Different embodied motivations converge in a single recurrent gesture: The Two-Handed-Alternation-Sagittal (2HAS) gesture

Journal article, 2026

Over the past few decades, gesture researchers have shown growing interest in the idea that certain gestural forms are conventionally associated with fairly specific, yet not too narrow, semantic and pragmatic meanings. These gestures are referred to as recurrent gestures and are argued to be grounded in bodily experiences, including instrumental actions and movement patterns. In this paper, we first provide supporting evidence for the conventionalized status of the target kinetic pattern of this study — the Two-Handed Alternation gesture on the Sagittal axis (2HAS). We then demonstrate how two different types of embodied motivations, namely mimetic schemas (grounded in instrumental actions) and image schemas (grounded in bodily experiences of movement patterns), converge in the single recurrent kinetic pattern of 2HAS, giving rise to its various referential and pragmatic functions.