Conceptualization of time through hand gestures in Hausa cultural settings

The paper focuses on co-speech temporal gestures used by Hausa speakers from northern Nigeria. It is based on naturalistic gesture production. The data is extracted from the videos, which were not recorded with an intention to study gestures. The aim of the article is to present patterns of temporal gestures used by Hausa speakers. Particular sections of the paper reflect the general observation that time is conceptualized as space. When referring to time people perform gestures along three axes: sagittal (front-back), horizontal also known as transverse (left-right) or vertical (up-down). When talking about time speakers are often involved in reenacting or performing certain actions such as pointing, moving the hand along spiral or semi-circular line and snapping the fingers. The last action, i.e. snapping the fingers to indicate the past is cross-culturally uncommon, therefore the hypothesis concerning its use with reference to time will be proposed.