Why iconic gestures aren’t very
iconic
Elena Nicoladis
Gestures and thought
• Gestures are often used in conjunction with
speech
– Have complementary meaning
– Timed with speech
• Thoughts are conveyed by gesture + speech
(McNeill, 1996)
Why do people gesture?
• To help lexical retrieval
– Evidence: Tip-of-the-Tongue experiment with
hands free or not free
• To help listeners understand
– Evidence: Gestures are produced at low
frequency word combinations
• Note that in conversations, both could be
true
This talk
• How do different kinds of gestures relate to
speech?
– Gesture development
– Do gestures compensate for missing or weak
speech?
• Study of French-English bilingual children
Gesture development:
prelinguistic gestures
• Conventional gestures
– Appear around 9 mos.
• Symbolic gestures
– Appear before words; disappear when words
acquired
• Deictic or pointing gestures
– Appear around 9-12 mos.
– Usually with vocalizations
Prelinguistic gestures may all be
conventional
• Symbolic gestures probably are learned
from adults
• Deictic gestures vary from culture to culture
– Ghanian mouth point
Gesture development:
with-language gestures
• Iconic gestures: resemble referent
– Emerge around age of 2 years
– Correlated with proficiency in French-English
bilingual preschoolers between 2;0 and 3;6
• Beat gestures: keep time
– Rarely seen in the preschool years
Do gestures compensate for weak
or absent speech?
•
•
•
•
Deaf people (home signs)
Bilinguals (one language usually weaker)
Elderly
Aphasics
Iconic gestures rarely compensate
• Deaf children with oral training use words
rather than gestures
• Elderly people use fewer iconic gestures
than younger people
• Intermediate bilinguals use fewer iconic
gestures in their L2 than their L1
• Advanced bilinguals use equal rates of
iconic gestures in their L1 and L2
Other gestures can compensate
• First home signs are mostly conventional
gestures and deictic gestures
• Broca’s aphasics can still use conventional
and deictic gestures
• Both intermediate and advanced bilinguals
use more deictics in their L2 than their L1
Different gestures, different
relationship to speech
• Prelinguistic gestures can compensate for
weak or absent speech
• “With-language” gestures do not
compensate for weak or absent speech
– Home signs can be iconic but only after a
communicative system has been established
This study
• How are different kinds of gestures related
to speech?
• Are iconic gestures more closely linked to
speech than other kinds of gestures?
This study: Research Questions
• Does the rate of gestures relate to
proficiency?
• Do children create longer utterances with
iconic gestures
• Do children use “speechless” gestures to
compensate for weak proficiency?
• Are iconic gestures used in cases of wordfinding difficulty?
This study: Participants
• Eight French-English bilingual children
– Between 3;6 and 4;11
– Average age: 4;3
– 4 French-dominant children and 4 Englishdominant children
• Videotaped in two free-play sessions:
– French session
– English session
%
Results: Gesture by dominance
5
4.5
4
3.5
3
2.5
2
1.5
1
0.5
0
English
French
English dominant
French dominant
Conventional gestures
Results: Gesture by dominance
14
12
%
10
8
English
6
French
4
2
0
English dominant
French dominant
Deictics
Results: Gesture by dominance
8
7
6
%
5
English
French
4
3
2
1
0
English dominant
French dominant
Iconics
Summary: Gesture by dominance
• These children used more iconic gestures in
their dominant language
• They did not use more conventional and
deictic gestures in their dominant language
Results: Longer utterances?
Average number of words
7
English
French
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
No gesture
with Emblems
with Deictics
with Iconics
Results: “speechless” gestures
25
English session
French session
20
15
#
10
5
0
English
French
dominant dominant
Emblems
English
French
dominant dominant
English
French
dominant dominant
Deictics
Iconics
Results: Word finding difficulties
• Jason (3;7) “It goes like this.”
– Gesture meaning: path of movement from a vehicle
pictured in a book
– 1/22 iconic gestures
• Aidan (4;11): “So it can go like this and like this.”
– Gesture meaning: looping paths that the train tracks
they are building should do
– 6/9 iconic gestures
Summary of results #1
• Conventional and deictic gestures
– Are not used more often with dominant
language
– Do not lead to longer sentences
– Are used more often without speech when
trying to communicate in weaker language
Summary of results #2
• Iconic gestures
– Are used more often with dominant language
– Produced with longer sentences
– Are not used more often without speech when
trying to communicate in weaker language
– Are occasionally used in cases of word-finding
difficulty, possibly increasing with age
Iconic gestures aren’t very iconic
• They can only be produced when someone
knows a language well
• This holds true even for bilinguals who
CAN produce iconics in their other
language
• At least one function of iconics may be to
“hold down” some concepts while thinking
of others (hence, longer utterances possible)
Iconic gestures aren’t very iconic
• We also have some evidence that the
interpretation of iconic gestures is highly
dependent on what someone says
A troubling question…
• Why is the rate of iconic production
different by language?
– Italians vs. English speakers
– Spanish vs. English speakers
– Chinese speakers
Some possible answers
• English speakers think less complex
thoughts than Italian and Spanish speakers
• The fact that iconic gestures are produced is
due to cognitive development. The rate of
cognitive gestures is due to cultural
variables.
• Other ideas??