Seminar I Conversational hand and facial gestures: A resource and risk in language discordant clinical dialogues

Jennifer Gerwing is a senior researcher at Akershus University Hospital (Norway) and associate professor at Oslo Metropolitan University, Institute for Nursing and Health promotion (Norway). During her graduate training with Janet Bavelas at University of Victoria (Canada), she conducted experimental work designed to show how interlocutors adapt their conversational hand and facial gestures to various communicative conditions (e.g., visibility, common ground). After completing her PhD, her focus shifted to clinical settings, namely communication between patients and health care providers. In this applied field, her specific interest around gesture use has been their semantic function, and her research aims have moved to deriving implications for practice.