A Repertoire of South African Quotable Gestures

Abstract

Among black urban South Africans in Gauteng province, quotable gestures are a prominent part of everyday communication. Using observations and video recordings of spontaneous communicative interactions, elicitation interviews, and a decoding test, this study presents the repertoire of quotable gestures in current use. Quotable gestures fall within three main gestural types: lexical, holophrastic, and concept, with lexical gestures constituting the highest proportion. Within each gestural type, gestures vary in their range of meanings, functions, and independence from speech. This variation suggests that sharp distinctions between gestural types and between quotable and speech-dependent gestures may obscure continuities in meaning, function, and how gestures originate and develop. The article discusses recent work that suggests alternative organizational criteria for the analysis of gestures. It proposes that analysis of gestures begin at the level of interaction, taking into account how social relationships, cultural notions, and identity shape forms of gestural use and behavior.

Cross-cultural variation of speech-accompanying gesture: A review

“…How do conventionalised gestures emerge (or disappear) within a community (cf. Brookes, 2004), how do they spread within and across communities and how do they change their meaning when passed on from generation to generation or from community to community (cf. Morris et al, 1979)?…”

‘When you hang out with the guys they keep you in style’: The case for considering style in descriptions of South African tsotsitaals

“…One aspect, however, which is not so much commended on by speakers but often performed, and which links more directly to the performance of speech, is the body language, which accompanies empirical demonstrations of tsotsitaal: the clicking of fingers, particular gestures and body posture (Brookes 2004).…”

A visual and linguistic comparison of features of Durban and Cape Town tsotsitaal

“…For example, the word 'kill' was illustrated by a movement of the hand with extended thumb and small finger across the throat. Brookes (2004) refers to a similar gesture in her tsotsitaal data from Johannesburg to link to the tsotsitaal word boda -'kill' in her data from Gauteng. Figure 1 shows a screenshot from the Cape Town data.…”

“…Ntshangase 1993;Slabbert and Myers-Scotton 1997, who aimed to distinguish between an Afrikaans-based tsotsitaal and Bantu language-based varieties, which they called Iscamtho), there have been no comparisons undertaken between different regional tsotsitaals and analyses have continued to focus on geographical and temporal varieties in isolation. Debates around naming different regional and base language varieties have been dealt with in-depth elsewhere Brookes and Lekgoro this issue) and will not be repeated here, except to note that naming practices such as those discussed by Slabbert and Myers-Scotton (1997), as well as alternative terminology such as 'kasitaal' (Makalela 2013), or 'ringas' (Aycard 2007: 7) appear to be particular to the Gauteng varieties described by those studies. In Cape Town, the preferred name is Tsotsitaal (Hurst 2008), while in Durban, the usual name is isiTsotsi (Rudwick 2005).…”

“…For example, Brookes (2004) discusses gesture in tsotsitaal, while Hurst and Mesthrie (2013) and Maribe and Brookes (this issue) describe the relationship between tsotsitaal and other style markers such as clothing, music and body language. A number of studies point to tsotsitaal as a style -a set of stylistic resources -that can be drawn on by speakers to perform an urban, streetwise identity .…”