Mind, Body, World- Foundations of Cognitive Science, 2013a

linguistic structures. That is, such traditions treat language as a thing, not as a process.
In contrast to this approach, other researchers have emphasized the dynamic
nature of language (Vygotsky, 1986), treating it as a process, not as a thing. One
example of a dynamic aspect of language of particular interest to McNeill (2005) is
gesture, which in McNeill’s view is a form of imagery. Gestures that accompany language
are dynamic because they are extended through time with identifiable beginnings,
middles, and ends. McNeill’s proposal was that a complete account of language
requires the simultaneous consideration of its static and dynamic elements.
McNeill (2005) argued that the static and dynamic elements of language are
linked by a dialectic. A dialectic involves some form of opposition or conflict that is
resolved through change; it is this necessary change that makes dialectic dynamic.
The dialectic of language results because speech and gesture provide very different
formats for encoding meaning. For instance,
in speech, ideas are separated and arranged sequentially; in gesture, they are
instantaneous in the sense that the meaning of the gesture is not parceled out over
time (even though the gesture may take time to occur, its full meaning is immediately
present). (McNeill, 2005, p. 93)
As well, speech involves analytic meaning (i.e., based on parts), pre-specified pairings
between form and meaning, and the use of forms defined by conventions. In
contrast, gestures involve global meaning, imagery, and idiosyncratic forms that are
created on the fly.
McNeill (2005) noted that the dialectic of language arises because there is a
great deal of evidence suggesting that speech and gesture are synchronous. That is,
gestures do not occur during pauses in speech to fill in meanings that are difficult to
utter; both occur at the same time. As a result, two very different kinds of meaning
are presented simultaneously. “Speech puts different semiotic modes together at the
same moment of the speaker’s cognitive experience. This is the key to the dialectic”
(p. 94).
According to McNeill (2005), the initial co-occurrence of speech and gesture
produces a growth point, which is an unstable condition defined by the dialectic.
This growth point is unpacked in an attempt to resolve the conflict between dynamic
and static aspects of meaning. This unpacking is a move from the unstable to the
stable. This is accomplished by creating a static, grammatical structure. “Change
seeks repose. A grammatically complete sentence (or its approximation) is a state
of repose par excellence, a natural stopping point, intrinsically static and reachable
from instability” (p. 95). Importantly, the particular grammatical structure that is
arrived at when stability is achieved depends upon what dynamic or gestural information
was present during speech.
McNeill’s (2005) theory is intriguing because it exploits two different kinds
of theories simultaneously: a classical theory of linguistic competence and an
Marks of the Classical? 357