Call for contributions: Panel on The development of iconic gestures (DGfS 2015 in Germany, Leipzig)

[Katharina Rohlfing]

Dear colleagues,

we are soliciting contributions to our panel on "The development of iconic 
gestures and their role as resources for language acquisition" within the 
next DGfS (4th-6th March 2015 in Leipzig, Germany).

The deadline is August 20th, 2014. Please see the detailed description 
below.
Kind regards,

    Katharina Rohlfing & Friederike Kern

-- 
PD Dr. Katharina J. Rohlfing
Emergentist Semantics, CITEC
Bielefeld University
		
	

  Prof. Dr. Friederike Kern
Fak. für Linguistik und Literaturwissenschaft Universität Bielefeld, 
Postfach 10 01 31 33501 Bielefeld friederike.kern at uni-bielefeld.de 
 
PD Dr. Katharina J. Rohlfing Emergentist Semantics Group Universität 
Bielefeld, CITEC 33501 Bielefeld kjr at uni-bielefeld.de 
  

The development of iconic gestures as resources in language acquisition 

The use of gestures as resources for the construction of verbal actions has 
been a topic of interest in language acquisition for some time. Since 
pointing gestures are dominantly present in young children as well as in 
interaction with them, most studies focus on this type of gestures. Several 
studies look at forms and functions of young children’s pointing gestures, 
and their connection with cognitive and linguistic abilities. Others show 
how older children may profit from a specific, task- adapted use of 
gestures [1], or, how caretakers adapt their gestures with regard to 
frequency and type to the developmental status of the child [2]. 

Relatively little known is about the use and development of early iconic 
gestures and their involvement in language acquisition. Iconic gestures are 
referred to as “representational” or “symbolic”, and can be used in 
reference to absent objects or events. An important finding relates to 
children’s later vocabulary development, which seems to benefit from 
earlier use of iconic gestures: Children who used iconic gestures earlier 
in their development, had richer vocabularies in their later development. 
However, only few studies show when and in what way (i.e. exhibiting what 
forms) iconic gestures emerge [3]. Furthermore, the different forms that 
iconic gestures might exhibit have barely been considered in developmental 
approaches. In addition, it is not clear whether different forms of iconic 
gestures are linked to different types of verbal actions systematically. 
Our panel will thus address the following research questions: 

   - 
   
   Which aspects of objects are focused on, and how are they implemented in 
   gestures (iconic mapping)? 
   - 
   
   How are the gestures integrated into the grammatical surface (grammatical 
   mapping)? 
   - 
   
   How do different verbal actions affect the choice and use of iconic 
   gestures (gestural mapping)? 
   - 
   
   Does the physical foundation and thus bodily involvement of 
   self-experienced events lay 
   
   grounds for the acquisition and situated use of iconic gestures (embodied 
   learning)? 
   
   Areas of interest: language acquisition, multimodal communication, 
   pragmatics, semantics 
   
   References 
   
   [1] Goldin-Meadow, S., Cook, S. W., & Mitchell, Z. A. Gesturing gives 
   children new ideas about math. Psychological Science, 2009, 20(3), 
   267-272 
   
   [2] Grimminger, A., Rohlfing, K. J. & Stenneken, P. (2010): Do mothers 
   alter their pointing behavior in dependence of children’s lexical 
   development and task-difficulty? Analysis of task- oriented gestural input 
   towards typically developed children and Late Talkers. Gesture 10: 251– 
   278. 
   
   [3] Vogt, S. & Schreiber, S. (2006): Förderung von Gesten als 
   Mitauslöser der lautsprachlichen Entwicklung. Theoretische und praktische 
   Überlegungen für die logopädische Arbeit. L.O.G.O.S. Interdiziplinär 14: 179–185. 
   
   
 

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