Abstract
This study examines the properties of gestures that serve to convey an image of the
speaker. The gesture observed can be perceived as a sub-type of gestures that linguistic
anthropologist Charles Goodwin termed “environmentally coupled gestures” in that the
meaning of the gesture is determined not by its semiotic property but by the mutual
elaboration of the gesture and other semiotic resources such as artifacts, utterance, and
gaze. A conversation analysis was conducted based on data collected during interaction
among members of a project team constructing an installation for a science museum.
The results show that team members recurrently re-do gestures that convey the image
of the speaker along with another gesture constructed to be coupled with the original
gesture.
