Reviewed by Haskirts Laboratories

The argument of this original and difficult book is that “gestures are an integral part of language as much as are words, phrases and sentences-gestures and language are one system ” (p. 2). Gestures are instantaneous, imagistic, analog, holistic expressions of the same thought that speech renders in hierarchical, linear, digital, analytic form. David McNeill credits Adam Kendon (1972, 1980) with discovering the link between, and essential unity of, speech sounds and gestural movements; his own work elaborates this insight at the higher linguistic levels of semantics and pragmatics. The topic of the book, then, is gestures that accompany speech, the left-hand end of what McNeill calls “ K e n h i ’ s coiitiiiiiiim: Gesticulation + Language-like gestures + Pantomimes 3 Emblems + Sign languages ” (p. 37). The continuum ranges from the informal, spontaneous, idiosyncratic movements of the hands and arms that often accom-pany speech, to the socially-regulated, standardized, linguistic forms of a sign language, with its arbitrary (non-iconic) lexicon. Between these poles the obligatory presence of speech declines and the linguistic properties of gestures increase. “Language-like gestures ” are grammatically integrate