Ways of Crossing a Spatial Boundary in Typologically Distinct Languages

Expression of spatial motion shows wide variation as well as patterned regularities across the world\u27s languages (Talmy, 2000), and events involving the traversal of a spatial boundary impose the tightest typological constraints in the lexicalization of motion, providing a true test of cross-linguistic differences. Speakers of verb-framed languages are required by their language not to use manner verbs in marking the change of location across boundaries (Aske, 1989). Here we test the strength of the boundary-crossing constraint and ask how speakers convey motion events when the constraints imposed by the experimental task are at odds with the constraints imposed by their native language. We address this question by comparing adult speakers’ description of motion scenes that involve the traversal of a spatial boundary in two typologically distinct languages: English and Turkish. Using an experimental paradigm that imposes competing demands with the semantic structure of Turkish, we compare Turkish speakers’ description of boundary-crossing scenes to that of English speakers. We find strong cross-linguistic differences in speakers’ verb choice (manner vs. path) and event segmentation (one vs. many), suggesting that boundary-crossing constraint can serve as a reliable test to detect the typological class of a language

Developmental Changes in Children\u27s Comprehension and Explanation of Spatial Metaphors for Time

Time is frequently expressed with spatial motion, using one of three different metaphor types: moving-time, moving-ego, and sequence-as-position. Previous work shows that children can understand and explain moving-time metaphors by age five (Özçalışkan, 2005). In this study, we focus on all three metaphor types for time, and ask whether metaphor type has an effect on children\u27s metaphor comprehension and explanation abilities. Analysis of the responses of three- to six-year-old children and adults showed that comprehension and explanation of all three metaphor types emerge at an early age. Moreover, children\u27s metaphor comprehension and explanation vary by metaphor type: children perform better in understanding and explaining metaphors that structure time in relation to the observer of time (moving-ego, moving-time) than metaphors that structure time without any relation to the observer of time (sequence-as-position-on-a-path). Our findings suggest that children\u27s bodily experiences might play a role in their developing understanding of the abstract concept of time

How Gesture Input Provides a Helping Hand to Language Development

Children use gesture to refer to objects before they produce labels for these objects and gesture–speech combinations to convey semantic relations between objects before conveying sentences in speech—a trajectory that remains largely intact across children with different developmental profiles. Can the developmental changes that we observe in children be traced back to the gestural input that children receive from their parents? A review of previous work shows that parents provide models for their children for the types of gestures and gesture–speech combinations to produce, and do so by modifying their gestures to meet the communicative needs of their children. More importantly, the gestures that parents produce, in addition to providing models, help children learn labels for referents and semantic relations between these referents and even predict the extent of children\u27s vocabularies several years later. The existing research thus highlights the important role parental gestures play in shaping children\u27s language learning trajectory

Sex Differences in Language First Appear in Gesture

Children differ in how quickly they reach linguistic milestones. Boys typically produce their first multi-word sentences later than girls do. We ask here whether there are sex differences in children’s gestures that precede, and presage, these sex differences in speech. To explore this question, we observed 22 girls and 18 boys every 4 months as they progressed from one-word speech to multi-word speech. We found that boys not only produced speech + speech (S+S) combinations (‘drink juice’) 3 months later than girls, but they also produced gesture + speech (G+S) combinations expressing the same types of semantic relations (‘eat’ + point at cookie) 3 months later than girls. Because G+S combinations are produced earlier than S+S combinations, children’s gestures provide the first sign that boys are likely to lag behind girls in the onset of sentence constructions

Teasing Apart the Role of Cognitive and Linguistic Factors in Children’s Metaphorical Abilities

Metaphor plays a unique role in cognitive development by structuring abstract concepts and leading to conceptual change. Existing work suggests early emergence of metaphorical abilities, with five-year-olds understanding and explaining metaphors that involve cross-domain comparisons (e.g., SPACE to TIME). Yet relatively little is known about the factors that explain this developmental change. This study focuses on spatial metaphors for time, and asks whether cognitive and/or verbal factors best explain developmental changes in three- to six-year-old children\u27s comprehension and explanation of metaphors. The results show that children\u27s grasp of the time concept—but not verbal ability—predicts their metaphor comprehension. Verbal ability, on the other hand, is a predictor of metaphor explanation, even after controlling for age. The results thus suggest that cognitive and verbal factors selectively predict children\u27s emerging metaphorical abilities

Kadın ve Erkeklerde Küfür Kullanımı Üzerine

Bu çalışmanın amacı, Türk kültürü içerisinde kadın ve erkeklerin küfürlü konuşma biçimlerini ayırdetmek ve küfür kullanımı açısından bir cinsin diğer cins için beklentilerini açığa çıkarmaktır. Bu araştırmanın çıkış noktasını Staley'in (1978) yaptığı çalışma oluşturmaktadır. Çalışmanın teorik çerçevesini ise Lakoffun (1973), kadının kullandığı dille toplumsal konumu arasındaki ilişkiyi ortaya koyan çalışması oluşturmaktadır

How Early do Children Understand Gesture-speech Combinations with Iconic Gestures?

Children understand gesture+speech combinations in which a deictic gesture adds new information to the accompanying speech by age 1;6 (Morford & Goldin-Meadow, 1992; ‘push’+point at ball). This study explores how early children understand gesture+speech combinations in which an iconic gesture conveys additional information not found in the accompanying speech (e.g., ‘read’+BOOK gesture). Our analysis of two- to four-year-old children\u27s responses in a gesture+speech comprehension task showed that children grasp the meaning of iconic co-speech gestures by age three and continue to improve their understanding with age. Overall, our study highlights the important role gesture plays in language comprehension as children learn to unpack increasingly complex communications addressed to them at the early ages

Do Iconic Gestures Pave the Way for Children’s Early Verbs?

Children produce a deictic gesture for a particular object (point at dog) approximately 3 months before they produce the verbal label for that object (“dog”; Iverson & Goldin-Meadow, 2005). Gesture thus paves the way for children\u27s early nouns. We ask here whether the same pattern of gesture preceding and predicting speech holds for iconic gestures. In other words, do gestures that depict actions precede and predict early verbs? We observed spontaneous speech and gestures produced by 40 children (22 girls, 18 boys) from age 14 to 34 months. Children produced their first iconic gestures 6 months later than they produced their first verbs. Thus, unlike the onset of deictic gestures, the onset of iconic gestures conveying action meanings followed, rather than preceded, children\u27s first verbs. However, iconic gestures increased in frequency at the same time as verbs did and, at that time, began to convey meanings not yet expressed in speech. Our findings suggest that children can use gesture to expand their repertoire of action meanings, but only after they have begun to acquire the verb system underlying their language