Embodied frames and scenes

Abstract

Abstract This paper lays out the foundations of a frame-based account of gesture pragmatics through detailing how frames and metonymy interact not only in motivating gestural sign formation, but also in guiding crossmodal processes of pragmatic inferencing. It is argued that gestures recruiting frame structures tend to profile deeply embodied, routinized aspects of scenes (in the Fillmorian sense of the term), that is, of the motivating context of frames. Two kinds of embodied frame structures situated at different levels of abstraction, schematicity, and entrechment are proposed: (A) Basic physical action and object frames understood as directly experientially grounded frames involving physical action and interaction with the material and social world; (B) Complex, highly abstract frame structures that are more detached from the motivating contexts of experience. It is further suggested that gestures exhibiting a comparably low degree of iconicity and/or indexicality are likely to assume pragmatic rather than referential functions. Finally, potential avenues for further research into the relation of scenes, frames, and (multimodal) constructions are outlined.