Closing the Gap: How Gesture Helps Communication in Bilingual Children and Beyond

When we think about languages, the first things that spring to mind are words and sentences. However, language is more than just words. Language is a complex system of communication that uses gestures to explain meaning in addition to words. Gestures represent spontaneous hand movements that we use naturally in order to convey ideas or give words additional meaning. They are essential for supporting, enhancing or even replacing spoken language in early days of our lives. But how do gestures differ in bilinguals from the rest of the human communication? This topic is clarified by two recent studies that show how gestures are a necessary component of referential communication between species and help younger children with language understanding.

The research conducted by Zielinski and Wakefield’s (2021) “Language Proficiency Impacts the Benefits of Co-Speech Gesture for Narrative Understanding Through a Visual Attention Mechanism,” examined how bilingual children’s comprehension and recall of narratives with gestures were impacted by their proficiency in both their stronger and weaker languages. By looking at Polish-English bilingual children, it was found that children were more likely to use gestures in order to comprehend stories in their weaker language, which suggests that gestures can act as a compensating strategy when the spoken message is too difficult to understand. Additionally, by using eye-tracking method, the researchers discovered that the visual attention to gestures increased as the language proficiency decreased, indicating that when the speech is insufficient, children actively employ gestures to convey meaning.

On the other hand, the research done by Luchkina and Waxman (2023) called “Talking about the Absent and the Abstract: Referential Communication in Language and Gesture” expanded this discussion by looking at how gestures serve as referential tools in human and even non-human communication, not only for bilingual kids. Their research centered on the idea of “absent reference”, or the capacity to discuss thing that are not physically existent. As we know, this ability is something that is essential to human language because it allows us to talk about events that happened in the past, abstract thoughts, or even imaginary ideas. The study compared the use of gestures in non-human primates with data from newborns, who early on learn to identify words with absent items. According to the study, non-human primates can communicate about current demands and observable items through gestures, but they are unable to transmit more abstract ideas through gestures as humans can. The importance of gestures in early cognitive and language development is further supported by the fact that human infants show an increasing capacity to utilize gestures for absent reference even before they fully acquire verbal skills.

When taken as a whole, these studies provide an intriguing picture of how gestures facilitate cognition and communication. Gestures are not only complementary to speech, but also essential for overcoming linguistic and cognitive barriers. So, the next time you catch yourself making gestures while speaking, think about how embedded gestures are in human communication. They continue to be a vital component of our understanding and navigation of the environment, whether they are used to help bilingual children understand language, to enable primates to communicate without words, or to help humans refer to abstract concepts. We are getting closer to comprehending not just how we communicate but why we do in such a manner as research continues to reveal the numerous aspects of language and gesture.

References

Luchkina, E., & Waxman, S. (2024). Talking about the absent and the abstract: Referential communication in language and gesture. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 19(6), 978–992. https://doi.org/10.1177/17456916231180589

Elizabeth Wakefield, Natalia Zielinski (2021). Language Proficiency Impacts the Benefits of Co-Speech Gesture for Narrative Understanding Through a Visual Attention Mechanism, CogSci 2021, Underline Science Inc. DOI: 10.48448/jez7-8a184.