Review of Pointing: Where Language, Culture and Cognition Meet, S. Kita (Ed.); Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2003; ISBN 0-8058-4014-1

This book grew out of the 1997 Max Planck Workshop on Pointing Gestures, in Oud-Turnhout, Belgium, and includes contributions by many of the leading researchers in the development and use of pointing by humans. There are 13 chapters on pointing gestures which (despite some overlap) can be divided into several conceptual parts: an introduction and overview by the editor (Kita), Part 1 on the ontogeny and phylogeny of pointing (Butterworth, Povinelli et al., Masataka, Goldin-Meadow & Butcher), Part 2 on the ethnography of pointing (Kendon & Versante, Haviland, Wilkins), Part 3 on the semiotics of pointing (Goodwin, Clark), and Part 4 on the psycholinguistics of pointing (Engberg-Pedersen, McNeill, & Kita). On balance, this is an informative read with plenty of tension created by contrasting theoretical perspectives on the significance of pointing for understanding human cognition. Far from being the last word on pointing, this volume highlights both how little we really know about pointing and how extraordinarily many different kinds of research programmes can profitably study it.