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Abstract:
This study investigated how adults and children use speech and gesture to clarify whether a
referent is active at a given moment in discourse. As Chafe (1987) argued, a referent that is
newly introduced in a story becomes an active referent. Although the referent goes to semi
-
active referent as the story moves on to other topics, if the referent is mentioned again, it
becomes active again. It is difficult to obtain direct evidence that a certain referent is semi
-
active when analyzing only spoken express
ion. We propose that a semi
-active referent is
visible in two
-handed gestures in which one hand depicts/indicates an active referent,
referred to in the concurrent speech, and the other hand that is held in the air indicates a
semi active referent.
Partici
pants were 10 native speakers of English; five 3
-year
-olds (M = 3:8) and five adults (M
= 27.6) (This is a renalaysis of existing data, reported in Özyürek et al., 2008). A set of 10
video clips depicting motion even was used to elicit speech and gesture. Gestures were coded
one of the three categories; both hands gesture, single hand gesture, or single hand gesture
with a semi
-active
-referent hold (one hand is depicting or indicating the active referent while
the other hand is holding in the air to indicat
e a semi
-active referent). The proportion of the
single gesture with a semi
-active
-referent hold was significantly higher in adults (A=20%)
than in children (C=2%), t(8) = 2.38, p <.05. However, no significant different were found in
the proportions of the
both hand gesture (A=23%, C=33%) and the single hand gesture (A =
57%, C = 65%). Thus, 3
-year
-olds use semi
-active referents much less frequently than adults.
The results will be discussed in relation to more indirect evidence for the development of
semi
-active referents in speech.
