Article published in:
The gesture–sign interface in language acquisition / L’interface geste–signe dans l’acquisition du langage
Edited by Aliyah Morgenstern and Michèle Guidetti
[Language, Interaction and Acquisition 8:1] 2017
► pp. 89–116

Developing communicative postures

The emergence of shrugging in child communication

| Sorbonne Nouvelle University
| Paris Nanterre University
This article analyses the development of a composite communicative posture, the shrug (which can combine palm-up flips, lifted shoulders and a head tilt), in a video corpus of spontaneous interactions between a typically developing British girl, Ellie, and her mother, filmed at home one hour each month from Ellie’s tenth month to her fourth birthday. The systematic coding of every shrug yields a total of 124 tokens (Ellie: 98; her mother: 26), providing results in terms of forms, functions and input. Ellie’s first shrug components emerge from non-linguistic actions and she acquires them one at a time starting with the hands: these features recall the development of complex signs among deaf children of the same age (Reilly & Anderson, 2002 for ASL). The functions of Ellie’s shrugs gradually diversify from the expression of absence at 1;04 to other epistemic and non-epistemic meanings (affective and dynamic). Adult intervention plays a crucial role as adults recurrently equate Ellie’s physical movements with speech, thereby contributing to the emergence of their communicative functions as gestural emblems (Ekman & Friesen, 1969).
Keywords: shrug, multimodality, gesture development, gesture compositionality, gestural emblems, first language acquisition, embodied interaction.
Published online: 16 October 2017
https://doi.org/10.1075/lia.8.1.05bea
References

References

Andrén, M.
(2010) Children’s gestures from 18 to 30 months. Travaux de l’Institut de Linguistique de Lund 50. Lund: Lund University Press.Google Scholar
Beaupoil-Hourdel, P.
(2015) Multimodal acquisition and expression of negation. Unpublished thesis manuscript. Sorbonne Nouvelle: Paris.Google Scholar
Beaupoil-Hourdel, P., Morgenstern, A., & Boutet, D.
(2015) A child’s multimodal negations from 1 to 4: The interplay between modalities. In P. Larrivée & C. Lee (Eds.), Negation and polarity: Cognitive and experimental perspectives (pp. 95–123). Switzerland: Springer International Publishing.Google Scholar
Bello, A., Caselli, M. -C., Pettenati, P., & Stefanini, S.
(2010) PinG parole in Gioco : Una prova di comprensione e produzione lessicale per la prima infanzia. Firenze: Giunti OS.Google Scholar
Blondel, M., Boutet, D., Beaupoil-Hourdel, P., & Morgenstern, A.
(2017) La négation chez les enfants signeurs et non signeurs : Des patrons gestuels communs. In M. Guidetti & A. Morgenstern (Eds.), Language Interaction and Acquisition 8(1), 143–182. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Boutet, D.
(2008) Une morphologie de la gestualité : Structuration articulaire. Cahiers de Linguistique Analogique 5, 81–115.Google Scholar
(2010) Structuration physiologique de la gestuelle : Modèle et tests. LIDIL 42, 77–96.Google Scholar
Capirci, O., Iverson, J., Pizzuto, E., & Volterra, V.
(1996) Gestures and words during the transition to two-word speech. Journal of Child Language 23(3), 645–673. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Channon, R., & van der Hulst, H.
(Eds.) (2011) Formational units in Sign Languages. Göttingen: de Gruyter. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Cienki, A.
(2005) Image schemas and gesture. In B. Hampe (Ed.), From perception to meaning: Image schemas in Cognitive Linguistics (pp. 421–442). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
[ p. 115 ]
Clark, E. V.
(1978) From gesture to word: On the natural history of deixis in language acquisition. In J. Seymour Bruner & A. Garton (Eds.), Human growth and development (pp. 85–120). Wolfson College Lectures 1976. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
(2003) First language acquisition. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Darwin, C.
(1872) The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals. (Accessed August 2015) http://​www​.gutenberg​.org​/files​/1227​/1227​-h​/1227​-h​.htm doi: Crossref
Debras, C.
(2013) Multimodal Stance-taking. Unpublished PhD dissertation, Sorbonne Nouvelle University, Paris.Google Scholar
to appear). The shrug: forms and meanings of a compound enactment. Gesture 17.
Ducrot, O.
(1984) Le Dire et le dit. Paris: Editions de Minuit.Google Scholar
(1989) Logique, structure, énonciation: lectures sur le langage. Paris: Editions de Minuit.Google Scholar
(2001) Quelques raisons de distinguer locuteurs et énonciateurs. Polyphonie – linguistique et littéraire 3, 19–41.Google Scholar
Efron, D.
(1941) Gesture and environment. New York: King’s Crown’s Press.Google Scholar
Ekman, P., & Friesen, W. V.
(1969) The Repertoire of nonverbal behavior: Categories, origins, usage, and coding. Semiotica 1(1), 49–98. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Englebretson, R.
(2007) Stancetaking in discourse: An introduction. In R. Englebretson (Ed.), Stancetaking in discourse: Subjectivity, evaluation, interaction (pp. 2–25). Amsterdam: Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Filhol, M., Hadjadj, M. N., & Choisier, A.
(2014) Non-manual features: The right to indifference. Proceedings of Language resource and evaluation conference (LREC), 6th workshop on the representation and processing of Sign Language: Beyond the manual channel (pp. 49–54). Reykjavik.Google Scholar
Gaudy-Campbell, I.
(2000) Le question-tag descendant : Marque de questionnement ou d’égocentrage? Anglophonia 8, 168–180.Google Scholar
Givens, D.
(1977) Shoulder shrugging: A densely communicative behavior. Semiotica 19(1/2), 13–28.Google Scholar
Goffman, E.
(1981) Forms of talk. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Goldin-Meadow, S.
(2005) The resilience of language: What gesture creation in deaf children can tell us about how all children learn language. New York: Psychology Press.Google Scholar
Goldin-Meadow, S., Goodrich, W., Sauer, E., & Iverson, J.
(2007) Young children use their hands to tell their mothers what to say. Developmental Science 10(6), 778–785. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Goodwin, C., & Goodwin, M. H.
(1987) Concurrent operations on talk: Notes on the interactive organization of assessments. IPRA Papers in Pragmatics 1(1), 1–54. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Holzrichter, A. S., & Meier, R. P.
(2000) Child-directed signing in American Sign Language. In C. Chamberlain, J. P. Morford, & R. I. Mayberry (Eds.), Language acquisition by eye: Early language acquisition (pp. 25–40). Mahwah: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Iverson, J. M.
(2010) Developing language in a developing body: The relationship between motor development and language development. Journal of Child Language 37, 229–261. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Iverson, J. M., & Goldin-Meadow, S.
(2005) Gesture paves the way for language development. Psychological Science 16, 367–371. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
[ p. 116 ]
Iverson, J., Capirci, O., Volterra, V., & Goldin-Meadow, S.
(2008) Learning to talk in a gesture-rich world: Early communication of Italian vs. American children. First Language 28, 164–181. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Kendon, A.
(2002) Some uses of the head shake. Gesture 2(2), 147–182. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
(2004) Gesture: Visible action as utterance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Lakshmi, J. Gogate, L. E. Bahrick, & Watson, J. D.
(2000) A Study of multimodal motherese: The role of temporal synchrony between verbal labels and gestures. Child Development 71(4), 878–894. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Lê, S., Josse, J., & Husson, F.
(2008) FactoMineR: An R package for multivariate analysis. Journal of Statistical Software 25(1), 1–18. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
LeBaron, C. & Streeck, J.
(2000) Gesture, knowledge and the world. In D. McNeill (ed.), Language and Gesture (pp. 118–138). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Marconi, D. & Bertinetto, P. M.
(1984) Analisi di ma . (Parte prima : Semantica e pragmatica). Lingua e stile 19(2), 223–258.Google Scholar
Maury-Rouan, C.
(2011) ‘Voices’ and bodies: Investigating nonverbal parameters of the participation framework. In G. Stam & M. Ishino (Eds.), Integrating gestures: The interdisciplinary nature of gesture (pp. 309–320). Amsterdam: Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
McNeill, D.
(2014) Gesture-speech unity: Phylogenesis, ontogenesis, and microgenesis. Language, Interaction, Acquisition 5(2), 137–184. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
McWhinney, B.
(2000) The CHILDES project: Tools for analysing talk (3rd ed., Vol. 2). Mahwah: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Meier, R. P., Mauk, C. E., Cheek, A., & Moreland, C. J.
(2008) The form of children's early signs: Iconic or motoric determinants? Language Learning and Development 4(1), 63–98. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Morel M. -A.
(1996) La concession en français. Paris: Ophrys.Google Scholar
Morgan, G., Barrett-Jones, S., & Stoneham, H.
(2007) The first signs of language: Phonological development in British Sign Language. Applied Psycholinguistics 28, 3–22. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Morgenstern, A.
(2014) Children’s multimodal language development. In C. Fäcke (Ed.) Manual of language acquisition (pp. 123–142). Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter.Google Scholar
Morgenstern, A., & Beaupoil, P.
(2015) Multimodal approaches to language acquisition through the lens of negation. Vestnik of Moscow State University. Linguistics and literary studies 6 (717), 435–451. Special issue on discourse as social practice.Google Scholar
Morgenstern, A., & Parisse, C.
(2012) The Paris Corpus. French Language Studies 22(1), 7–12. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Morris, D.
(1994) Bodytalk: A worldguide to gesture. London: Jonathan Cape.Google Scholar
Müller, C.
(2004) Forms and uses of the palm up open hand: A case of a gesture family? In C. Müller & R. Posner (Eds.), The semantics and pragmatics of everyday gestures, Proceedings of the Berlin conference, April 1998 (pp. 233–256). Berlin: Weidler Buchverlag.Google Scholar
Nelson, K.
(1998) Language in cognitive development: The emergence of the mediated mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Palmer, F.R.
(2001) Mood and Modality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Perdoncin, A., & Mercklé, P.
(2014) Représenter graphiquement les résultats d’une analyse factorielle avec R. http://​quanti​.hypotheses​.org​/930/
[ p. 117 ]
Pettenati, P., Stefanini, S., & Volterra, V.
(2010) Motoric characteristics of representational gestures produced by young children in a naming task. Journal of Child Language 37, 887–911. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Piaget, J.
(1952) The origins of intelligence in children. New York: Norton. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Reilly, J., & Anderson, D.
(2002) The acquisition of non-manual morphology in ASL. In G. Morgan & B. Woll (Eds.), Directions in sign language acquisition (pp. 159–182). Amsterdam: Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Rossari, C.
(2014) How does a concessive value emerge? In C. Ghezzi & P. Molinelli (Eds.), Pragmatic markers from Latin to Romance languages: Studies in Diachronic and Historical Linguistics (pp. 237–259). Oxford: Oxford University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Sekali, M.
(2012) The emergence of complex sentences in a French child’s language from 0;10 to 4;01: Causal adverbial clauses and the concertina effect. Journal of French Language Studies 22(1), 115–141. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Shaw, E.
(2013) Gesture in multiparty interaction: A study of embodied discourse in spoken English and American Sign Language. Unpublished thesis manuscript, Georgetown University, Washington DC.Google Scholar
Stefanini, S., Caselli, M. -C., & Volterra, V.
(2007) Spoken and gestural production in a naming task by young children with Down Syndrome. Brain and Language 101(3), 208–221. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Stefanini, S., Bello, A., Caselli, M. -C., Iverson, J. M., & Volterra, V.
(2009) Cospeech gestures in a naming task: Developmental data. Language and Cognitive Processes 24(2), 168–189. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Streeck, J.
(1994) 'Speech-handling': The metaphorical representation of speech in gestures. A cross-cultural study. University of Texas, Austin: Unpublished manuscript.Google Scholar
(2009) Gesturecraft: The manu-facture of meaning. Amsterdam: Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Sutton-Spence, R., & Woll, B.
(1999) The Linguistics of British Sign Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Tennant, R., & Gluszak Brown, M.
(1998) The American Sign Language handshape dictionary. Washington DC: Gallaudet University Press.Google Scholar
Tomasello, M.
(2003) Constructing a language: A usage-based theory of language acquisition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Tomasello, M., & Call, J.
(1997) Primate cognition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Tomasello, M., Carpenter, M., Call, J., Behne, T., & Moll, H.
(2005) Understanding and sharing intentions: The origins of cultural cognition. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 28(5), 675–691. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Tottie, G., & Hoffmann, S.
(2006) Tag questions in British and American English. Journal of English Linguistics 34(4), 283–311. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Valli, C., & Lucas, C.
(2000) Linguistics of American Sign Language: An introduction (3rd Ed.). Washington: Gallaudet University Press.Google Scholar
Wilcox, S.
(2004) Gesture and language. Cross-linguistic and historical data from signed languages. Gesture 4(1), 43–73. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Zlatev, J., & Andrén, M.
(2009) Stages and transitions in children’s semiotic development. In J. Zlatev, M. Andrén, C. Lundmark & M. Johansson Flack (Eds.), Studies in Language and Cognition (pp. 380–401). Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars.[ p. 118 ]Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 3 other publications

Blondel, Marion, Dominique Boutet, Pauline Beaupoil-Hourdel & Aliyah Morgenstern
2017. La négation chez les enfants signeurs et non signeurs. Language, Interaction and Acquisition 8:1 ► pp. 141 ff. Crossref logo
Clift, Rebecca
2020. Stability and visibility in embodiment: The ‘Palm Up’ in interaction. Journal of Pragmatics 169 ► pp. 190 ff. Crossref logo
Cooperrider, Kensy, Natasha Abner & Susan Goldin-Meadow
2018. The Palm-Up Puzzle: Meanings and Origins of a Widespread Form in Gesture and Sign. Frontiers in Communication 3 Crossref logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 19 august 2021. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.