Polysemiotic communication: Integrating language, gesture and depiction in three cultural practices

POLYSEM aims to potentiate insights into the polysemiotic nature of human communication by investigating the integration of three distinct semiotic systems – language, gesture, and depiction – as instantiated in specific semiotic resources such as speaking, bodily movements and drawings. We aim to fill theoretical, methodological and empirical gaps in the field by analysing the communicative strategies used in three different cultural practices to convey abstract meanings related to kinship structures, mythologies and scientific knowledge. The three cultural practices under study are Paamese sand drawings (Vanuatu), sand story telling (Central Australia), and classroom teaching (Sweden). Despite obvious differences, all three serve to convey abstract knowledge related to kinship, mythology and science, and all combine language, gesture and depiction in what we term polysemiotic communication.