Gesture and Thought

“With Gesture and Thought, David McNeill again demonstrates his status as a pioneer in the field of cognitive psychology and linguistics. Here he has developed a new theory of language and gesture in which gesture is seen as integral to language. In doing so, he has not merely grafted gesture onto language, but has reexamined and redefined our understanding of language, thought, and gesture. Gesture and Thought is a book of profound importance, destined to change the way we think about human language, gesture, and thought.”

“Expanding the field he helped create more than twenty years ago, David McNeill gives us, in Gesture and Thought, a deep and insightful account of how the mind is intrinsically embodied. Gestures—pervasive and dramatically ignored—are in themselves thoughts. If you still think that human minds can be emulated or even surpassed by computers, read this book! A must for anybody interested in language, thought, and the elusive intricacies of the mind-body problem.”--Rafael Núñez, University of California, San Diego

“In this eagerly awaited book, David McNeill presents a unified theory of language, speech, gesture, and thought. Until this book, no one had ever attempted to formulate a theoretical framework to explain why gesture and speech appear so tightly linked, nor had anyone considered how an integration of gesture and speech might affect linguistic theory. Here, McNeill challenges traditional concepts in psychology and linguistics by arguing for the integration of body and mind and of dynamic and static aspects of language and thought—as opposed to separating them. This is a radically innovative work that will become a classic in psychology, cognitive science, linguistics, and anthropology. After having read it nobody will ever be able to think that the body and the mind are separate things again.”--Cornelia Müller, Free University of Berlin

“David McNeill’s book is a momentous contribution to our understanding of kinetic and visual expression. . . . McNeill’s detailed descriptions of how gestures represent ideas contribute greatly to our understanding of images as carriers of abstractions.”