Data: dilluns 10 de maig del 2021

Hora: 12 hores

Accés: enllaç Zoom ⇒ https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85247230097

Resum:

Beat gestures as a way to highlight parts of the utterance are increasingly becoming of interest.The rhythmic bi-phasic movements of the hands play a crucial role within communication.When it comes to children’s speech beats are supposed to appear after the 5th year of age since they first have to learn to distinguish between the various levels of discourse (McNeill, 1992) and thus mark the element that will progress the discourse (Féry & Krifka, 2008; Krifka, 2007). Based on data of German speaking 4-year-old children collected within the EcoGest1 project, we believe that children may not employ beats in the sense adults do, but they still highlight focused constituents through their bodies. We looked at utterances containing focus particles and “unmarked” utterances and took into account the movements produced by the whole spectrum of the body. Our first results suggest that children may not employ beat movements the way adults do, but they still produce rhythmic movements while focusing in their utterances, taking up a highlighting function.

References:

Féry, C., & Krifka, M. (2008). Information structure: Notional distinctions, ways of expression. In P. van Sterkenburg (Ed.), Unity and Diversity of Languages (pp. 123–135). John Benjamins Publishing Company. https://doi.org/10.1075/z.141.13kri.

Krifka, M. (2007). Basic notions of information structure. In C. Fery, F. Gisbert, & M. Krifka
(Eds.), Interdisciplinary Studies on Information Structure (Vol. 06, pp. 13–56).