PROXEMIC BEHAVIOR AND GESTICULATION IN COMPETITIVE AND COLLABORATIVE TASKS

Gesticulation accompanying speech performs a lot of functions; inter alia, the non-verbal component of communication reveals the relationship between the participants, their attitude to the information being reported, the role of the clause in the discourse, etc. In two studies regading competitive and collaborative tasks the participants were in pairs (experiment 1) and in threes (experiment 2). The fi rst experiment examined gesticulation and proxemic behavior of participants at diff erent stages of the task, the second one tested the conclusions of the fi rst one and also studied verbal markers related to communicative distance. In competitive tasks participants more often cross the boundary between the shared space and the intimate area of the interlocutor with their hands while gesturing compared to cooperative conditions, when they more often cross the boundary between their own intimate zone and the shared space. In addition, in the context of cooperation, the hand gesticulation is more active. The speech of the interlocutors also refl ects uses these ten- dencies as third person pronouns instead of participants’ names, indirect requests instead of imperatives and hedging are more often used in competitive contexts.