Self-Directed Ostensions and Mediations of the Adult at the Age of 8-, 12- and 16months.

Abstract

One of Vygotsky's main insights was to highlight the role of linguistic signs in psychological development. In this paper, following the works carried out through the Object Pragmatics paradigm, which is grounded in Vygotsky's cultural-historical and semiotic framework, we will explore non verbal signs addressed toward herself by the infant in the process of communication toward oneself, in relation to the appropriation of the objects' canonical uses by infants at 8-, 12- and 16months in triadic infant-object-adult interaction. More specifically, our focus will concern the development of self-directed ostensions. We will examine how this movement, under the impulse related to other's people signs and public meanings of the object, endorse the status of sign during development and specifies itself in ostension. Ostension as a sign refers to a presentation of an object to someone and has been initially defined within the framework of communication toward other people in semiotic literature. In our works, this sign is studied in communication toward oneself and in its development. It should be noted that very few studies have been done on this topic. Following Vygotsky, we consider that turned toward oneself, ostension plays a crucial role in the formation of thought and consciousness (in the sense of awareness). This paper will focus on the social and semiotic conditions of production of this sign and, more precisely, on the role of the adult's non verbal and verbal mediations, which aim to elicit and sustain its realisation by the infant.