Gesture's Role in Speaking, Learning, and Creating Language

When speakers talk, they gesture. The goal of this review is to investigate the contribution that these gestures make to how we communicate and think. Gesture can play a role in communication and thought at many timespans. We explore, in turn, gesture's contribution to how language is produced...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Annual review of psychology 2013-01, Vol.64 (1), p.257-283
Main Authors: GOLDIN-MEADOW, Susan, ALIBALI, Martha Wagner
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Adults
Biological and medical sciences
Child
Children & youth
Cognition - physiology
Cognitive ability
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Gestures
Humans
Language
Language Development
Learning
Learning - physiology
Nonverbal communication
Production and perception of spoken language
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Sign Language
Speech - physiology
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Summary:When speakers talk, they gesture. The goal of this review is to investigate the contribution that these gestures make to how we communicate and think. Gesture can play a role in communication and thought at many timespans. We explore, in turn, gesture's contribution to how language is produced and understood in the moment; its contribution to how we learn language and other cognitive skills; and its contribution to how language is created over generations, over childhood, and on the spot. We find that the gestures speakers produce when they talk are integral to communication and can be harnessed in a number of ways. (a) Gesture reflects speakers' thoughts, often their unspoken thoughts, and thus can serve as a window onto cognition. Encouraging speakers to gesture can thus provide another route for teachers, clinicians, interviewers, etc., to better understand their communication partners. (b) Gesture can change speakers' thoughts. Encouraging gesture thus has the potential to change how students, patients, witnesses, etc., think about a problem and, as a result, alter the course of learning, therapy, or an interchange. (c) Gesture provides building blocks that can be used to construct a language. By watching how children and adults who do not already have a language put those blocks together, we can observe the process of language creation. Our hands are with us at all times and thus provide researchers and learners with an ever-present tool for understanding how we talk and think.
ISSN:0066-4308
1545-2085
DOI:10.1146/annurev-psych-113011-143802