Hostname: page-component-7f64f4797f-l842n Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-11-04T00:01:24.762Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Comprehension and production of gesture in combination with speech in one-word speakers*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Marolyn Morford  and
Susan Goldin-Meadow
Marolyn Morford*
Affiliation:
The University of Chicago
Susan Goldin-Meadow*
Affiliation:
The University of Chicago
*
11704 Newbridge Court, Reston, VA 22091, USA
University of Chicago, Department of Psychology, 5730 South Woodlawn Avenue, Chicago, IL 60637, USA.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This study explores the role that gesture plays in the earliest stages of language learning. We describe how one-word speakers use gesture in combination with speech in their spontaneous communications, and interpret gesture presented in combination with speech in an experimental situation. Forty one-word speakers (ages 1;2.22 to 2;4.6) were videotaped in a free-play session which provided data on the child's spontaneous gesture and speech production. The children were also given a comprehension task in which the presence and absence of gesture were systematically varied in relation to speech. We found that (1) all of the children spontaneously produced gestures in combination with speech, and (2) all of the children were able to understand gesture when it was presented in combination with speech, not only when the gesture was redundant with speech but also when the gesture substituted for speech. These data suggest that, even at this young age, gesture naturally forms an integrated system with speech in both production and comprehension.

Information

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 19 , Issue 3 , October 1992 , pp. 559 - 580
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Footnotes

*

This work was supported in part by a grant from the Smart Foundation. The authors thank the Department of Child Psychiatry at the University of Chicago and the Social Sciences Computer Laboratory at Elon College, North Carolina, for technical support provided for the research project, and Bennett Leventhal, Susan Levine, Marilyn Shatz and Jim Stigler for their particularly helpful comments on the project at various stages of its development.

References

REFERENCES

Allen, R. & Shatz, M. (1983). ‘What says meow?’ The role of context and linguistic experience in very young children's responses to what-questions. Journal of Child Language 10, 14–23.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bates, E. (1976). Language and context: the acquisition of pragmatics. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Bates, E., Benigni, L., Bretherton, I., Camaioni, L. & Volterra, V. (1979). The emergence of symbols: cognition and communication in infancy. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Bekken, K. (1989). Is there ‘motherese’ in gesture? Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Chicago.Google Scholar
Boswell, M. (1988). Gesture and speech in the one-word stage. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Chicago.Google Scholar
Carter, A. (1975). The transformation of sensorimotor morphemes into words: a case study of the development of ‘more’ and ‘mine’. Journal of Child Language 2, 233–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chapman, R. (1981). Cognitive development and language comprehension in 10 to 21 month olds. In Stark, R. (ed.), Language behavior in infancy and early childhood. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Church, R. B. & Goldin-Meadow, S. (1986). The mismatch between gesture and speech as an index of transitional knowledge. Cognition 23, 43–71.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
de Laguna, G. (1927). Speech: its function and development. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Gershkoff-Stowe, L. & Smith, L. B. (1991). Changes in pointing and labeling during the naming explosion. Poster presented at the biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Seattle, WA.Google Scholar
Goldin-Meadow, S. & Morford, M. (1985). Gesture in early child language: studies of deaf and hearing children. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly 31, 145–76.Google Scholar
Goldin-Meadow, S., Seligman, M. E. P. & Gelman, R. (1976). Language in the two-year-old. Cognition 4, 189–202.Google Scholar
Goldin-Meadow, S., Wein, D. & Chang, C. (in press). Assessing knowledge through gesture: using children's hands to read their minds. Cognition and Instruction.Google Scholar
Greenfield, P. & Smith, J. (1976). The structure of communication in early language development. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Guillaume, P. (1927). Les débuts de la phrase dans le langage de l'enfant. Journal de Psychologie 24, 1–25.Google Scholar
Huttenlocher, J. (1974). The origin of language comprehension. In Solso, R. L. (ed.), Theories in cognitive psychology. Hillsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Kendon, A. (1972). Some relationships between body motion and speech: an analysis of an example. In Seigman, A. (ed.), Studies in dyadic communication. New York: Pergamon Press.Google Scholar
Kendon, A. (1980). Gesticulation and speech: two aspects of the process of utterance. In Key, M. R. (ed.), Nonverbal communication and language. The Hague: Mouton.Google Scholar
Lempers, J., Flavell, E. & Flavell, J. (1976). The development in very young children of tacit knowledge concerning visual perception. Genetic Psychology Monographs 4.Google Scholar
Leopold, W. (1949). Speech development of a bilingual child: a linguist's record. Volume 3. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.Google Scholar
Leung, E. & Rheingold, H. (1981). Development of pointing as a social gesture. Developmental Psychology 17, 215–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Macnamara, J. (1977). From sign to language. In Macnamara, J. (ed.), Language learning and thought. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Masur, E. F. (1982). Mothers' responses to infants' object-related gestures: influences on lexical development. Journal of Child Language 9, 23–30.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Masur, E. F. (1983). Gestural development, dual-directional signaling, and the transition to words. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 12, 93–109.Google Scholar
McNeill, D. (1985). So you think gestures are nonverbal? Psychological Review 92, 350–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McNeill, D. (1987). Psycholinguistik: a new approach. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
McNeill, D. (1991). Hand and mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Murphy, C. M. & Messer, D. J. (1977). Mothers, infants and pointing: a study of gesture. In Schaffer, H. R. (ed.), Studies in mother-infant interaction. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Nelson, K. (1973). Structure and strategy in learning to talk. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, No. 149, 138.Google Scholar
Perry, M., Church, R. B. & Goldin-Meadow, S. (1988). Transitional knowledge in the acquisition of concepts. Cognitive Development 3, 359–400.Google Scholar
Perry, M., Church, R. B. & Goldin-Meadow, S. (1992). Is gesture/speech mismatch a general index of transitional knowledge? Cognitive Development 7, 109–22.Google Scholar
Petitto, L. A. (1988). ‘Language’ in the prelinguistic child. In Kessel, F. S. (ed.), The development of language and language researchers: essays in honor of Roger Brown. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Schaffer, H. R., Hepburn, A. & Collis, G. M. (1983). Verbal and non-verbal aspects of mothers' directives. Journal of Child Language 10, 337–67.Google Scholar
Schnur, E. & Shatz, M. (1984). The role of maternal gestures in one-year-olds. Journal of Child Language 11, 29–41.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Shatz, M. (1982). On mechanisms of language acquisition: can features of the communicative environment account for development? In Wanner, E. & Gleitman, L. R. (eds), Language acquisition: the state of the art. New York: C.U.P.Google Scholar
Zinober, B. & Martlew, M. (1985). Developmental changes in four types of gesture in relation to acts and vocalizations from 10 to 21 months. British Journal of Developmental Psychology 3, 293–306.Google Scholar