Includes bibliographical references (p. 248-264) and index.

Machine generated contents note: 1. Introduction; 2. Sand stories as social and cultural practice; 3. Catching a move as it flies: multimodal data collection; 4. Lines in the sand; 5. Body-anchored and airborne action; 6. Ordering, re-drawing and erasure; 7. Vocal style in sand stories; 8. Crossing boundaries.

"Sand stories from Central Australia are a traditional form of Aboriginal women's verbal art that incorporates speech, song, sign, gesture and drawing. Small leaves and other objects may be used to represent story characters. This detailed study of Arandic sand stories takes a multimodal approach to the analysis of the stories and shows how the expressive elements used in the stories are orchestrated together. This richly illustrated volume is essential reading for anyone interested in language and communication. It adds to the growing recognition that language encompasses much more than speech alone, and shows how important it is to consider the different semiotic resources a culture brings to its communicative tasks as an integrated whole rather than in isolation"-- Provided by publisher.