Cross-cultural investigation on gestures and sign languages as interaction

2014 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 24320176
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B)
• Allocation Type: Partial Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Cultural anthropology/Folklore
• Research Institution: Kyoto University
• Principal Investigator: SUGAWARA Kazuyoshi 京都大学, 人間・環境学研究科(研究院), 教授 (80133685)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): 木村 大治 京都大学, アジア・アフリカ地域研究研究科, 教授 (40242573) ; 舟橋 美保 (石井 美保) 京都大学, 人文科学研究所, 准教授 (40432059) ; 細馬 宏通 滋賀県立大学, 人間文化学部, 教授 (90275181) ; 大村 敬一 大阪大学, 言語文化研究科, 准教授 (40261250) ; 岩谷 洋史 国立民族学博物館, 大学共同利用期間等の部局等, 研究員 (00508872) ; 亀井 伸孝 愛知県立大学, 外国語学部, 准教授 (50388724) ; 岩谷 彩子 広島大学, 社会(科)学研究科, 准教授 (90469205) ; 坊農 真弓 国立情報学研究所, 准教授 (50418521)
• Co-Investigator(Renkei-kenkyūsha): 古山 宣洋 国立情報学研究所, 准教授 (20333544)
• Project Period (FY): 2012-04-01 – 2015-03-31
• Keywords: 身体性 / ろう者の会話 / マルティ-モーダル民族誌 / 記憶 / 生業技術 / オノマトペ / 舞踊 / 憑依儀礼

Outline of Final Research Achievements

This research revealed the organization of human interaction, by analyzing gestures and sign languages in a microscopic way. It established the ground for multi-modal ethnography by integrating the ideas of visual anthropology, communication theory, and ecological psychology in cross-cultural perspective. Especially, the coordination between utterances and body motions were analyzed in various socio-cultural contexts such as subsistence activity among the San African hunter-gatherers or Canadian Inuit, Indian possession ritual and traditional dance, festival in a Japanese local village, brewing of sake, deaf community, and mathematician argument. These investigations illuminated how the collective memory was embodied beneath the participants’ practices. Furthermore, comprehending as the expressive gestures the process through which the past incidents were narrated, we proposed a new theoretical framework that would transcend the dichotomy of perception versus representation.

Free Research Field

文化人類学