Gestures in Language Development
Editors
Gestures are prevalent in communication and tightly linked to language and speech. As such they can shed important light on issues of language development across the lifespan. This volume, originally published as a Special Issue of Gesture Volume 8:2 (2008), brings together studies from different disciplines that examine language development in children and adults from varying perspectives. It provides a review of common theoretical and empirical themes, and the contributions address topics such as gesture use in prelinguistic infants, the relationship between gestures and lexical development in typically and atypically developing children and in second language learners, what gestures reveal about discourse, and how all languages that adult second language speakers know can influence each other. The papers exemplify a vibrant new field of study with relevance for multiple disciplines.
[Benjamins Current Topics, 28] 2010. viii, 139 pp.
Publishing status: Available
Published online on 10 December 2010
Published online on 10 December 2010
© John Benjamins Publishing Company
Table of Contents
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About the authors | pp. vii–viii
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PrefaceMarianne Gullberg and Kees de Bot | p. 1
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Gestures and some key issues in the study of language developmentMarianne Gullberg, Kees de Bot and Virginia Volterra | pp. 3–33
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Before L1: A differentiated perspective on infant gesturesUlf Liszkowski | pp. 35–51
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The relationship between spontaneous gesture production and spoken lexical ability in children with Down syndrome in a naming taskSilvia Stefanini, Martina Recchia and Maria Cristina Caselli | pp. 53–74
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The effect of gestures on second language memorisation by young childrenMarion Tellier | pp. 75–91
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Gesture and information structure in first and second languageKeiko Yoshioka | pp. 93–112
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Gesture viewpoint in Japanese and English: Cross-linguistic interactions between two languages in one speakerAmanda Brown | pp. 113–133
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Author index | p. 135
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Subject index | pp. 137–138
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Gestures in Language Development offers access to an increasingly important aspect of development: the role gesture plays in communication during and after the emergence of language. What is the natural history of pointing? Do children with non-normal language development rely on gesture to compensate? Do teacher gestures help students to memorize new words? Do speakers make use of gestures to identify topics or subjects in narrative? And, to what extent do gestures mark viewpoint in talk? These are just some of the questions tackled in this intriguing collection.”
Eve V. Clark, Stanford University
“Seven fascinating chapters that reveal in a variety of novel ways the significance of gestures for our understanding of language.”
Eric Kellerman, formerly at Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands
“The volume Gestures in Language Development is a valuable contribution to the field of gesture and language development. It expands our knowledge of how looking at gesture can inform our understanding of both first and second language development. The papers themselves are easy to read, make important points, and raise further questions (an indication of good research). It is well worth taking the time to read the volume.”
Gale Stam, National Louis University, in Applied Linguistics. Volume 33:3 (July 2012), pages 348-356
Cited by (5)
Cited by five other publications
Bonsignori, Veronica & Gloria Cappelli
2022. Developing strategies for conceptual accessibility through multimodal literacy in the English for tourism classroom. Multimodal Communication 11:1 ► pp. 31 ff. 
Alonso Alonso, Rosa
Hickmann, Maya, Edy Veneziano & Harriet Jisa
2018. What can variation tell us about first language acquisition?. In Sources of variation in first language acquisition [Trends in Language Acquisition Research, 22], ► pp. 1 ff.
Andrén, Mats
2014. Book Review: Jean-Marc Colletta and Michèle Guidetti (Eds.), Gesture and multimodal development (Benjamins Current Topics volume 39). First Language 34:3 ► pp. 292 ff.
Lowie, Wander
2012. de Bot, Kees. In The Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics,
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Subjects
Main BIC Subject
CFDC: Language acquisition
Main BISAC Subject
LAN009000: LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / General