Gesture in Early Child Language

Abstract

When communication is blocked from the oral modality, the manual modality frequently assumes the functional burdens of speech (Kendon, 1980c). Elaborate signed systems resembling spoken language in many crucial aspects have been observed to arise in a number of situations where speech has been made impossible, whether by sensory incapacity (Klima & Bellugi, 1979; Newport, 1982; Supalla, 1982; Wilbur, 1979), by environmental circumstances (as in sawmill factories, Meissner & Philpott, 1975), or by speech taboos (as in Australian aborigines, Kendon, 1980b; or Trappist monks, Wundt, 1900/1973). It thus appears that communication in humans is a resilient phenomenon — when prevented from coming out the mouth, it emanates almost irrepressibly from the fingers.