Multimodal Communication

Question 1

traditional view of language

Answer 1

language is speech and text, and of the mind. gesture is communication, not language

Question 2

multimodal view of language

Answer 2

F2F communication that involves the use of the body to convey meaning

Question 3

what are gestures?

Answer 3

communicative hand movements that represent information about the world

• universal
• accepted as correct information when conflicting with speech
• children begin gesturing before speaking

Question 4

types of gestures:

Answer 4

1. iconic
2. metaphoric
3. beat
4. deictic
5. pantomimes
6. emblems
7. signs

Question 5

iconic gestures

Answer 5

when something directly maps onto the thing it represents; requiring speech to be understood

Question 6

metaphoric gestures

Answer 6

same as iconic, but metaphors are used to describe concepts

Question 7

beat gestures

Answer 7

produced in the tempo of speech, may not have meaning

Question 8

deictic gestures

Answer 8

indicating or pointing directly to something

Question 9

pantomimes

Answer 9

whole-body representational gestures

Question 10

emblems

Answer 10

describe conventional gestures with precise meaning, which may be culturally determined

Question 11

signs

Answer 11

part of a fully conventionalised language system

Question 12

obligatory presence of speech

Answer 12

beat gestures
iconic/metaphoric gestures

Question 13

optional presence of speech

Answer 13

deictic gestures
emblems

Question 14

obligatory absence of speech

Answer 14

pantomimes
signs

Question 15

linguistic properties absent

Answer 15

pantomimes
beat gestures
iconic/metaphoric gestures

Question 16

some linguistic properties present

Answer 16

deictic gestures
emblems

Question 17

linguistic properties present

Answer 17

signs

Question 18

not conventionalised

Answer 18

pantomimes
iconic/metaphoric gestures

Question 19

partly conventionalised

Answer 19

beat gestures
deictic gestures

Question 20

fully conventionalised

Answer 20

emblems
signs

Question 21

global and synthetic semiosis

Answer 21

iconic/metaphoric gestures
beat gestures
deictic gestures

Question 22

global and analytic semiosis

Answer 22

pantomimes

Question 23

segmented and synthetic semiosis

Answer 23

emblems

Question 24

segmented and analytic semiosis

Answer 24

signs

Question 25

who do people gesture for?

Answer 25

themselves and for the benefit of others
- blind children gesture as much as sighted children
- fewer gestures are produced when the listener cannot see them, but they still occur

Question 26

why do people gesture?

Answer 26

• helps them think better
• improves problem solving and mental rotation

Question 27

what happens when people are unable to gesture?

Answer 27

results in lexical access problems, showing it helps people speak better

Question 28

what can single gestures convey?

Answer 28

information about:
- object
- location
- path
- manner of movement

Question 29

gesture and linguistic relativity

Answer 29

• Aymara speakers see the past in front and the future is behind
• Guugu Yimithirr speakers use absolute cardinal direction which results in an incredible sense of geographic orientation

Question 30

what is iconicity?

Answer 30

the meaningful relationship between human experience and linguistic form

Question 31

sign languages use iconicity much ____ than spoken languages

Answer 31

more

as the hands are better than the voice at mapping meaning and form together

Question 32

arbitrariness

Answer 32

no connection between word form and meaning

this has dominated approaches to language studies

Question 33

signers’ RTs can be affected by:

Answer 33

• age-of-acquisition
• imageability
• concreteness
• phonological complexity
• group

Question 34

how can iconicity affect language processing?

Answer 34

provides faster automatic access to meaning, for both production and comprehension, e.g., Bouba-Kiki effect

Question 35

what is there universal sensitivity to?

Answer 35

iconic mappings, which can facilitate processing:

• bouba-kiki has cross-linguistic reliability
• nonsense words with more continuants (m/b/) are recognised faster in a curvy frame vs stops in a spiky frame

Question 36

what is iconicity used alongside?

Answer 36

prosody, as there is speedup on fast verbs and slowdown for slow verbs
- also seen in pitch and object size

Question 37

why is iconicity critical during spoken language acquisition?

Answer 37

children learn to map words onto meaning, and connections are clearer when words have large iconicity interaction

Question 38

language learning is not entirely iconic, as __________ ________ and ___________ are also involved in acquisition of sign language

Answer 38

neighbourhood density
frequency

Question 39

what does iconicity affect?

Answer 39

both language processing and language acquisition in signers

Question 40

resilient properties of language

Answer 40

those that are relatively easy to learn and overdetermined

Question 41

fragile properties of language

Answer 41

more difficult to learn, and development is sensitive to changes in input, learner, and learning environment

Question 42

how many languages are there?

Answer 42

around 7000 spoken languages and a couple hundred signed languages

Question 43

what are home signs?

Answer 43

a gestural communication system created by deaf children in hearing families, as they do not have any sign language input

Question 44

resilient features of home signs:

Answer 44

• gestures form a lexicon
• lexical items are composed of parts to form a morphological system
• lexical items combine to form structured syntactic systems
• lexical markers can modulate sentence meaning
• various pragmatic functions

Question 45

evidence of home signs:

Answer 45

birth of nicaraguan sign language in the 1970s when deaf children created a new pidgin language by exchanging idiosyncratic home signs