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Sources of Variation in First Language Acquisition: Languages, contexts, and learners
Edited by Maya Hickmann †, Edy Veneziano and Harriet Jisa
[Trends in Language Acquisition Research 22] 2018
► pp. 339–364

Chapter 16
The blossoming of negation in gesture, sign and oral productions

| Laboratoire Langues, Textes, Arts et Cultures du Monde Anglophone, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris 3
| Laboratoire Structures Formelles du Langage, CNRS & Université Paris 8
| Laboratoire Langues, Textes, Arts et Cultures du Monde Anglophone Université Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris 3
| Laboratoire Structures Formelles du Langage, CNRS & Université de Paris 8
| Dynamique du Langage in Situ, Université de Rouen Normandie
| Ecole Normale Supérieure, Lyon
| Sign Language Research Laboratory, Georgetown University, Washington D.C.

Negation constructions in longitudinal adult-child data are an excellent source for the study of multimodality in language acquisition. First negative constructions seem to take over from early forms of rejection and avoidance, but tracing the transitions between actions and gestures, and between gestures and signed or spoken expressions in young children is quite complex. We focus on multimodal analysis of negation in the productions of five children between the ages of 0;10 and 3;6 interacting with their parents in various linguistic environments (monolingual French, monolingual English, monolingual LSF, bilingual French/LSF, bilingual French/Italian). We present the individual multimodal path of each child, illustrate the continuum between actions, gestures and signed/spoken constructions and analyze the common trend that leads children into symbolic communication through multi-semiotic means of expression.

Keywords: negation, multimodality, gestures, sign language, language acquisition
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • 1.Literature review and research issues
    • 1.1Negation and language acquisition
    • 1.2The action-gesture-word relation
    • 1.3Gestures of negation and signs
    • 1.4First expressions of negation: The role of actions
  • 2.Data and method
    • 2.1Data
    • 2.2Method
  • 3.Results per child
    • 3.1Ellie’s longitudinal data (monolingual English)
    • 3.2Madeleine’s longitudinal data (monolingual French)
    • 3.3Charlotte’s longitudinal data (monolingual LSF)
    • 3.4Illana’s longitudinal data (bilingual bimodal LSF/French)
    • 3.5Antoine’s pathway (bilingual French/Italian)
  • 4.Discussion and conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 22 February 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/tilar.22.17mor
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