Böcker av Susan Goldin-Meadow

Through constant exposure to adult input in interaction, children¿s language gradually develops into rich linguistic constructions containing multiple cross-modal elements subtly used together for communicative functions. Sensorimotor schemas provide the "grounding" of language in experience and lead to children¿s access to the symbolic function. With the emergence of vocal or signed productions, gestures do not disappear but remain functional and diversify in form and function as children become skilled adult multimodal conversationalists. This volume examines the role of gesture over the human lifespan in its complex interaction with speech and sign. Gesture is explored in the different stages before, during, and after language has fully developed and a special focus is placed on the role of gesture in language learning and cognitive development. Specific chapters are devoted to the use of gesture in atypical populations. CONTENTS Contributors Aliyah Morgenstern and Susan Goldin-Meadow1 Introduction to Gesture in Language Part I: An Emblematic Gesture: Pointing Kensy Cooperrider and Kate Mesh2 Pointing in Gesture and Sign Aliyah Morgenstern3 Early Pointing Gestures Part II: Gesture Before Speech Meredith L. Rowe, Ran Wei, and Virginia C. Salo4 Early Gesture Predicts Later Language Development Olga Capirci, Maria Cristina Caselli, and Virginia Volterra5 Interaction Among Modalities and Within Development Part III: Gesture With Speech During Language Learning Eve V. Clark and Barbara F. Kelly6 Constructing a System of Communication With Gestures and Words Pauline Beaupoil-Hourdel7 Embodying Language Complexity: Co-Speech Gestures Between Age 3 and 4 Casey Hall, Elizabeth Wakefield, and Susan Goldin-Meadow8 Gesture Can Facilitate Children¿s Learning and Generalization of Verbs Part IV: Gesture After Speech Is Mastered Jean-Marc Colletta9 On the Codevelopment of Gesture and Monologic Discourse in Children Susan Wagner Cook10 Understanding How Gestures Are Produced and Perceived Tilbe Göksun, Demet Özer, and Seda AkbIy¿k11 Gesture in the Aging Brain Part V: Gesture With More Than One Language Elena Nicoladis and Lisa Smithson12 Gesture in Bilingual Language Acquisition Marianne Gullberg13 Bimodal Convergence: How Languages Interact in Multicompetent Language Users¿ Speech and Gestures Gale Stam and Marion Tellier14 Gesture Helps Second and Foreign Language Learning and Teaching Aliyah Morgenstern and Susan Goldin-MeadowAfterword: Gesture as Part of Language or Partner to Language Across the Lifespan IndexAbout the Editors

"Imagine a friend who earnestly tells you that he thinks men and women are equally good leaders. But when he talks about men's leadership skills, he places his palm at eye-level, and when he talks about women's leadership skills, he places his palm a bit lower, at mouth-level. His hands have given him away: even if he truly thinks that his views are egalitarian, he holds an implicit belief that is now there for all the word to see. You swear you heard him say something disparaging, even if you don't fully realize why. In Thinking With Your Hands, cognitive psychologist Susan Goldin-Meadow reveals just how essential gestures are to how we think and communicate. Drawing on decades of research, including experiments and studies from throughout her own illustrious career, Goldin-Meadow presents the definitive overview of the most important feature of human communication that you've never thought about. Gesture is a universal behavior common to every culture and language. It's found among Deaf people who use their hands to speak in sign language and blind people who have never seen anyone gesture before. Far from being an affective flourish, Goldin-Meadow argues, gestures are an integral piece of the conversation-even if we don't realize it while we're using them. They give form to ideas that are difficult to phrase in language and help us express ideas that we are grappling with but haven't yet fully grasped. Indeed, understanding gesture compels us to re-think everything from to how we set development milestones for children, to what's admissible in a court of law, to whether FaceTime is a good communication technology. A landmark achievement by a star in the field of cognitive psychology, Thinking With Your Hands reveals the entire landscape of communication that's hidden in our hands and promises to transform the way we think about language for decades to come"--

Imagine a child who has never seen or heard any language at all. Would such a child be able to invent a language on her own? Despite what one might guess, the children described in this book make it clear that the answer to this question is 'yes'.