Gesture Speech And Sign

Gestures are unique because they communicate an individual's moods and desires to the world but operate under different psychological and cognitive constraints than other actions. Thus, the connections between gesture and language - spoken and signed - pose some fascinating questions. How intimately are gesture and language connected? Did one evolve from the other? To what extent are they similarly processed in the brain? And in what ways are signed languages akin to spoken language and gestures? Gesture, Speech, and Sign examines these questions, bringing together an array of experts from all over the world to explore the origins, neurobiology, and uses of these three communication systems. Its discussion of how a greater understanding of the issues surrounding gesture and language can be used to improve human-computer interactions is an important and distinguishing feature of the book. Designed to appeal to a multi-disciplinary audience, Gesture, Speech, and Sign is perfect for advanced students and researchers in neuroscience, psychology, linguistics, and computer science as well as to those involved in deaf studies.

Landmark study on the role of gestures in relation to speech and thought.

This book brings together papers which address a range of issues regarding the nature and structure of sign languages and other gestural systems, and how they exploit the space in which they are conveyed. The chapters focus on five pertinent areas reflecting different, but related research topics: * space in language and gesture, * point of view and referential shift, * morphosyntax of verbs in ASL, * gestural systems and sign language, and * language acquisition and gesture. Sign languages and gestural systems are produced in physical space; they manipulate spatial contrasts for linguistic and communicative purposes. In addition to exploring the different functions of space, researchers discuss similarities and differences between visual-gestural systems -- established sign languages, pidgin sign language (International Sign), "homesign" systems developed by deaf children with no sign language input, novel gesture systems invented by hearing nonsigners, and the gesticulation that accompanies speech. The development of gesture and sign language in children is also examined in both hearing and deaf children, charting the emergence of gesture ("manual babbling"), its use as a prelinguistic communicative device, and its transformation into language-like systems in homesigners. Finally, theoretical linguistic accounts of the structure of sign languages are provided in chapters dealing with the analysis of referential shift, the structure of narrative, the analysis of tense and the structure of the verb phrase in American Sign Language. Taken together, the chapters in this volume present a comprehensive picture of sign language and gesture research from a group of international scholars who investigate a range of communicative systems from formal sign languages to the gesticulation that accompanies speech.

Many nonverbal behaviors—smiling, blushing, shrugging—reveal our emotions. One nonverbal behavior, gesturing, exposes our thoughts. This book explores how we move our hands when we talk, and what it means when we do so. Susan Goldin-Meadow begins with an intriguing discovery: when explaining their answer to a task, children sometimes communicate different ideas with their hand gestures than with their spoken words. Moreover, children whose gestures do not match their speech are particularly likely to benefit from instruction in that task. Not only do gestures provide insight into the unspoken thoughts of children (one of Goldin-Meadow’s central claims), but gestures reveal a child’s readiness to learn, and even suggest which teaching strategies might be most beneficial. In addition, Goldin-Meadow characterizes gesture when it fulfills the entire function of language (as in the case of Sign Languages of the Deaf), when it is reshaped to suit different cultures (American and Chinese), and even when it occurs in children who are blind from birth. Focusing on what we can discover about speakers—adults and children alike—by watching their hands, this book discloses the active role that gesture plays in conversation and, more fundamentally, in thinking. In general, we are unaware of gesture, which occurs as an undercurrent alongside an acknowledged verbal exchange. In this book, Susan Goldin-Meadow makes clear why we must not ignore the background conversation.

When we speak, we often spontaneously produce gestures. Such gestures are an integral part of face-to-face verbal communication. The relationship between speech and gesture is the theme of this Special Issue. The articles cover a wide range of issues: cultural differences, language and gesture development, cognitive development, bilingualism, foreign language learning, persuasion, and "common grounds" between the speaker and the addressee. The Special Issue is of interest not only to those who study the multimodal nature of communication, but also to those who seek new insights into psycholinguistic issues, using gesture as the "window" into the speaker's mind.

In The Gestural Origin of Language, Sherman Wilcox and David Armstrong use evidence from and about sign languages to explore the origins of language as we know it today. According to their model, it is sign, not spoken languages, that is the original mode of human communication. The authors demonstrate that modern language is derived from practical actions and gestures that were increasingly recognized as having the potential to represent, and hence to communicate. In other words, the fundamental ability that allows us to use language is our ability to use pictures or icons, rather than linguistic symbols. Evidence from the human fossil record supports the authors' claim by showing that we were anatomically able to produce gestures and signs before we were able to speak fluently. Although speech evolved later as a secondary linguistic communication device that eventually replaced sign language as the primary mode of communication, speech has never entirely replaced signs and gestures. As the first comprehensive attempt to trace the origin of grammar to gesture, this volume will be an invaluable resource for students and professionals in psychology, linguistics, and philosophy.

Through constant exposure to adult input in interaction, children’s language gradually develops into rich linguistic constructions containing multiple cross-modal elements subtly used together for communicative functions. Sensorimotor schemas provide the "grounding" of language in experience and lead to children’s access to the symbolic function. With the emergence of vocal or signed productions, gestures do not disappear but remain functional and diversify in form and function as children become skilled adult multimodal conversationalists. This volume examines the role of gesture over the human lifespan in its complex interaction with speech and sign. Gesture is explored in the different stages before, during, and after language has fully developed and a special focus is placed on the role of gesture in language learning and cognitive development. Specific chapters are devoted to the use of gesture in atypical populations. CONTENTS Contributors Aliyah Morgenstern and Susan Goldin-Meadow 1 Introduction to Gesture in Language Part I: An Emblematic Gesture: Pointing Kensy Cooperrider and Kate Mesh 2 Pointing in Gesture and Sign Aliyah Morgenstern 3 Early Pointing Gestures Part II: Gesture Before Speech Meredith L. Rowe, Ran Wei, and Virginia C. Salo 4 Early Gesture Predicts Later Language Development Olga Capirci, Maria Cristina Caselli, and Virginia Volterra 5 Interaction Among Modalities and Within Development Part III: Gesture With Speech During Language Learning Eve V. Clark and Barbara F. Kelly 6 Constructing a System of Communication With Gestures and Words Pauline Beaupoil-Hourdel 7 Embodying Language Complexity: Co-Speech Gestures Between Age 3 and 4 Casey Hall, Elizabeth Wakefield, and Susan Goldin-Meadow 8 Gesture Can Facilitate Children’s Learning and Generalization of Verbs Part IV: Gesture After Speech Is Mastered Jean-Marc Colletta 9 On the Codevelopment of Gesture and Monologic Discourse in Children Susan Wagner Cook 10 Understanding How Gestures Are Produced and Perceived Tilbe Göksun, Demet Özer, and Seda AkbIyık 11 Gesture in the Aging Brain Part V: Gesture With More Than One Language Elena Nicoladis and Lisa Smithson 12 Gesture in Bilingual Language Acquisition Marianne Gullberg 13 Bimodal Convergence: How Languages Interact in Multicompetent Language Users’ Speech and Gestures Gale Stam and Marion Tellier 14 Gesture Helps Second and Foreign Language Learning and Teaching Aliyah Morgenstern and Susan Goldin-Meadow Afterword: Gesture as Part of Language or Partner to Language Across the Lifespan Index About the Editors

Virginia Volterra and Carol Erting have made an important contribu tion to knowledge with this selection of studies on language acquisi tion. Collections of studies clustered more or less closely around a topic are plentiful, but this one is 1 nique. Volterra and Erting had a clear plan in mind when making their selection. Taken together, the studies make the case that language is inseparable from human inter action and communication and, especially in infancy, as much a matter of gestural as of vocal behavior. The editors have arranged the papers in five coherent sections and written an introduction to each section in addition to the expected general introduction and conclu sion. No introductory course in child and language development will be complete without this book. Presenting successively studies of hearing children acquiring speech languages, of deaf children acquiring sign languages, of hear ing children of deaf parents, of deaf children of hearing parents, and of hearing children compared with deaf children, Volterra and Erting give one a wider than usual view oflanguage acquisition. It is a view that would have been impossible not many years ago - when the primary languages of deaf adults had received neither recognition nor respect.