ABSTRACT
Any analytical inquiry is destined to compartmentalize different parts of a complex system. The study of body movements in a communicative situation is no exception. Traditional nonverbal communication studies dissociated speech and body movement; however, a new line of inquiry emerged around 1980, in which gestures spontaneously accompanying speech were considered to be a psycholinguistic phenomenon (e.g., Butterworth & Beattie, 1978; Kendon, 1980; McNeill & Levy, 1982). It brought speech and body movement together. However, it created a new compartmentalization by treating speech-related body movements and other types of body movements separately. This contrasts with the studies of gesture in the tradition of conversational analysis, in which gesture and other body movements (including facial expressions) have been taken to be integral cues that regulate the flow of face-to-face interaction (e.g., Goodwin, 1986; Goodwin & Goodwin, 1986; Streeck, 1993; also Goodwin, chap. 9, this volume).
