Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-21T07:48:02.515Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The interaction of gesture, intonation, and eye-gaze in proto-imperatives*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 July 2013

THEA CAMERON-FAULKNER
THEA CAMERON-FAULKNER*
Affiliation:
University of Manchester
*
Address for correspondence: University of Manchester – Psychology, Coupland 1 Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, United Kingdom. e-mail: t.cameron@manchester.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In the present study we investigate the production of gesture, intonation, and eye-gaze within the proto-imperative behaviour of one English child aged 1;0 to 1;7. The study is based on the qualitative and quantitative analysis of the three behaviours. The results indicate a shift from reaching gestures to points, and from rising terminal pitch contours to non-rising contours. The analysis also highlights changes in eye-gaze to the co-participant over time. In addition we identify a significant relationship between pitch contour and gesture type within the sample, with points being more closely associated with non-rise intonation than reaching gestures. We suggest that the changes in proto-imperative behaviour signal a shift in the underlying representation of the function from a request for help to a demand for a particular object, and that this development paves the way for the subsequent conventional linguistic expression of the imperative function.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 41 , Issue 4 , July 2014 , pp. 842 - 860
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

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.)

Footnotes

[*]

We would like to thank Dr Mike Forrester for insightful comments and discussion on earlier drafts, and for sharing his data with the child language research community. Thanks also go to Coralie Hervé for assistance with coding, and also to the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and feedback.

References

REFERENCES

Barton, M. & Tomasello, M. (1994). The rest of the family: the role of fathers and siblings in early language development. In Gallaway, C. & Richards, B. (eds), Input and interaction in language acquisition, 109–34. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bates, E. (1976). Language and context: studies in the acquisition of pragmatics. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Bates, E., Benigni, L., Bretherton, I., Camaioni, L. & Volterra, V. (1977). From gesture to first word: on cognitive and social prerequisites. In Lewis, M. & Rosenblum, L. A. (eds), Interaction, conversation and the development of language, 247–308. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Bates, E., Camaioni, L. & Volterra, V. (1975). The acquisition of performatives prior to speech. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly 21, 205–26.Google Scholar
Bates, E. & Dick, F. (2002). Language, gesture, and the developing brain. Developmental Psychobiology 40(3), 293–310.Google Scholar
Boersma, Paul & Weenink, David (1992–2005). PRAAT: doing phonetics by computer. Available from <www.praat.org>..>Google Scholar
Brink, I. (2003). The pragmatics of imperative and declarative pointing. Cognitive Science Quarterly 3, 429–46.Google Scholar
Bruner, J. S. (1975). The ontogenesis of speech acts. Journal of Child Language 2, 1–19.Google Scholar
Bruner, J. S. (1983). Child's talk. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Camaioni, L., Perucchini, P., Muratori, F., Parrini, B. & Cesari, A. (2003). The communicative use of pointing in autism: developmental profile and factors related to change. European Psychiatry 18, 6–12.Google Scholar
Carpenter, M., Nagell, K., Tomasello, M., Butterworth, G. & Moore, C. (1998). Social cognition, joint attention, and communicative competence from 9 to 15 months of age. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development 63.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cochet, H. & Vauclair, J. (2010). Features of spontaneous pointing gestures in toddlers. Gesture 10, 86–107.Google Scholar
D'odorico, L. & Franco, F. (1991). Selective production of vocalisation types in different communicative contexts. Journal of Child Language 18, 475–99.Google Scholar
Dore, J. (1975). Holophrases, speech acts and language universals. Journal of Child Language 2, 21–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fernald, A. (1989). Intonation and communicative intent in mothers' speech to infants: Is the melody the message? Child Development 60, 1497–510.Google Scholar
Ferrier, L. J. (1985). Intonation in discourse: talk between 12-month-olds and their mothers. In Nelson, K. (ed.), Children's language, 35–60. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Flax, J., Lahey, M., Harris, K. & Boothroyd, A. (1991). Relations between prosodic variables and communicative functions. Journal of Child Language 18, 3–19.Google Scholar
Forrester, M. (2002). Approaching cultural conceptions of childhood: participation in conversation. Childhood 9, 255–78.Google Scholar
Franco, F. & Butterworth, G. (1996). Pointing and social awareness; declaring and requesting in the second year. Journal of Child Language 23, 307–36.Google Scholar
Halliday, M. A. K. (1975). Learning how to mean: explorations in the development of language. London: Edward Arnold.Google Scholar
Leavens, D. A. & Hopkins, W. D. (1999). The whole-hand point: the structure and function of pointing from a comparative perspective. Journal of Comparative Psychology 113, 417–25.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Leroy, M., Mathiot, E. & Morgenstern, A. (2009). Pointing gestures, vocalisations and gaze: two case studies. In Zlatev, J., Johansson Falck, M., Lundmark, C. & Andrén, M. (eds.), Studies in language and cognition, 226–75. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.Google Scholar
MacWhinney, B. & Snow, C. E. (1990). The Child Language Data Exchange System: an update. Journal of Child Language 17, 457–72.Google Scholar
Marcos, H. (1987). Communicative functions of pitch range and pitch direction in infants. Journal of Child Language 14, 255–68.Google Scholar
Masataka, N. (1993). Relation between pitch contour of pre-linguistic vocalisations and communicative functions in Japanese infants. Infant Behavior and Development 16, 397–401.Google Scholar
Masur, E. F. (1983). Gestural development, dual-directional signaling, and the transition to words. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 12, 93–109.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, 325–54. London: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Özçalışkan, S. & Goldin-Meadow, S. (2009). When gesture–speech combinations do and do not index lexical change. Language and Cognitive Processes 24(2), 190–217.Google Scholar
So, W., Demir, Ö & Goldin-Meadow, S. (2010). When speech is ambiguous, gesture steps in: sensitivity to discourse-pragmatic principles in early childhood. Applied Psycholinguistics 31, 209–24.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Snow, D. & Balog, H. L. (2002). Do children produce the melody before the words? A review of developmental intonation research. Lingua 112, 1025–58.Google Scholar
Tomasello, M. (1999). The cultural origins of human cognition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard 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., Carpenter, M. & Liszkowski, U. (2007). A new look at infant pointing. Child Development 78(3), 705–22.Google Scholar
Tomasello, M. & Mannle, S. (1985). Pragmatics of siblings' speech to one-year-olds. Child Development 56, 911–17.Google Scholar
Wootton, A. J. (1997). Interaction and the development of mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar