Frequencies and Functions of Vocalization and Gesture in the Second Year

The present study follows up on our prior work challenging the gestural theory of language development with longitudinal data showing that early speech-like vocalizations occurred more than 5 times as often as gestures in the first year of life. Based on these findings, we hypothesized (in contrast to the gestural-origins view) that vocalizations will occur at a higher rate than gestures overall in the second year. Our longitudinal data on the second year (13, 16 and 20 mo.) shows again that vocalizations predominated, and especially in conventional (learned) communication, where 11 times more spoken words were observed than gestures that could be viewed as signs, which are equivalent to words. Our framework of observation highlights the fact that more than ¾ of gestures across these second-year data were deictics (e.g., pointing and reaching), acts that while significant in supporting the establishment of referential vocabulary in both spoken and signed languages, are not signs, but have single universal deictic functions in the here and now. In contrast, words and signs are functionally flexible, making possible reference to abstractions that are not bound to any particular illocutionary force nor to the here and now.