Foreground gesture, background gesture

Gesture ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 176-202 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kensy Cooperrider
Keyword(s):  
Child Development ◽  
Two Cultures ◽  
Critical Part ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Two Cultures ◽  
Gesture Studies ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Gesture Production

Abstract Do speakers intend their gestures to communicate? Central as this question is to the study of gesture, researchers cannot seem to agree on the answer. According to one common framing, gestures are an “unwitting” window into the mind (McNeill, 1992); but, according to another common framing, they are designed along with speech to form “composite utterances” (Enfield, 2009). These two framings correspond to two cultures within gesture studies – the first cognitive and the second interactive in orientation – and they appear to make incompatible claims. In this article I attempt to bridge the cultures by developing a distinction between foreground gestures and background gestures. Foreground gestures are designed in their particulars to communicate a critical part of the speaker’s message; background gestures are not designed in this way. These are two fundamentally different kinds of gesture, not two different ways of framing the same monolithic behavior. Foreground gestures can often be identified by one or more of the following hallmarks: they are produced along with demonstratives; they are produced in the absence of speech; they are co-organized with speaker gaze; and they are produced with conspicuous effort. The distinction between foreground and background gestures helps dissolve the apparent tension between the two cultures: interactional researchers have focused on foreground gestures and elevated them to the status of a prototype, whereas cognitive researchers have done the same with background gestures. The distinction also generates a number of testable predictions about gesture production and understanding, and it opens up new lines of inquiry into gesture across child development and across cultures.

In the Literature Lab

2018 ◽  
Vol 79 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Kevin Pask
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Models ◽  
Literary Scholarship ◽  
Humanities Computing ◽  
Two Cultures ◽  
Literary Research ◽  
Critical Scholarship ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Two Cultures ◽  
Social Anthropologist

Abstract The most striking development in literary scholarship since the millennium is the increasing exploration of scientific models for literary research. This reflects an anxiety about the authority of humanistic research that has historical roots, some of them well described in the work of the social anthropologist Ernest Gellner. The “two cultures” debate of the early 1960s, centrally animated by C. P. Snow and F. R. Leavis, made the anxiety of the literary professoriat a matter of public debate that still inflects literary scholarship and theory. The rhetorical amplification of scientism, privileging scientific methodologies or partnership with scientific methodologies, in recent literary-critical scholarship is one result. The older formation of “humanities computing,” for example, has reemerged as the digital humanities, with claims to the status of interpretive methodology, particularly in the work of Franco Moretti. Such claims, however, are sometimes the repackaging of older methodologies.

The Internet and the Two Cultures

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan G. Gross ◽  
Joseph E. Harmon
Keyword(s):  
Physical World ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Missed Opportunities ◽  
Two Cultures ◽  
Collective Work ◽  
The Arts ◽  
The Two Cultures ◽  
Social Habits ◽  
Polar Opposite ◽  
The Mind

In a 1959 lecture delivered at Cambridge University, C. P. Snow famously argues that Western intellectual life is divided into two polar-opposite cultures—the sciences and the arts. In his view, most scientists are ignorant of the arts, “with the exception, an important exception, of music,” and as a whole non-scientist intellectuals—a group we will be calling “humanists”—have no conception of the “scientific edifice of the physical world … the most beautiful and wonderful collective work of the mind of man.” Moreover, Snow asserts that, besides this mutual ignorance, both sides underestimate, and even sometimes denigrate, the value of the other. He makes a telling point about the missed opportunities for intellectual advance entailed by the lack of lively commerce between the two groups: . . . There seems then to be no place where the cultures meet. I am not going to waste time saying that this is a pity. It is much worse than that. Soon I shall come to some practical consequences. But at the heart of thought and creation we are letting some of our best chances go by default. The clashing point of two subjects, two disciplines, two cultures—of two galaxies, so far as that goes—ought to produce creative chances. In the history of mental activity that has been where some of the break-throughs came. The chances are there now. But they are there, as it were, in a vacuum, because those in the two cultures can’t talk to each other. . . . Nowhere does Snow mention that, despite many cultural differences, the sciences and the humanities do have three central tasks in common: They generate knowledge, they communicate it, and they evaluate its quality. The thesis of our book is that, in both camps, the Internet has transformed and is still transforming these tasks in important and even similar ways. Nevertheless, for a variety of reasons, all based on differences between the two cultures, on their very different sets of social habits and attitudes, in the sciences the Internet revolution appears to be further along than in the humanities.

scholarly journals Similarities and Disparities of Ghosts in Eastern and Western Literature Based the Novels Liaozhai Zhiyi, Dracula, dan a Christamas Carol

2010 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 149
Author(s):  
Cendrawaty Tjong ◽  
Raina Ophelia Sunggiardi ◽  
Vania Vania
Keyword(s):  
Night Time ◽  
Western Literature ◽  
Two Cultures ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Ghost Image ◽  
The Two Cultures ◽  
Way Of Thinking ◽  
The Mind

Ghosts is one of life unexplained phenomena also interesting theme for entertainment and literature materials. Every nation have their own ghost literature that reflects the nation’s view on ghost itself. This article compares China’s Liaozhai Zhiyi, Western’s Dracula and A Christmas Carol as representations of both culture. The writer through desktop study method found that culture influenced and shaped ghost image in the mind of novel writer. This leads to different image of ghost in the two cultures. The results is: ghost in two cultures appear mostly in the night time, have different types and classifications, different physical images, different way of thinking and how to handle ghosts.

The Two Cultures: Mashing Up Web 2.0 and the Semantic Web

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anupriya Ankolekar ◽  
Markus Krozsch ◽  
Denny Vrandecic
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Web ◽  
Web 2.0 ◽  
Two Cultures ◽  
The Two Cultures

Building Cultural Bridges Between China and India

2021 ◽  
pp. 097133362199045
Author(s):  
Dharm P. S. Bhawuk
Keyword(s):  
Cross Cultural Psychology ◽  
Cultural Psychology ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Multiple Perspectives ◽  
Indian Culture ◽  
Two Cultures ◽  
China And India ◽  
The Two Cultures ◽  
Social Behaviours

Employing one of the established theories from cross-cultural psychology and sociology, first it is shown that both China and India are collectivist cultures. Then the Chinese and Indian worldviews are compared to highlight fundamental similarities between the two cultures. Finally, it is shown how self-cultivation is emphasised in both China and India. Effort is made to show how ideas presented by Confucius and Lao Tsu are captured in the Indian culture and social behaviours. A number of issues are raised for the development of indigenous knowledge from multiple perspectives using various paradigms and methodology. It is hoped that the special issue and this article will stimulate researchers to bridge Chinese and Indian psychologies which may pave the path towards peaceful prosperity.

scholarly journals Immigration and Multiculturalism in Italy: The Religious Experience of the Peruvian Community in the Eternal City

Religions ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. 478
Author(s):  
Verónica Roldán
Keyword(s):  
Religious Experience ◽  
Religious Practice ◽  
Immigrant Communities ◽  
Roman Catholicism ◽  
Cultural Traditions ◽  
Two Cultures ◽  
The World ◽  
The Two Cultures ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Popular Religiosity

The present study on the religious experience of the Peruvian community in Rome belongs to the area of studies on immigration, multiculturalism, and religion in Italy. In this article, I analyze the devotion of the Peruvian community in Rome to “the Lord of Miracles”. This pious tradition, which venerates the image of Christ crucified—painted by an Angolan slave—began in 1651 in Lima, during the Viceroyalty of Peru. Today, the sacred image is venerated in countries all over the world that host Peruvian immigrant communities that have set up branches of the Confraternity of the Lord of Miracles. I examine, in particular, the cult of el Señor de los Milagros in Rome in terms of Peruvian popular religiosity and national identity experienced within a transnational context. This essay serves two purposes: The first is to analyze the significance that this religious experience acquires in a foreign environment while maintaining links with its country of origin and its cultural traditions in a multilocal environment. The second aim is to examine the integration of the Peruvian community into Italian society, beginning with religious practice, in this case Roman Catholicism. This kind of religiosity seems not only to favor the encounter between the two cultures but also to render Italian Roman Catholicism multicultural.

I See Myself through My Avatar: Evidence from East Asia and North America for Acculturated Effects on Virtual Representation Preference

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 79-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gunwoo Yoon ◽  
Patrick T. Vargas
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
East Asia ◽  
Cultural Psychology ◽  
Self Concept ◽  
Future Research ◽  
East Asians ◽  
Two Cultures ◽  
North Americans ◽  
The Two Cultures ◽  
Quasi Experiment

In the present research we argue that avatars, as identity containers, can mirror people’s self-concepts. Research in cultural psychology suggests that East Asians tend to be more tolerant of contradictions and that they more easily adjust their self-concepts in accordance with changing contexts compared to North Americans (see Heine 2001). We therefore assume that preferred forms of avatars among East Asians and North Americans are different because of this self-concept variability across cultures. We conducted a quasi-experiment to explore how people in the two cultures differently evaluate two forms of avatars, human-like and cartoon-like avatars, in terms of likeability and preference. We found that East Asians rated cartoon-like avatars more favourably than North Americans. Moreover, compared to North Americans, East Asians preferred cartoon-like avatars to human-like avatars for their hypothetical avatars to play games. We conclude by discussing implications for future research.

Trust in the Workplace: The Role of Social Interaction Diversity in the Community and in the Workplace

2015 ◽  
Vol 57 (2) ◽  
pp. 378-412 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victor Cui ◽  
Ilan Vertinsky ◽  
Sandra Robinson ◽  
Oana Branzei
Keyword(s):  
Social Capital ◽  
Social Interaction ◽  
Social Interactions ◽  
Social Trust ◽  
Two Cultures ◽  
The Two Cultures ◽  
Collectivistic Cultures ◽  
Capital Development ◽  
The Impact

Extending the literature on social capital development in the community, this article examines the impact of diverse social interactions (in the community and the workplace) on the development of social trust in the workplace, and investigates whether their effects differ in individualistic and collectivistic cultures. Using survey data collected in Canada and China, the authors find that the diversity of one’s social interactions in the community is positively associated with one’s social trust in the workplace, and this relationship is not significantly different between the two cultures. Diversity of one’s social interactions in the workplace is also positively associated with one’s social trust in the workplace, though only in collectivistic cultures.

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