposal about the articulatory properties of gestures compared to those of signs. Students will form pairs to investigate gestures in a language other than English and signs in a sign language other than American Sign Language, always with one eye on the proposal we are evaluating and the other wandering wherever phenomena of interest lure us. No prior experience with a sign language is required.
Social sciences.
1 credit.
Fall 2026. Napoli.
Catalog chapter: Linguistics
Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/linguistics

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