(Salle F106)

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Luchjenbroers, June (University of Wales, Bangor)

Mental spaces and Gesture...

The dynamics of ‘F-space’ In this paper I will discuss the importance of a speaker’s ‘comfort zone’ in which most gestures occur. This physical space functions as what I refer to as ‘F-space’, and the discussion will show that the boundaries of this space provide additional aspects of speakermeaning as well as clues about speaker cognition. This approach to gesture makes use of the cognitive linguistics approach called Mental Spaces theory, and the examples provided give evidence of the conceptual mappings needed in discourse processing.