The semantics and pragmatics of air quotation

Much recent work on the semantics and pragmatics of gesture has focused on gestures that are both iconic and whose contribution is pragmatically derived. This paper explores the interpretation of air quotation, a gesture that I will argue falls squarely into neither category. I claim that the association of air quotation with orthographic quotation has conventionalized and that this facilitates its use as a quotational shield : A pragmatic marker that allows the speaker to distance themselves from the enquoted content. I then explore two case studies to exemplify and refine the analysis.