Gestures in Language Development

Gestures are prevalent in communication and tightly linked to language and speech. As such they can shed important light on issues of language development across the lifespan. This volume, originally published as a Special Issue of Gesture Volume 8:2 (2008), brings together studies from different disciplines that examine language development in children and adults from varying perspectives. It provides a review of common theoretical and empirical themes, and the contributions address topics such as gesture use in prelinguistic infants, the relationship between gestures and lexical development in typically and atypically developing children and in second language learners, what gestures reveal about discourse, and how all languages that adult second language speakers know can influence each other. The papers exemplify a vibrant new field of study with relevance for multiple disciplines.

Eve V. Clark, Stanford University:
Gestures in Language Development offers access to an increasingly important aspect of development: the role gesture plays in communication during and after the emergence of language. What is the natural history of pointing? Do children with non-normal language development rely on gesture to compensate? Do teacher gestures help students to memorize new words? Do speakers make use of gestures to identify topics or subjects in narrative? And, to what extent do gestures mark viewpoint in talk? These are just some of the questions tackled in this intriguing collection.