Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-22dnz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-27T18:40:13.624Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Is it language (yet)? The allure of the gesture-language binary

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 April 2017

Marie Coppola  and
Ann Senghas
Marie Coppola
Affiliation:
Department of Psychological Sciences, Department of Linguistics, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06269-1020. marie.coppola@uconn.eduhttp://www.languagecreationlab.uconn.edu
Ann Senghas
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Barnard College, New York, NY 10027-6598. asenghas@barnard.eduhttp://www.columbia.edu/~as1038
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Goldin-Meadow & Brentari (G-M&B) challenge the traditional separation between gestural and categorical language by modality, but they retain a binary distinction. However, multiple dimensions, particularly discreteness and combinatoriality, better carve up the range of linguistic and nonlinguistic human communication. Investigating transformation over time along these dimensions will reveal how the nature of language reflects human minds, rather than the world to which language refers.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 40 , 2017 , e50
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Coppola, M. & Senghas, A. (2010) Deixis in an emerging sign language. In: Sign languages: A Cambridge language survey, ed. Brentari, D., pp. 543–69. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Cormier, K., Schembri, A. & Woll, B. (2013) Pronouns and pointing in sign languages. Lingua 137:230–47.Google Scholar
de Vos, C. (2015) The Kata Kolok pointing system: Morphemization and syntactic integration. Topics in Cognitive Science 7(1):150–68.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Duncan, S. (2005) Gesture in signing: A case study from Taiwan sign language. Language and Linguistics 6(2):279–318.Google Scholar
Emmorey, K. & Herzig, M. (2003) Categorical versus gradient properties of classifier constructions in ASL. In: Perspectives on classifier constructions in signed languages, ed. Emmorey, K., pp. 221–46. Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Enfield, N. J. (2009) The anatomy of meaning: Speech, gesture, and composite utterances. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kendon, A. (2014) Semiotic diversity in utterance production and the concept of “language.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 369(1651):20130293. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2013.0293.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Liddell, S. K. (2003) Grammar, gesture and meaning in American Sign Language. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Lillo-Martin, D. & Meier, R. P. (2011) On the linguistic status of “agreement” in sign languages. Theoretical Linguistics 37 (3–4):95–141, 235–46.Google Scholar
Okrent, A. (2002) A modality-free notion of gesture and how it can help us with the morpheme vs. gesture question in sign language linguistics, or at least give us some criteria to work with. In: Modality and structure in signed and spoken languages, ed. Meier, R. P., Quinto-Pozos, D. G. & Cormier, K. A., pp. 175–98. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Schlenker, P., Lamberton, J. & Santoro, M. (2013) Iconic variables. Linguistics and Philosophy 36(2):91–149.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Senghas, A., Kita, S. & Özyürek, A. (2004) Children creating core properties of language: Evidence from an emerging sign language in Nicaragua. Science 305(5691):1779–82.Google Scholar
Wilcox, S. & Xavier, A. (2013) A framework for unifying spoken language, signed language, and gesture. Revista Todas as Letras 11(1):88–110.Google Scholar