Madeleine

Charlotte

Illana

In this study, we explore the issue of (dis)continuity between gestures and signs and gestures and words by comparing longitudinal follow-ups of a hearing monolingual French speaking child, a deaf signing child (LSF) and a hearing bilingual (French-LSF) child. Our study indicates that the development of the same manual form (the index finger point) is influenced by the input children receive and the communicative means in the modalities they have at their disposal to interact with adults and refer to entities. Interestingly, the bilingual (French, LSF) child presents an intermediary profile as far as her quantitative use of points is concerned. Our analyses do not enable us to differentiate pointing “gestures” from pointing used as a linguistic sign since we could observe no systematic formal distinction. But our study suggests that pointing facilitates the three children’s entry into syntax: pointing gestures or/and signs are more and more combined to words and/or signs, facial expressions, gaze, in complex linguistic productions and with more and more deictic and anaphoric values.

Morgenstern, Aliyah ; Caët Stéphanie ; Collombel, Marie ; Limousin, Fanny & Blondel, Marion. From gesture to sign and from gesture to word: pointing in deaf and hearing children.

Thèse de Stéphanie Caët

Thèse de Fanny Limousin

Morgenstern, Aliyah ; Limousin, Fanny ; Caet, Stéphanie, Collombel, Marie ; Mathiot, Emmanuelle. Pointing gestures and personal reference in the acquisition of LSF and French. Présentation au colloque Talking about you and me, mars 2010, Nijmegen.