University of California, Santa Barbara

When a child points at a banana and says "nana" does the gesture convey the same information as encoded in the speech? Several researchers have suggested that indeed the information is the same. They suggest that when children combine gesture with speech and use the two modalities to refer to the same object, the gesture becomes redundant. In this paper I present evidence to show that when children use speech and gesture together the two modalities do not communicate the same information and neither gesture nor speech should be considered redundant.

In single-word speech young children learning English systematically combine early utterances with non-verbal communicative acts, such as pointing and reaching hands out as if to grab an object. When children begin gesturing (at around 9-12 months of age) gesture is usually the sole mode of communication. As they develop they begin use words to communicate and also combine gestures with words. In an example like "nana" above, the gesture is considered to be redundant because only one piece of information is being encoded in the communication and this information is in the speech (Blake 2000, Goldin-Meadow and Butcher in press, Greenfield and Smith 1976). While we cannot examine differences in the child's intentions when they use only a word versus a word plus gesture, we can examine the communicative affect of using two modalities rather than just one. A useful way to determine what information is being communicated is to look at the caregiver response to a child's communication and determine whether caregivers treat these communications as though they are the same.

Data for this study comes from a video corpus of spontaneous interactions collected in a daycare center. The study focuses on five children from around 12-30 months. Data were transcribed and coded for gestures that are directed toward another individual. These were: a) point: movement of the index finger toward an object, accompanied by a gaze; b) gimme: an extended open palm held out as if reaching for receiving an object; c) attend: holding out an object to be attended to or received by a recipient. Data were also coded for caregiver response to children's communications. These included: a verbal response, e.g. "your hat"; gesture response, e.g. head nod; action response, e.g. give child object.

Findings

If the gesture modality of a gesture and speech combination is redundant then we can make the following predictions:

i. there will be no difference in the frequency of caregiver responses to words on their own versus when words are combined with gesture; and

ii. when caregivers do respond to children's gesture-speech combinations the response will not differ from responses to speech alone.

Results of this study provide evidence to show that the first prediction does not hold. Table 1, below, indicates the percentage of responses and non-responses the children received when they used only a word compared to a word and a gesture.

	Response	Non-Response	Total
Word only	42% (n=32)	58% (n=44)	100% (n=76)
Gesture + Word	76% (n=67)	24% (n=21)	100% (n=88)

Table 1 Adult response to children's single and multi-modal communications

As this table shows, when children used only a word they received a caregiver response 42% of the time. Using a word combined with a gesture, for example saying "juice" while reaching toward a bottle of fruit juice, children received a caregiver response 76% of the time. The only difference in these communications is the use of a gesture versus no gesture. Combining a word with a gesture increases the frequency of responses children receive when they initiate a communication and is clearly not redundant.

Turning to the second prediction, results indicate that this also does not hold. Caregiver response to the children's gesture-speech combinations differed from responses to speech alone. When children used a word on its own the most frequent caregiver response was to focus attention on the child and repeat the word, sometimes augmenting the utterance. For example, one child is playing with some toys and she looks at the caregiver and says "ball" to which the caregiver responds "yeah, a ball" while focusing her attention on the child. Such communications were treated as though the child was identifying an object. However, when a word and gesture were combined these communications were treated as a request for an action such as "look", "give", "take". In these instances the caregiver responded by carrying out an action. For example, when the children pointed at an object while labeling it, in 84% of instances the caregiver responded by directing her attention to the object and looking in the direction of the point. When children reached for an object using a gimme gesture, in 74 % of instances the caregiver responded by giving the child the object or explaining why she could not have it. When children used an attend gesture plus a word in 92% of instances the caregiver looked at the object being proffered and in 53% of these cases she then took the object from the child.

Conclusion

Children's gestures are not redundant when combined with speech. Caregivers respond more frequently to words combined with gesture that words use on their own. Further, when a child says "nana" caregivers treat the communication as though the child is saying "that's a banana". When a child points at a banana and says "nana" caregivers treat the communication as though the child is asking them to "look at the banana". In children's gesture plus speech communications the gesture does not convey the same information as encoded in the speech. In this paper I will show that the gesture has a clear communicative function and is not redundant.

References

Blake, J. (2000) Routes to child language. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge UK

Goldin-Meadow, S. & Butcher, C. (in press) Pointing toward two-word speech in young

children. In S. Kita (ed.), Pointing: Where language, culture, and cognition meet.

Lawrence Erlbaum, New Jersey.

Greenfield, P. and Smith, J. (1976). The structure of communication in early

development. Academic Press, New York.