Datensatz

Zusammenfassung

This talk presents a series of studies showing that speakers' gestures are influenced by linguistic properties even when they talk and gesture about practical manual actions like putting cups on tables. I present data indicating that such gestures are not necessarily enactments of the corresponding practical manual actions but show (a) robust crosslinguistic differences that parallel differences in the linguistic systems for talking about space, and (b) parallel differences across modalities both in child language and adult second language development. Together the studies support the notion that speech and gesture form an integrated system, partly decoupled from practical actions.