Pre-Schoolers Use Head Gestures Rather than Prosodic Cues to Highlight Important Information in Speech

Autor/inn/en	Esteve-Gibert, Núria; Loevenbruck, Hélène; Dohen, Marion; D'Imperio, Mariapaola
Titel	Pre-Schoolers Use Head Gestures Rather than Prosodic Cues to Highlight Important Information in Speech
Quelle	In: Developmental Science, 25 (2022) 1, (12 Seiten) PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	1467-7687
DOI	10.1111/desc.13154
Schlagwörter	Preschool Children; Nonverbal Communication; Intonation; Suprasegmentals; Comparative Analysis; Cues; French; Native Language; Audiovisual Aids; Task Analysis; Acoustics; Speech Communication; Syllables; Language Acquisition; Interpersonal Communication + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Pre-school age; Preschool age; Child; Children; Pre-school education; Preschool education; Vorschulalter; Kind; Kinder; Vorschulkind; Vorschulkinder; Vorschulerziehung; Vorschule; Non-verbal communication; Nonverbale Kommunikation; Stichwort; Französisch; Audiovisuelles Medium; Aufgabenanalyse; Akustik; Silbe; Sprachaneignung; Spracherwerb; Interpersonale Kommunikation
Abstract	Previous evidence suggests that children's mastery of prosodic modulations to signal the informational status of discourse referents emerges quite late in development. In the present study, we investigate the children's use of head gestures as it compares to prosodic cues to signal a referent as being contrastive relative to a set of possible alternatives. A group of French-speaking pre-schoolers were audio-visually recorded while playing in a semi-spontaneous but controlled production task, to elicit target words in the context of broad focus, contrastive focus, or corrective focus utterances. We analysed the acoustic features of the target words (syllable duration and word-level pitch range), as well as the head gesture features accompanying these target words (head gesture type, alignment patterns with speech). We found that children's production of head gestures, but not their use of either syllable duration or word-level pitch range, was affected by focus condition. Children mostly aligned head gestures with relevant speech units, especially when the target word was in phrase-final position. Moreover, the presence of a head gesture was linked to greater syllable duration patterns in all focus conditions. Our results show that (a) 4- and 5-year-old French-speaking children use head gestures rather than prosodic cues to mark the informational status of discourse referents, (b) the use of head gestures may gradually entrain the production of adult-like prosodic features, and that (c) head gestures with no referential relation with speech may serve a linguistic structuring function in communication, at least during language development. (As Provided).
Anmerkungen	Wiley. Available from: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030. Tel: 800-835-6770; e-mail: cs-journals@wiley.com; Web site: https://www.wiley.com/en-us
Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2024/1/01