Yes or no? How young French children combine gestures and speech to agree and refuse

Abstract

The aim of the study presented here was to examine variations in the forms and functions of agreement and refusal messages – which can be solely gestural, solely verbal, or combined gestural and verbal – by thirty children aged 1;4, 2;0, and 3;0 (ten in each age group) observed at home during an interaction with their mother. The results showed that even though verbal forms were the predominant ones as a whole, gestural forms were carried over into the linguistic period, and for the youngest children, constituted the sole means of agreeing and refusing. They also showed that the most frequently expressed function was assertion.