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Article published In: The gesture–sign interface in language acquisition / L’interface geste–signe dans l’acquisition du langage
Edited by Aliyah Morgenstern and Michèle Guidetti
[Language, Interaction and Acquisition 8:1] 2017
► pp. 89–116

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Developing communicative postures

The emergence of shrugging in child communication

 | Sorbonne Nouvelle University
 | Paris Nanterre University
Published online: 16 October 2017
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/lia.8.1.05bea
Abstract
This article analyses the development of a composite communicative posture, the shrug (which can combine palm-up flips, lifted shoulders and a head tilt), in a video corpus of spontaneous interactions between a typically developing British girl, Ellie, and her mother, filmed at home one hour each month from Ellie’s tenth month to her fourth birthday. The systematic coding of every shrug yields a total of 124 tokens (Ellie: 98; her mother: 26), providing results in terms of forms, functions and input. Ellie’s first shrug components emerge from non-linguistic actions and she acquires them one at a time starting with the hands: these features recall the development of complex signs among deaf children of the same age (Reilly, J., & Anderson, D. (2002). The acquisition of non-manual morphology in ASL. In G. Morgan & B. Woll (Eds.), Directions in sign language acquisition (pp. 159–182). Amsterdam: Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar for ASL). The functions of Ellie’s shrugs gradually diversify from the expression of absence at 1;04 to other epistemic and non-epistemic meanings (affective and dynamic). Adult intervention plays a crucial role as adults recurrently equate Ellie’s physical movements with speech, thereby contributing to the emergence of their communicative functions as gestural emblems (Ekman, P., & Friesen, W. V. (1969). The Repertoire of nonverbal behavior: Categories, origins, usage, and coding. Semiotica 1(1), 49–98. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar).
Résumé
Dans cet article, nous analysons le développement de la posture composite du shrug (qui peut combiner une supination des paumes ouvertes, un haussement des épaules et un mouvement latéral de la tête), dans un corpus d’interactions spontanées entre une fillette au développement typique, Ellie, et sa maman, filmées à la maison une heure par mois entre les dix mois et les quatre ans d’Ellie. Les 124 occurrences de shrug obtenues après un codage systématique du corpus fournissent des résultats en termes de formes, de fonctions et d’input. Les premiers composants du shrug utilisés par Ellie émergent de ses actions ; elle acquiert ces composants un par un, et en commençant par les mouvements des mains : ces trois aspects rappellent les étapes de l’acquisition de signes composites par des enfants sourds du même âge qu’elle (Reilly, J., & Anderson, D. (2002). The acquisition of non-manual morphology in ASL. In G. Morgan & B. Woll (Eds.), Directions in sign language acquisition (pp. 159–182). Amsterdam: Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar pour l’ASL). Exprimant d’abord l’absence à partir de 1;04, les shrugs d’Ellie développent d’autres fonctions tant épistémiques que non épistémiques (affectives et dynamiques). Le rôle des adultes est prégnant, car en attribuant un équivalent verbal aux mouvements d’Ellie, ils contribuent à l’émergence des fonctions communicatives du shrug comme emblème gestuel (Ekman, P., & Friesen, W. V. (1969). The Repertoire of nonverbal behavior: Categories, origins, usage, and coding. Semiotica 1(1), 49–98. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar).
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1The shrug: a composite posture
    • 1.2Background: the adult study
  • 2.The child study: corpus and method
  • 3.Quantitative results
    • 3.1Use of forms
    • 3.2Functions of shrugs
    • 3.3Form-function patterns? Exploratory statistics
  • 4.Qualitative analysis: multimodal wholes
    • 4.1Palm-up + “done” or “gone”
    • 4.2Palm-up + “where…?”
    • 4.3Lateral head tilt + “I don’t know” or “I can’t remember”
    • 4.4After 3;03: more complex multimodal utterances
  • 5.The role of the input
    • 5.1The input as model
    • 5.2Adult speech about the child’s gestures
  • 6.Discussion
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
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