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Children use non-referential gestures in narrative speech to mark discourse elements which update common ground

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dc.contributor.author Rohrer, Patrick Louis
dc.contributor.author Florit-Pons, Júlia
dc.contributor.author Vilà-Giménez, Ingrid
dc.contributor.author Prieto Vives, Pilar, 1965-
dc.date.accessioned 2022-11-25T07:01:12Z
dc.date.available 2022-11-25T07:01:12Z
dc.date.issued 2022
dc.identifier.citation Rohrer PL, Florit-Pons J, Vilà-Giménez I, Prieto P. Children use non-referential gestures in narrative speech to mark discourse elements which update common ground. Front Psychol. 2022;12:661339. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.661339
dc.identifier.issn 1664-1078
dc.identifier.uri http://hdl.handle.net/10230/55003
dc.description.abstract While recent studies have claimed that non-referential gestures (i.e., gestures that do not visually represent any semantic content in speech) are used to mark discourse-new and/or -accessible referents and focused information in adult speech, to our knowledge, no prior investigation has studied the relationship between information structure (IS) and gesture referentiality in children’s narrative speech from a developmental perspective. A longitudinal database consisting of 332 narratives performed by 83 children at two different time points in development was coded for IS and gesture referentiality (i.e., referential and non-referential gestures). Results revealed that at both time points, both referential and non-referential gestures were produced more with information that moves discourse forward (i.e., focus) and predication (i.e., comment) rather than topical or background information. Further, at 7–9 years of age, children tended to use more nonreferential gestures to mark focus and comment constituents than referential gestures. In terms of the marking of the newness of discourse referents, non-referential gestures already seem to play a key role at 5–6 years old, whereas referential gestures did not show any patterns. This relationship was even stronger at 7–9 years old. All in all, our findings offer supporting evidence that in contrast with referential gestures, nonreferential gestures have been found to play a key role in marking IS, and that the development of this relationship solidifies at a period in development that coincides with a spurt in non-referential gesture production.
dc.description.sponsorship PLR would like to acknowledge a joint Ph.D. grant, awarded by the Department of Translation and Language Sciences, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, and SGR AGAUR Grant, Generalitat de Catalunya, Award number: 2017 SGR_971, while JF-P would like to acknowledge a Ph.D. grant, awarded by the Generalitat de Catalunya, Award number: 2021 FI_B 00778. We would also like to acknowledge the financial support awarded by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (MCIU), Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI), and Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER) [PGC2018- 097007-B-100 “Multimodal Language Learning (MLL): Prosodic and Gestural Integration in Pragmatic and Phonological Development”], by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) (FFI2015-66533-P “Intonational and gestural meaning in language”), by the Generalitat de Catalunya (2014 SGR_925, 2017 SGR_971), and by the GEHM (Gesture and Head Movements in Language) Research Network, funded by the Independent Research Fund Denmark (9055- 00004B)
dc.format.mimetype application/pdf
dc.language.iso eng
dc.publisher Frontiers
dc.relation.ispartof Frontiers in Psychology. 2022;12:661339
dc.rights © 2022 Rohrer, Florit-Pons, Vilà-Giménez and Prieto. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
dc.rights.uri https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
dc.title Children use non-referential gestures in narrative speech to mark discourse elements which update common ground
dc.type info:eu-repo/semantics/article
dc.identifier.doi http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.661339
dc.subject.keyword Information structure (IS)
dc.subject.keyword Discourse referents
dc.subject.keyword Referential gesture
dc.subject.keyword Non-referential gesture
dc.subject.keyword Multimodal development
dc.subject.keyword Narrative discourse
dc.subject.keyword Child development
dc.relation.projectID info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/2PE/PGC2018-097007-B-I00
dc.relation.projectID info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/1PE/FFI2015-66533
dc.rights.accessRights info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
dc.type.version info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

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