Young Children Make Their Gestural Communication Systems More Language-Like: Segmentation and Linearization of Semantic Elements in Motion Events

Clay, Zanna; Pople, Sally; Hood, Bruce; Kita, Sotaro

Abstract

Research on Nicaraguan Sign Language, created by deaf children, has suggested that young children use gestures to segment the semantic elements of events and linearize them in ways similar to those used in signed and spoken languages. However, it is unclear whether this is due to children’s learning processes or to a more general effect of iterative learning. We investigated whether typically developing children, without iterative learning, segment and linearize information. Gestures produced in the absence of speech to express a motion event were examined in 4-year-olds, 12-year-olds, and adults (all native English speakers). We compared the proportions of gestural expressions that segmented semantic elements into linear sequences and that encoded them simultaneously. Compared with adolescents and adults, children reshaped the holistic stimuli by segmenting and recombining their semantic features into linearized sequences. A control task on recognition memory ruled out the possibility that this was due to different event perception or memory. Young children spontaneously bring fundamental properties of language into their communication system.

Citation

Clay, Z., Pople, S., Hood, B., & Kita, S. (2014). Young Children Make Their Gestural Communication Systems More Language-Like: Segmentation and Linearization of Semantic Elements in Motion Events. Psychological Science, 25(8), 1518-1525. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797614533967

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Mar 31, 2014
• Online Publication Date: Jun 4, 2014
• Publication Date: Aug 1, 2014
• Deposit Date: Apr 19, 2017
• Publicly Available Date: Sep 20, 2017
• Journal: Psychological Science
• Print ISSN: 0956-7976
• Electronic ISSN: 1467-9280
• Publisher: SAGE Publications
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 25
• Issue: 8
• Pages: 1518-1525
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797614533967
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1380975