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The interaction of gesture, intonation, and eye-gaze in proto-imperatives*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 July 2013

THEA CAMERON-FAULKNER
THEA CAMERON-FAULKNER*
Affiliation:
University of Manchester
*
Address for correspondence: University of Manchester – Psychology, Coupland 1 Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, United Kingdom. e-mail: t.cameron@manchester.ac.uk
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Abstract

In the present study we investigate the production of gesture, intonation, and eye-gaze within the proto-imperative behaviour of one English child aged 1;0 to 1;7. The study is based on the qualitative and quantitative analysis of the three behaviours. The results indicate a shift from reaching gestures to points, and from rising terminal pitch contours to non-rising contours. The analysis also highlights changes in eye-gaze to the co-participant over time. In addition we identify a significant relationship between pitch contour and gesture type within the sample, with points being more closely associated with non-rise intonation than reaching gestures. We suggest that the changes in proto-imperative behaviour signal a shift in the underlying representation of the function from a request for help to a demand for a particular object, and that this development paves the way for the subsequent conventional linguistic expression of the imperative function.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 41 , Issue 4 , July 2014 , pp. 842 - 860
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

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Footnotes

[*]

We would like to thank Dr Mike Forrester for insightful comments and discussion on earlier drafts, and for sharing his data with the child language research community. Thanks also go to Coralie Hervé for assistance with coding, and also to the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and feedback.

References

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