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Sensitivity to information status in discourse: Gesture precedes speech in unbalanced bilinguals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 November 2012

WING-CHEE SO ,
JIA-YI LIM  and
SEOK-HUI TAN
WING-CHEE SO*
Affiliation:
Chinese University of Hong Kong
JIA-YI LIM
Affiliation:
National University of Singapore
SEOK-HUI TAN
Affiliation:
National University of Singapore
*
ADDRESS FOR CORRESPONDENCE Wing Chee So, Department of Educational Psychology, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong. E-mail: wingchee@cuhk.edu.hk
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Abstract

This paper explores whether English–Mandarin bilingual children have mastered discourse skills and whether they show sensitivity to the discourse principle of information status of referents in their speech and gestures. We compare the speech and gestures produced by bilingual children to those produced by English- and Mandarin-speaking monolingual children. Six English-speaking and six Mandarin-speaking monolingual children, and nine English–Mandarin bilingual children (who were more dominant in English) were videotaped while interacting with their caregivers. Monolingual Mandarin- and English-speaking children produced null arguments and pronouns respectively to indicate given third-person referents, and nouns to indicate new third-person referents. They also gestured new third-person referents more often than given third-person referents. Thus, monolinguals’ speech and gestures followed the discourse principle. English–Mandarin bilingual children's speech and gestures also followed the discourse principle but only when they were speaking in English. They produced nouns more often to indicate given third-person referents than to indicate new third-person referents in Mandarin, indicating the violation of the discourse principle. It is interesting that they gestured new third-person referents more often than given third-person referents in Mandarin. Thus, our findings suggest that gesture precedes language development at discourse level in the less-dominant language in bilinguals.

Type
Articles
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 35 , Issue 1 , January 2014 , pp. 71 - 95
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012 

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