PUB - Publikationen an der Universität Bielefeld

Research suggests that children and adults’ speech-gesture production correlates with communicative genres, cognitive developmental stages and individual differences (Alamillo, Colletta & Guidetti, 2013; Capirci et al., 2007; Sekine et al., 2015). While studies with adults propose that iconic gestures may be evolving in an ongoing interaction, with the co-participant co-constructing their meaning (Goodwin, 2003; Streeck, 2009), little is known about how children make use of gestural reference and how iconic gestures correlate with the interactive processes in activities like storytelling. In the EcoGest project, we video-recorded 46 preschool children aged four years whilst producing different communicative genres with an interlocutor (e.g. explanation, narrative, illustration). The results showed evidence for several important relations – e.g. communicative genre and iconic gestures (Rohlfing et al.), gesture viewpoint and spatial competence (Mertens et al., 2019), cognitive abilities and semantic features (Abramov et al., 2021), the influence of input modality on narrative elaboration (Carshaw et al., 2020). The current study’s aim was an in-depth analysis of the global semantic structure of the children’s oral narration and their connection with the use and (pragmatic) function of iconic gestures. This study compares explicit iconic gestures in contrast to less elaborate/diffuse constructed ones, and how this correlates with discourse competence and possible developmental changes (Mertens & Rohlfing, 2021). First results are presented and will be discussed.