John Benjamins Publishing Company
Temporal synchrony in early multi-modal communication
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Barbara F. Kelly✝
Abstract
Children’s early gesture and speech combinations are typically asynchronous. As children develop the ability to employ speech and gesture together more regularly, the two modalities become synchronized and the word indicates one element, while the target of the gesture indicates another element. This chapter presents a longitudinal qualitative analysis of the path by which children develop the skill of temporal coordination in their gesture and spoken word communications. It investigates how this temporally coordinated information is taken up by the caregiver and examines synchrony of gesture and speech indexing the same element, in order to determine how this fits within the child’s transition to reaching the stage of multi-element communications.
Abstract
Children’s early gesture and speech combinations are typically asynchronous. As children develop the ability to employ speech and gesture together more regularly, the two modalities become synchronized and the word indicates one element, while the target of the gesture indicates another element. This chapter presents a longitudinal qualitative analysis of the path by which children develop the skill of temporal coordination in their gesture and spoken word communications. It investigates how this temporally coordinated information is taken up by the caregiver and examines synchrony of gesture and speech indexing the same element, in order to determine how this fits within the child’s transition to reaching the stage of multi-element communications.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgements vii
- List of contributors ix
- introduction Language acquisition in interaction 1
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Part 1. The social and interactional nature of language input (five papers)
- Conversational input to bilingual children 13
- Social environments shape children’s language experiences, strengthening language processing and building vocabulary 29
- The interactional context of language learning in Tzeltal 51
- Conversation and language acquisition 83
- Taking the floor on time 101
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Part 2. The role of paralinguistic information in language learning (three papers)
- Temporal synchrony in early multi-modal communication 117
- Shared attention, gaze and pointing gestures in hearing and deaf children 139
- How gesture helps children learn language 157
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Part 3. Pragmatic forces in language learning (six papers)
- Referential pacts in child language development 175
- “We call it as puppy” 191
- Learning words through probabilistic inferences about speakers’ communicative intentions 207
- Word order as a structural cue and word reordering as an interactional process in early language acquisition 231
- The discourse basis of the Korean copula construction in acquisition 251
- Emergent clause-combining in adult-child interactional contexts 281
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Part 4. Interactional effects on language structure and use (three papers)
- Analytic and holistic processing in the development of constructions 303
- From speech with others to speech for self 315
- How to talk with children 333
- Index 353
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgements vii
- List of contributors ix
- introduction Language acquisition in interaction 1
-
Part 1. The social and interactional nature of language input (five papers)
- Conversational input to bilingual children 13
- Social environments shape children’s language experiences, strengthening language processing and building vocabulary 29
- The interactional context of language learning in Tzeltal 51
- Conversation and language acquisition 83
- Taking the floor on time 101
-
Part 2. The role of paralinguistic information in language learning (three papers)
- Temporal synchrony in early multi-modal communication 117
- Shared attention, gaze and pointing gestures in hearing and deaf children 139
- How gesture helps children learn language 157
-
Part 3. Pragmatic forces in language learning (six papers)
- Referential pacts in child language development 175
- “We call it as puppy” 191
- Learning words through probabilistic inferences about speakers’ communicative intentions 207
- Word order as a structural cue and word reordering as an interactional process in early language acquisition 231
- The discourse basis of the Korean copula construction in acquisition 251
- Emergent clause-combining in adult-child interactional contexts 281
-
Part 4. Interactional effects on language structure and use (three papers)
- Analytic and holistic processing in the development of constructions 303
- From speech with others to speech for self 315
- How to talk with children 333
- Index 353
