The Role of Space and Body in Referent Distinction Strategies: A Cross‐Cultural Comparison
Danielle Naegeli, David Peeters, Emiel Krahmer, Connie de Vos, Yasamin Motamedi, Made Sri Satyawati, Marieke Schouwstra · 2026
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Description
Danielle Naegeli and co-authors present a 2026 study of how culture shapes the silent gestures people invent to say who did what to whom. Two groups played a gesture game in pairs, passing their signs down a chain: Dutch players and Balinese players. The groups split in how their cultures frame space, the Balinese favoring earth-fixed directions. The team tracked how each chain used space and the body to mark roles.
Both chains found working systems, but of unlike kinds. Dutch chains grew many strategy types, some with an abstract use of space. Balinese chains mostly kept one type and shunned that abstract space move. The authors tie the split to the earth-fixed frame, not to a stage of growth. Culture, the work shows, steers even wordless grammar.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Danielle Naegeli, David Peeters, Emiel Krahmer, Connie de Vos, Yasamin Motamedi, Made Sri Satyawati, Marieke Schouwstra |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 80 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |