Cover not available
Part of
From Gesture in Conversation to Visible Action as Utterance: Essays in honor of Adam Kendon
Edited by Mandana Seyfeddinipur and Marianne Gullberg
[Not in series 188] 2014
► pp. 331–350

How gestures help children to track reference in narrative

This chapter analyzes the ways in which gestures compensate for children’s difficulties to track reference by linguistic anaphors. The research, carried out on the narratives produced by two groups of Italian children (6 and 10 years old), analyzed both the incidence of representational vs. deictic anaphoric gestures and the functions they both fulfill in relation to linguistic anaphors. Results show that representational strategies play a dominant role in tracking reference in both groups of children; yet, in the far greater majority of cases those produced by younger children disambiguate linguistic anaphoric mistakes, whereas those produced by the older ones make the referents of correct linguistic anaphors more explicit. It is claimed that gesture can compensate for linguistic difficulties; yet, a definition of compensation is given, that is in line with Kendon’s interpretation of speech/gesture relationship.

Published online: 6 August 2014
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/z.188.15cri
References
Alibali, M.W., Kita, S., and Young, A.J
2000 “Gesture and the process of speech production: We think, therefore, we gesture.” Language and Cognitive Processes 15: 593–613. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Austin, J.L
1962 How to Do Things with Words. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University PressGoogle Scholar
Beattie, G., and Shovelton, H
2000 “Iconic hand gestures and the predictability of words in context in spontaneous speech.” British Journal of Psychology 91 (4): 473–491. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Berman, R.A., and Slobin, D.I
.1994 Relating Events in Narrative: A Crosslinguistic Developmental Study. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Capato, M
. Unpublished. Linguaggio verbale e gestuale nell’interazione pragmatica. Master’s thesis,Università degli Studi del Piemonte Orientale. Vercelli, Italy 2012.Google Scholar
Capirci, O., Caselli, M.C., Iverson, J.M., Pizzuto, E., and Volterra, V
2002 “Gesture and the nature of language in infancy: The role of gesture as transitional device en route to two-word speech.” In The Study of Sign Languages: Essays in Honor of William C.Stokoe, D. Armstrong, M. Karchmer, and J. Vickrey Van Cleeve (eds), 213–246. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press.Google Scholar
Capirci, O., Cristilli, C., De Angelis, V., and Graziano, M
2011 “Learning to use gestures in narratives: Developmental trends in formal and semantic gesture competence.” In Integrating Gestures: The Interdisciplinary Nature of Gestures, G. Stam, and M. Ishino (eds), 187–200. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: John Benjamins Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Capirci, O., Iverson, J.M., Pizzuto, E., and Volterra, V
1996 “Gestures and words during the transition to two-word speech.” Journal of Child Language 23: 645–673. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Carlomagno, S., Pandolfi, M., Marini, A., Di Iasi, G., Cristilli, C
2005 “Co-verbal gestures in Alzheimer’s type dementia.” Cortex 41 (4): 535–546. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Colletta, J.-M., Guidetti, M., Capirci, O., Cristilli, C., Ece Demir, O., Kunene-Nicolas, R.M. and Levine, S
2014 “Effects of age and language on co-speech gesture production: an investigation of French, American, and Italian children’s narratives”. Journal of Child Language. Available on CJO 2014. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cristilli, C., and Carlomagno, S
2004 “Conceptual and lexical factors in the production of speech and conversational gestures: neuropsychological evidence.” In Gesture-Based Communication in Human-Computer Interaction, A. Camurri and G. Volpe (eds), 70–76. Berlin: Springer- Verlag. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cristilli, C., Capirci, O., and Graziano, M
2010 “Le funzioni anaforiche della gestualità nel racconto dei bambini.” In La Comunicazione Parlata. Atti del III Convegno Internazionale sulla Comunicazione Parlata, Vol.I, M. Pettorino, A. Giannini and F.M. Dovetto (eds), 307–339. Naples, Italy: OPAR (L’Orientale Open Archive).Google Scholar
Cuxac, C
2000 La Langue des Signes Française (LSF): Les Voies de l’Iconicité. Faits de Langues 15–16. Paris: Ophrys.Google Scholar
De Ruiter, J.P
2000 “The production of gesture and speech.” In Language and Gesture, D. McNeill (ed.), 284–311. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
De Weck, G
1991 La cohésion dans les textes d’enfants: Etude du développement des processus anaphoriques. Neuchâtel: Delachaux et Niestlé.Google Scholar
Dick, A.S., Mok, E., Raja Begarelle, A., Goldin-Meadow, S., and Small, S.L
2014 “Frontal and temporal contribution to understand iconic co-speech gestures that accompany speech.” Human Brain Mapping (PDF) Supplemental Materials.Google Scholar
Duncan, S.D
1996 Grammatical form and “thinking-for-speaking” in Mandarin Chinese and English: An analysis based on speech-accompanying gestures. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation.
Goffman, E
1981 “Replies and responses.” In Forms of Talk, E. Goffman (ed.), 5–77. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Goldin-Meadow, S
2003 Hearing Gesture: How our Hands Help us Thinking. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press.Google Scholar
Goldin-Meadow, S., Alibali, M.W., and Church, R.B
1993 “Transitions in concept acquisition: Using the hand to read the mind.” Psychological Review 100: 279–297. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Goldin-Meadow, S., and Butcher, C
2003 “Pointing toward two-word speech in children.” In Pointing: Where Language, Culture and Cognition Meet, S. Kita (ed.), 85–107. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Goldin-Meadow, S., Nusbaum, H., Kelly, S.D., and Wagner, S
2001 “Explaining math: Gesturing lightens the load.” Psychological Science 12: 516–522. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Goldin-Meadow, S., and Singer, M.A
2003 “From children’s hands to adults’ ears: Gesture’s role in teaching and learning.” Developmental Psychology 39 (3): 509–520. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Graziano, M., and Gullberg, M
2013 “Gesture production and speech fluency in competent speakers and language learners”. In TiGeR 2013 . Proceedings on line [URL].
Gullberg, M
1998 Gesture as a Communication Strategy in Second Language Discourse: A Study of Learners of French and Swedish. Lund: Lund University Press.Google Scholar
2003 “Gestures, referents, and anaphoric linkage in learner varieties.” In Information Structure, Linguistic Structure and the Dynamics of Language Aacquisition, C. Dimroth and M. Starren (eds), 311–328. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: John Benjamins Publishing Company. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2006 “Handling discourse: Gestures, reference tracking and communication strategies in early L2.” Language Learning 56 (1): 155–196. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2011 “Multilingual multimodality: Communicative difficulties and their solutions in second language use.” In Embodied Interaction: Language and Body in the Material World, J. Streeck, C. Goodwin, and C. LeBaron (eds), 137–151. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Gullberg, M., de Bot, K., and Volterra, V
2010 “Gestures and some issues in the study of language development.” In Gestures in Language Development, M. Gullberg, and K. de Bot (eds), 3–34. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: John Benjamins Publishing Company. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hadar, U., and Butterworth, B
1997 “Iconic gestures, imagery and word retrieval in speech.” Semiotica 115: 147–172. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hadar, U., Wenkert-Olenik, D., Krauss, R., and Soroker, N
1998 “Gestures and the processing of speech: Neuropsychological evidence.” Brain and Language 62: 107–126. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hickmann, M
2003 Children’s Discourse: Person, Space and Time Across Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hostetter, A.B., Alibali, M.W., and Kita, S
2007 “I see it in my hand’s eye: Representational gestures reflect conceptual demands.” Language and Cognitive Processes 22 (3): 313–326. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Iverson, J.M., Capirci, O., Volterra, V., and Goldin-Meadow, S
2008 “Learning to talk in a gesture-rich world: Early communication in Italian vs. American children.” First Language 28 (2): 164–181. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Karmiloff-Smith, A
1981 “The grammatical marking of thematic structure in the development of language production.” In The Child’s Construction of Language, W. Deutsch (ed.), 121–147. London: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Kendon, A
2004a Gesture: Visible Action as Utterance. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
2004b “Topics in gesture studies.” In The Fundamentals of Verbal and Nonverbal Communication and the Biometric Issue, A. Esposito (ed.), 3–19. Amsterdam: IOS Press.Google Scholar
2008 “Language’s matrix.” Gesture 9 (3): 352–372. [An essay review of Michael Tomasello’s Origins of Human Communication. MIT Press, 2008].Google Scholar
2009 “Manual actions, speech and the nature of language.” In Origine e sviluppo del linguaggio, fra teoria e storia, D. Gambarara and A. Givigliano (eds). Società di Filosofia del Linguaggio, Atti del XV congresso nazionale . Arcavata di Rende (CS), 15–17 settembre 2008, 19–33. Roma: Aracne Editrice.Google Scholar
2011 “‘Gesture First’ and ‘Speech First’ in Theories of Language Origins.” In Signs Around the World, M. Guarev and Donna Jo Napoli (eds), 251–267. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kita, S
2000 “How representational gestures help speaking.” In Language and Gesture, D. McNeill (ed.), 162–185. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Krauss, R.K., Chen, Y., and Gottesman, R.F
2000 “Lexical gestures and lexical access: A process model.” In Language and Gesture, D. McNeill (ed.), 261–283. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
McNeill, D
1992 Hand and Mind: What Gestures Reveal about Thought. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
(ed.) 2000 Language and Gesture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
McNeill, D., and Duncan, S.D
.2000 “Growth points in thinking-for-speaking.” In Language and Gesture, D. McNeill (ed.), 141–161. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nicoladis, E., Pika, S., Yin, H., and Marentette, P
2007 “Gesture use in story recall by Chinese–English Bilinguals.” Applied Psycholinguistics 28: 721–735.Google Scholar
Özyürek, A., Kita, S., Allen, S., Furman, R., and Brown, A
2005 “How does linguistic framing of events influence co-speech gestures?” Gesture 5: 219–240. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pizzuto, E., Rossini, P., Sallandre, M.A., and Wilkinson, E
2008 “Deixis, anaphora and Highly Iconic Structures: Cross-linguistic evidence on American (ASL), French (LSF) and Italian (LIS) Signed Languages.” In Sign Languages: Spinning and Unraveling the Past, Present and Future. Theoretical Issues in Sign Language Research Conference , R. Müller de Quadros (ed.), 475–495. Petrópolis/RJ, Brazil: Editora Arara Azul.Google Scholar
So, W.Ch., Kita, S., and Goldin-Meadow, S
2009 “Using hands to identify who does what to whom: Gesture and speech go hand-in-hand.” Cognitive Science 33: 115–125. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 2 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. DOI logo
Polok, Krzysztof, Olga Stankiewicz & Eva Stradiotova
2022. Creativity-Induced Forms of Non-Verbal Communication in the Process of Vocabulary Internalization in Case of Young Learners. Prace Językoznawcze 24:3 ► pp. 161 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 18 march 2024. 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.