Towards a Description of East African Gestures

SLS 14 (1977), 1-20 ( William C. Stokoe TOWARDS A DESCRIPTION OF EAST AFRICAN GESTURES Chet A. Creider The gestures described below include all those observed and elicited in the course of two an one-half years of field work in Western Kenya in 1970-72. As work was conducted with only four tribal groups, the reader is cautioned concerning the completeness of the list (there are well over thirty distinct languages and cultural groups in Kenya). To the best of my knowledge, however, no treatment of gestures for any part of sub-Saharan Africa has yet appeared, and it is hoped that this treatment will stimulate further comparative research. The research reported here was undertaken in conjunction with an extensive study of the functions of language and body movement in the context of conversational interaction. While that study is not reported in detail here, 2 it does form the basis for the theoretical discussion following the tabular description below. I believe that current researchers in the area of gesture are in considerable agreement as to the basic character of their subject matter. My comments on the meaning and usage of gestures are thus largely confined to an attempt to demonstrate this agreement. The tribal groups whose gestural behavior was studied were the following: Kipsigis, Luo, Gusii, and Samburu. The Kipsigis and Samburu languages belong to the larger unit "Paranilotic" in Tucker and Bryan's classification (1966). Luo is a Nilotic language. Samburu is linguistically very closely related to Maasai, and Kipsigis is closely related to Nandi. The Paranilotic and Nilotic languages are genetically related, but the relationship between them is not close. Sign Language Studies 14 Gusii is a Bantu language, part of Greenberg's NigerCongo grouping, and is not genetically related to the other three (Kipsigis, Luo, and Samburu belong to Greenberg's Nilo-Saharan family, the Chari-Nile branch; Greenberg 1966). The Gusii, Luo, and Kipsigis are located close to one another and in the past had a certain amount of contact with one another due to military activity and at times trading. At present , contact is largely limited to market centers on common borders of the groups, except in the case of the Luo, who are employed throughout the districts of Kericho (Kipsigis) and Kisii (Gusii) as agricultural laborers. The Samburu are located to the north of the other three groups and are separated from them by some distance. This distance, however, is bridged by related groups (Nandi and Maasai). For characterizing the gesture list it suffices to note that all of the gestures included satisfy two criteria: They may be elicited outside of the context of their performance in interaction by reference to their meaning (i. e. they are readily recallable and have standardized meanings); and they have a standardized shape or form, relatively invariant across informants and not sensitive to context. For purposes of presentation, the gestures are grouped into four categories: A. initiators and finalizers of interaction, B. imperatives, C. responses, and D. qualifiers. The first category includes greetings and leave-takings. The second category, imperatives includes commands, polite requests, and admonitions. Responses are sufficiently defined by the name. Qualifiers are grouped into the following types: size, quantity, direction, self-feeling and intention, and illustration. No claim is made at this point that these categories have any basis other than convenience. It is readily noted, however, that the first three categories cover situations where speech is at times inappropriate . Inspection of the gestures in the fourth category shows that many of these are without exact lexical equivalents. Hence we may legitimately speak of a "trade-off" relationship between gestures and speech, with a degree of functional specialization associated with both types of behavior. Creider Description of Gestures. A. Initiators and finalizers of interaction NAME DESCRIPTION 1. Handshake, with left hand loosely grasping right (shaking) arm of self above, at, or just below elbow 2. Handshake, alternated with putting hand around upright thumb of other person 3. Handshake, with left hand of each grasping right (shaking) hand of other 4. Handshake, preceded by right hands slapping each other with palms flat 5. Handshake, with fingers of right hand pressing into palm of other's...