A cross-linguistic study of the development of gesture and speech in Zulu and French oral narratives*. Issue 1 (4th February 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: KUNENE NICOLAS, RAMONA; GUIDETTI, MICHÈLE; COLLETTA, JEAN-MARC
• Is Part Of: Journal of child language. Volume 44:Issue 1(2017)
• Page Start: 36
• Page End: 62
• Publication Date: 2016-02-04
• Subjects: Children -- Language -- Periodicals; 401.9305
• DOI: 10.1017/S0305000915000628
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0305-0009

Abstract

Abstract: The present study reports on a developmental and cross-linguistic study of oral narratives produced by speakers of Zulu (a Bantu language) and French (a Romance language). Specifically, we focus on oral narrative performance as a bimodal (i.e., linguistic and gestural) behaviour during the late language acquisition phase. We analyzed seventy-two oral narratives produced by L1 Zulu and French adults and primary school children aged between five and ten years old. The data were all collected using a narrative retelling task. The results revealed a strong effect of age on discourse performance, confirming that narrative abilities improve with age, irrespective of language. However, the results also showed cross-linguistic differences. Zulu oral narratives were longer, more detailed, and accompanied by more co-speech gestures than the French narratives. The parallel effect of age and language on gestural behaviour is discussed and highlights the importance of studying oral narratives from a multimodal perspective within a cross-linguistic framework.