Gesture and Their Grammatical Interpretations: Insights from Some Igbo Poetry Performances

Abstract

This study examines gestures and their grammatical interpretations. While spoken language has traditionally been prioritized in linguistic analysis, this paper argues that gesture is not merely decorative or emotive. It rather functions as part of a coordinated semiotic system through which meaning is produced, intensified, and interpreted. Using performance recordings, live observation sessions, and multimodal transcription of eight contemporary Igbo poetic performances and drawing on growth point analysis of select Igbo poems, the study shows that gestures can convey different meanings depending on form. Also, gestures help show the size, degree or intensity of meaning. The analyses equally demonstrated that spoken words alone are often not enough to fully express a speaker’s intended meaning. Instead, gestures work alongside speech to provide grammatical information such as pronouns, nouns, adjectives, preposition and tense. Therefore, there is need to treat gesture as part of Igbo grammatical expression, particularly in performance contexts where language, body, and cultural aesthetics interact to produce meaning.