Interactional gestures as soccer celebrations

Abstract The article presents a variety of gesture types used as celebrations during or after soccer matches and explains the forms, meaning, reference and functions of the gestures as a semiotic phenomenon. The qualitative analysis of media images and comments on celebratory performances shows that pre-planned, creative celebrations, including trademarks or signatures, which have recently overshadowed spontaneous, conventionalized displays of affect, take the form of interactional gestures of different types: performatives, regulators, pointing, icons, metaphors, pantomime, emblems or signs, as well as the form of compositions of gestures, such as icons and pointing. During the match, gestures of all the above types serve to display affects and take on other new functions. Also, even gestures like regulators, identified in literature as conversational ones, are used without the accompanying speech. A disintegrated speech context for the interpretation of the meaning and reference of celebratory gestures is provided in after-match media discourse.