When Speech Stops, Gesture Stops: Evidence From Developmental and Crosslinguistic Comparisons.

Maria Graziano,Marianne Gullberg

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00879

Abstract

There is plenty of evidence that speech and gesture form a tightly integrated system, as reflected in parallelisms in language production, comprehension, and development (McNeill, 1992; Kendon, 2004). Yet, it is a common assumption that speakers use gestures to compensate for their expressive difficulties, a notion found in developmental studies of both first and second language acquisition, and in theoretical proposals concerning the gesture-speech relationship. If gestures are compensatory, they should mainly occur in disfluent stretches of speech. However, the evidence is sparse and conflicting. This study extends previous studies and tests the putative compensatory role of gestures by comparing the gestural behavior in fluent vs. disfluent stretches of narratives by competent speakers in two languages (Dutch and Italian), and by language learners (children and adult L2 learners). The results reveal that (1) in all groups speakers overwhelmingly produce gestures during fluent speech and only rarely during disfluencies. However, L2 learners are significantly more likely to gesture in disfluency than the other groups; (2) in all groups gestures during disfluencies tend to be holds; (3) in all groups the rare gestures completed in disfluencies have both referential and pragmatic functions. Overall, the data strongly suggest that when speech stops, so does gesture. The findings constitute an important challenge to both gesture and language acquisition theories assuming a mainly (lexical) compensatory role for (referential) gestures. Instead, the results provide strong support for the notion that speech and gestures form an integrated system.

Highlights

In a seminal paper entitled So you think gestures are non-verbal? David McNeill challenged the dominant view of gestures as a communicative frill of no consequence to our understanding of language and linguistic processing (McNeill, 1985)
The current study aims to examine the distribution of gestures relative to disfluencies in competent adult native speakers of two languages, and of language learners, both children and adults, in order to shed some light on the putative compensatory role of manual gestures, extending previous studies
To improve our understanding of whether speech and gestures form an integrated mode of expression or whether gestures mainly serve a compensatory or facilitating role in speech production, the current study aims to test the core predictions from the Lexical Retrieval Hypothesis, and examine the precise temporal and functional relationship between gestures and disfluencies in competent adult native speakers of two languages, and in language learners, children and adults

Summary

Introduction

In a seminal paper entitled So you think gestures are non-verbal? David McNeill challenged the dominant view of gestures as a communicative frill of no consequence to our understanding of language and linguistic processing (McNeill, 1985). Despite the evidence for such crossmodal integration, both empirical studies and theoretical proposals concerning the speech-gesture relationship often see gestures as having mainly a facilitating or compensatory function, helping speakers to overcome expressive difficulties (Gullberg, 1998, 2011 for overviews). Children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) or with Down syndrome show higher gesture rates than typically developing peers (e.g., Fex and Månsson, 1998; Stefanini et al, 2008), and so do aphasic patients, especially those with word retrieval impairments (e.g., Feyereisen, 1983; Hadar et al, 1998; Rose, 2006 for an overview) These higher gesture rates are all seen as evidence that gestures facilitate speaking or at least communicating

Methods

Findings

Discussion

Conclusion