Abstract:

In order to highlight certain aspects regarding the relationships between gesture and action applied in politicalcommunication we will take into consideration the distinction made by Jürgen Habermas betweencommunicative action (interaction) and discourse – the two essential forms of communication. More exactly,communication does not mean only sentences used in verbal expression, but also actions or gestures thatreplace linguistic communication, verbal and extra -verbal means of expression being always connected to thecontexts of the interaction. The gestures that accompany any discursive construction convey both theimmediate intentions of the orator and the axiological or social significance of an action and they have beenconsidered since the Antiquity as an inseparable part of expressing a discourse. Gestures can be as expres sive assentences and discourses and gestural errors have effects that can be as negative as linguistic mistakes at aninterpersonal level.In this article we intend to analyse the degree to which the gestures of political actors, especially as an integralpart of a discursive sequence, constitute instruments of actional efficiency. We believe that the examination ofthe gestural system should not be limited to the empirical description of gestures, on the contrary, it shouldinvolve a pragmatic functional approach grounded on the communicational strategies and, even more, on thecomplementary relationship between the gestural system and the language system.

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