A real handful: the rich world of non-verbal communication

This compelling and well-researched work explores the world of gestures, and how understanding gestures can help us better understand ourselves and each other.

Among the book's highlights is its consideration of gestures produced without speech by so-called 'home-signers' – congenitally deaf children with no exposure to spoken or signed language. Goldin-Meadow, a leading researcher of this unique group, examines how these children communicate in the absence of conventional language models. Intriguingly, their gestures differ from the 'pictures in the air' gestures of the hearing people around them. 

Instead, home-signers exhibit a structured form of gesturing that bears many hallmarks of natural language, including the use of distinct signs ordered into consistent sequences. This implies that the propensity for structured communication may be, at least partially, innate and capable of manifestation even in the absence of conventional language.

The book also explores the role of gestures that accompany our communication. Challenging the notion that gestures are purely for the benefit of listeners – why, after all, do we gesture even when speaking on the phone? – Goldin-Meadow presents evidence that these movements can anchor our thoughts, enhance our memory, and improve our problem-solving skills. The mechanisms behind these cognitive benefits are not yet fully understood, but it may well be that representing a problem in a more embodied form, enables the gesturer to move from a concrete, applied understanding to a more imagistic, conceptual one.

Equally fascinating is the power of gestures to signify impending change and development. For example, young children often mistakenly assert that a fixed amount of water is of different volumes when poured into containers of different shapes (e.g., a tall, thin beaker versus a short, wide one). However, some children, despite incorrectly stating that the water volume changes, use hand gestures representing height and width when answering.

These gestures appear to show that, on some level, these children have the necessary conceptual understanding to solve the problem. Indeed, children who gesture in this way are typically the first to eventually answer the problem correctly. The book contains similarly enlightening discussions on how gestures can help us parent and care for others.

Thinking With Your Hands, with its blend of scientific rigour and practical insights, will be of interest to linguists, educators and the general public alike. While the book's references to studies may be excessive for some, this content is counterbalanced by a number of interesting broader themes raised by the work: how our thoughts, beliefs and ideas translate into our gestures and how gesture forces us to rethink the way we understand and connect with others.

In an increasingly virtual world, where communication is often reduced to windows on a screen, Thinking With Your Hands stands as a timely call to reclaim the richness of human interaction. As Goldin-Meadow eloquently puts it, 'Our hands are always with us. They are part of our humanity. Why would we not listen to what they have to say?'

Reviewed by Mark Zarwi