Function word gestures
Noun form gestures
Verb form gestures
Speech-sound/gesture deictic words: English Japanese French
Speech-sound/gesture elements: system
Speech-sound/gesture groups:
Vowel Line
Projective
Main Consonantal
Lateral
Circular
Acredolo, Linda and Susan Goodwyn. 2000. [Forthcoming] How to Talk to Your Baby before Your Baby Can Talk. [http://www.babysigns.com]
Garcia, Joseph. 1999. Sign with your Baby. Seattle: Northlight & Stratton Kehl.
ITV Tonight Programme: Signing Babies
NOTES: SUPPORTING MATERIAL
The motor theory is a theory of the origin and functioning of language. The theory is that the structures of language (phonological, lexical and syntactic) were derived from and modelled on the pre-existing complex neural systems which had evolved for the control of body movement. Motor control at the neural level requires pre-set elementary units of action which can be integrated into more extended patterns of bodily action - neural motor programs. Speech is essentially a motor activity (a stream of articulatory gestures). Language made use of the elementary pre-set units of motor action to produce equivalent phonological units (phonemic categories). The neural programs for individual words were constructed from the elementary units in the same way as motor programs for bodily action. The syntactic processes and structures of language were modelled on the motor 'syntax'. No separate theory is needed for the origin and functioning of gesture which is itself a motor activity controlled by the same cerebral motor control systems governing all bodily movement.
Deacon, Terrence W. 1997. The Symbolic Species: The Co-Evolution of Language and the Brain. New York: Norton
p. 237 "Humans have a degree of voluntary motor control over the sound produced in the larynx that surpasses any other vocal species. Indeed, this degree of voluntary control is otherwise found only in motor systems controlled by cerebral cortical and cerebellar motor pathways projecting ultimately to skeletal muscles.... One way or another, the human larynx must be controlled from higher brain systems involved in skeletal muscle control"
"linguistic structure may emerge from, and may even be viewed as, a special case of motoric structure, the structure of action." (Studdert-Kennedy 1983: 5)
" the motoric and perceptual mechanisms were in place long before language entered the stage. ... how the newcomers, speech and language, could acquire some of their properties by adapting to the phylogenetically older structures rather than the other way round." (Lindblom 1991: 22)
"The organizational characteristics of speech as a motor control system are fundamentally similar to other sequential motor actions and are felt to involve a limited number of general sensorimotor control processes" (Gracco 1990: 21)
"the networks for speech in the brain and in the model could be organised in the same way as those organising body movements and behaviour. ... developments of the motor and memory systems could lead to the development of language." (Kien 1992: 252)
MOTOR PROGRAMS
Berthoz, Alain. 1997. Le Sens du Mouvement. Paris: Editions Odile Jacob
p. 24 "Un des concepts proposés depuis longtemps pour relier perception,
action et mémoire est celui du schème moteur. Selon Schmidt, des structures
de mouvement . . . sont stockées par le cerveau.
p. 152 "ces méthodes ont permis de constater que tous les mouvements
naturels sont organisés en segments discrets.
p. 160 "Cette theorie [Viviani and Flash] suppose donc à la fois que le
systéme de contrôle moteur dispose d'un plan spatial avant même le début du
mouvement, ce qui rejoint l'hypothèse de la théorie du programme moteur
p. 176 "Le mouvement est donc organisé à partir d'un répertoire de
synergies qui compose autant d'actes possibles. ... une bibliothèque de
mouvements facilement déclenchables
p. 178 "pour simuler intérieurement le mouvement, il suffira d'utiliser les
groupements de neurones ainsi constitués puisqu'ils sont le miroir neural de
l'action. <
p. 294 Rizzolatti et ses collègues . . . D'autres équipes comme celle de
Sakata (1995) au Japon ont aussi trouvé des neurones dans le cortex pariétal
qui codent des comportements moteurs élémentaires. (Berthoz)
"A Vocabulary of Motor Acts. ... We propose that in inferior
area 6 there is a vocabulary of elementary motor acts coded at
the single neuron level. This vocabulary is essentially related
to arm-mouth movements." (Rizzolatti and Gentilucci 1988: 281)
"Movement plans may be complex in the sense of being composed
of separable component tasks. These components may be coordinated
at some level by the voluntary motor system, in order to combine
tasks into appropriate actions ." (Haggard 1991: 153)
"Both the effects of simplifying the dynamics computation and
the limitations of feedback control in biological arms ...
strongly suggest that there must exist substantially correct
preprograms in order for humans to make accurate fast arm
movements."(Hollerbach 1985: 140)
Bernstein concluded that the
action units could not be specific contractions and extensions
of individual muscles. In motor programs "we cannot discover any
other determining factor than the image or representation of the
result of the action" (Bernstein 1967: 49).
MOTOR PROGRAM EQUIVALENCE
p. 246 "On désigne par 'équivalence motrice' une propriété simple et
remarquable du cerveau: celle qui permet de faire le même mouvement avec des
effecteurs très différents. Par exemple, je peux écrire le lettre A avec le
main, ou le pied, ou même la bouche; je peux même dessiner un A en me
promenant sur le plage! (Berthoz)
"For many years we have known in a general way that speech and
limb movements are related" (Munhall 1994: 174 reviewing Hammond:
Cerebral control of speech and limb movements 1990) .
"A fundamental premise in the present model [of speech motor
control] is that there are characteristic patterns stored in the
nervous system" (Gracco 1992: 38)
deeply embedded within
the speech process can be manual actions and the schemas of
representation which they support" (McNeill 1981: 205).
"comparing findings on the motor organisation of speech with
the organization of voluntary movements about the elbow ...We
have found that the kinematic patterns for movements of the
tongue dorsum were similar to those of voluntary
flexion-extension movements about the elbow" (Ostry and Cooke
1987: 223).
"the task dynamic model we are using for speech was exactly
the model used for controlling arm movements, with the
articulators of the vocal tract simply substituted for those of
the arm." (Browman and Goldstein 1991: 314)
"such gestures not only can characterize the movements of the
speech articulators but also can act as phonological primitives"
(Browman and Goldstein 1991: 313)
GESTURE AND SPEECH AS LINKED PROCESSES
It seems that the speech-accompanying movement is
produced along with the speech as if the speech production
process is manifested in two forms of activity simultaneously -
in the vocal organs and also in bodily movement, particularly in
movements of the hands and arms." (Kendon 1972: 205)
Haskins Speech Laboratories: "GESTURES Articulatory phonology takes
seriously the
view that the units of speech production are actions, and therefore that (1)
they are dynamic, not static.
This approach merges a phonological model based on gestural structures
(Browman & Goldstein, 1986, 1989, 1990, 1992) with an approach called task
dynamics (see below) that characterizes speech gestures as coordinated
patterns of goal-directed articulator movements. At the heart of both of these
approaches is the notion of a gesture, which is considered in this context to
be the formation of a constriction in the vocal tract by the organized
activity of an articulator or set of articulators. (Tatham 1996)
Löfqvist, A. (1990). Speech as audible gestures. In W. J. Hardcastle & A.
Marchal (Eds.), Speech Production and Speech Modelling. Kluwer Academic Press,
Dordrecht, Netherlands, 289-322.
GESTURE CATEGORIES
"While people talk, they also use their hands. 'illustrative gestures'
are
used to indicate shapes, sizes, directions and to point, for example to
describe a spiral staircase. .. Where illustrative gestures are similar in
form to their reference, emblems [gestures with arbitrary meanings] usually
are not" (Argyle 1987: 63)
A gesture may be an indication. This is perhaps not so much
resemblance as a variant of the action-gesture. The most
rudimentary gesture is to point to the object referred to or more
particularly to the feature of the body referred to. So the
gesture for me is simply the hand pointing to the chest (or
touching it in emphatic speech). A gesture for the ear is to
point to or touch the ear - and so on.
"We respond to
gestures with an extreme alertness and, one might almost say, in
accordance with an elaborate and secret code that is written
nowhere, known by none and understood by all." (Sapir quoted by
Plutchik 1980: 269)
"Iconic gestures appear to be
images of concepts and imply the existence of schemas which
produce them" (McNeill 1981: 203)
A SINGLE SYSTEM
The essential idea in the detailed development of the
hypothesis of phonological/semantic equivalence is that the gross
muscular expression of the word/articulatory pattern can be
observed and analysed in the form of gesture and that complex
gestures can be broken down into gestural elements associated
with particular sound-elements
"we should regard the gesture and the spoken utterance as
different sides of a single underlying mental process..... I
credit the discovery that there is a unity of speech and gesture
to Adam Kendon ... gesture and language are one system" (McNeill
1992: 1-2)
"speech and gesture arise as interacting elements of a single
system" (McNeill 1987: 503
"The central thesis is that the visual system and the motor
system are functionally inseparable ... they are components of
a
unified perceptuo-motor system, which is itself a component of
the organism-environment system." (Lee 1980: 281)
Visually directed action implies continuous
transformation of incoming visual stimuli into motor commands."
(Jeannerod 1986: 41)
"It would seem that our perception of objects, and
particularly of their spatial relations, is determined in part
by
the laws governing the movements of the eye" (Davson 1972)
ARTICULATORY PHONOLOGY
"In articulatory phonology, the
basic units of phonological contrast are gestures ... Utterances
are modeled as organized patterns ... of gestures, in which
gestural units may overlap in time. The phonological structures
defined in this way provide a set of articulatorily based natural
classes" (Browman and Goldstein 1992: 155)
"we show that such
gestures not only can characterize the movements of the speech
articulators but also can act as phonological primitives"
(Browman and Goldstein 1990: 313)
GESTURE >> WORD : WORD >> GESTURE
The same technique (essentially the ideomotor process described by
William
James) can be applied to transfer the articulatory 'gestures', the motor
programs that produce the range of speech sounds.
Catford has usefully
described "the technique of silent practice of sounds". Auditory sensations,
he says, mask the proprioceptive sensations, that is, the kinesthetic
awareness of the articulatory process. "To get at the latter, you have to
eliminate the auditory sensations." (Catford 1991: 176)
To transfer the articulatory 'gesture' for a speech sound to produce a
change
in the position or movement of the hand and arm, the first step is to use the
Catford technique to separate the sound from the motor aspect of the
articulation. Without uttering the sound, "image" the production of the speech
sound. Then in the same way as signing one's name can be transferred to the
foot, so with a shift of attention we transfer the motor program for the
speech sound to the hand and arm. We should then observe a movement or
position of the hand and arm which is structurally related to the articulatory
'gesture'.
MIRROR NEURONS
p.17 [from Janet] "Quand nous percevons . . . un fauteuil . . . nous
avons
déjà en nous l'acte caractéristique du fauteuil, ce que nous avons appelé un
schème perceptif, ici l'acte de nous asseoir d'une manière particulière dans
ce fauteuil". (Berthoz)
p. 26/27 "LE NEURONE MIROIR Une vérification de l'idée que le cerveau
contient dans son organisation neuronale des schèmes constituant de véritables
actes comportmentaux a été récemment apportée par Rizzolatti . . . ces
neurones sont activés soit lorsque l'animale fait le geste, soit lorsqu'il le
voit faire.(bERTHOZ)
Rizzolatti G, Fadiga L, Fogassi L, Gallese V. Resonance behaviors and mirror neurons. Arch Ital Biol 1999 May;137(2-3):85-100
"a particular class of premotor neurons, the "mirror" neurons. With this
term we define neurons that discharge both when the monkey makes a particular
action and when it observes another individual (monkey or human) making a
similar action.
"Transcranial magnetic stimulation and positron emission tomography (PET)
experiments suggest that a mirror system for gesture recognition also exists
in humans and includes Broca's area. "
"such an observation/execution matching system provides a necessary bridge
from'doing' to'communicating',as the link between actor and observer becomes
a link between the sender and the receiver of each message."
Words in origin are natural because they carry in their structure either
a direct representation of a percept or action or an indirect clue or
indication of the percept or action to which the word relates.
Words are formed from speech sounds, each of which is the product of an
elementary motor program, an articulatory 'gesture'. For each articulatory
'gesture' there is a corresponding movement of position of the hand and
arm.
PERCEPTION AND PRODUCTION
"in the non-human case ... evidence that production and
perception of communicative signals have genetic and
neurobiological roots in common. Surely it is reasonable to
assume a similar arrangement for phonetic communication in
humans. ... production and perception are simply different faces
of the same module, sharing a common set of (gestural) primitives
and, to the extent possible, a common set of processes."
(Liberman 1991: 446)
"This association between motor movements and phoneme
identification is strong and unique direct evidence for a motor
model of speech perception" ... One population [of neurons] ...
seemed to have a specific pattern of activity each time a
specific word was perceived, a pattern that also seemed to be
present with production of that word " (Ojemann 1991: 225, 122)
MOTOR IMITATION
p. 15 "La théorie motrice de la perception" (Berthoz)
"We respond to gestures with an extreme alertness and, one might
almost
say,
in accordance with an elaborate and secret code that is written nowhere, known
by none and understood by all." (Sapir quoted by Plutchik 1980: 269)
"Newborn infants ranging in age from 0.7 to 71 hours old were tested for
their
ability to imitate 2 adult facial gestures: mouth opening and tongue
protrusion. ... The results showed that newborn infants can imitate both adult
displays. 3 possible mechanisms underlying the early imitative behavior are
suggested ... ... It is argued that the data favor the third account [active
intermodal matching]." (Meltzoff and Moore 1983: 702)
"Although infants ... do learn by imitation ... the structural
foundations
for
the imitative movements cannot be learned. It is necessary to assume an innate
structure that at least partly matches the structure of the adult models to
explain both imitation and more complex reciprocal or complementary
interactions which are characteristic of communication between child and adult
from immediately after birth." ... "The neural basis for empathic response
would underlie imitation in both directions" (Trevarthen 1984: 253, 256)
THE CHAMELEON THEORY OF PERCEPTION
The chameleon theory of speech\gesture perception
"a great capacity for imitating, that is, translating perceived into
performed movements. This may indeed have been one of the most important steps
in the development of the brain." (Hayek 1973: 241)
If you see someone yawning, you will probably yawn. If you think about
(visualise or form a mental image of yourself) yawning, you will probably
yawn.
The changes in brain-patterning from seeing are translated into specific
motor-patterning which produces the infant's re- presentation of the adult
facial movement. There is a transduction of seen visual patterning into a
corresponding motor-patterning of the infant's face.
Perception appears to be a process similar to that by which the
chameleon
changes its bodily state to match its background. Perception (on the chameleon
theory) is internal ordering guided by external ordering. The perception of
speech and the perception of gesture are aspects of this chameleon- process.
Ideomotor action is the reverse process. Both stem from the integration of
the
motor system and perception.
REFERENCES