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Article In: ITL - International Journal of Applied Linguistics: Online-First Articles

Embodying stories

Adults increase the use of character-viewpoint gesture in telling stories to children

ORCiD logo with link | Universitat Pompeu Fabra | Universitat de Girona
 | Universitat Pompeu Fabra
 | Universitat de Girona
 | Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats | Universitat Pompeu Fabra
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Abstract
This study examines the multimodal characteristics of child-directed (CDS) and adult-directed (ADS) speech, focusing on speech and gesture behavior, with particular emphasis on gesture referentiality, viewpoint, and informativeness. Forty Early Childhood Education students (Mage = 20.45, 35 female) narrated the same wordless cartoon to simulated adult and child audiences (TEACH-TALK corpus), producing 196.33 minutes of speech and 7,191 gestures. Results showed that the CDS narratives were longer and included more referential iconic gestures. No differences in the overall gesture rate or gesture informativeness were found between conditions. Notably, iconic gestures with character viewpoint exhibited a higher frequency in CDS, indicating that these gestures, in conjunction with speech, may facilitate children’s comprehension by enhancing clarity and expressiveness of the narrative content.
Article outline
  • Speech and gesture production in child-directed speech
  • Gesture viewpoint and informativeness
  • The Present Study
  • Methods
    • Participants
    • Materials
    • Procedure
    • Transcription and coding of the corpus
      • Gesture referentiality
      • Dimensions of referentiality
      • Gesture viewpoint
      • Gesture informativeness
    • Inter-rater reliability
  • Statistical analysis
  • Results
    • Differences in narrative length between CDS and ADS
    • Differences in overall gesture rate between CDS and ADS
    • Differences in gesture referentiality between CDS and ADS
      • (a)Referential gestures vs. Non-referential gestures
      • (b)Referential iconic vs. metaphoric vs. deictic gestures
    • Functional differences of gestures between CDS and ADS: Gesture viewpoint and informativeness
      • (a)Differences in gesture viewpoint between CDS and ADS
      • (b)Differences in gesture informativeness between CDS and ADS
  • Discussion
  • Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Author queries
  • References
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