5.

1 Directional Gestures

Language named Guugu Yimithirr (GY) , its speakers use four cardinal direction
words for all situations regarding location and motion. Language structure and
language use assume that all spaces are cardinally oriented for GY speakers. In that
mentioned language all routes and places must be oriented in internal and external
representation. There is a link between linguistic subsystem and gesture , for
gestures are directionally oriented. In regards to pointing movements it depends on
the synchronization and meaning between the word and gesture on the mutual
interest between the participants’ knowledge of directional orientation in
explaining past events. Of course, it is the fact of interrelated harmony that connect
words and gestures together in a single unit of utterance. There is an extensive
relationship between location and referring in both word and gesture. GY speakers
pointing gestures depend basically on direct and oriented space in parallel with
assisting to make different (also oriented) narrated spaces offering the same moral.

Language develop in the context of face to face speaking where usually a place and
a moment are shared. Both word and gesture measure this shared spatiotemporal
field. In GY speech language pointing or referring indication will usually go with
both a directional or deictic determiner and a pointing gestures , and both will be
repeated on and on , until serve to pick out the intended referent. Many gestures in
GY speakers are oriented, that is when put together with the words they appear to
measure significantly direction.

The system of gesture is related in a complex way to linguistic structure. At the

stage of functionally deictic gesture replace spoken deictic ( see Marslen_ Wilson
et al. 1982) ; Levelt et al. 1985) . In early inspections by Bridwhistle (1952, 1963) ,
Kendon (1980, 1988), and Schegloff (1984) about the strong synchronization
gestures debate for an interdependence of language and speech at a more
conceptual level . A case that McNeill (1985,1992) has raised at a whole
psycholinguistic program. For McNeill another type of gesture which is the
metaphoric gestures , this kind of gestures they describe the means of a metaphor
instead of directly demonstrating what is said from a speaker’s word.

GY speakers makes a lot of “pointing” and they are very accurate about keeping
their points correctly oriented. If someone wanted to go to the beach and the beach
is on the east then he / she points to the east. At the area were GY speakers live,
when drawing a map on the dust, one keeps north as north and does not say “let’s
imagine that this way is north”. All areas even the one talked about or narrated
have directions within, and one keep cardinal orientation even when they point of
something which is away from the immediate here and now (Haviland, 1993)