Monolingual and bilingual preschoolers' use of gestures to interpret ambiguous pronouns.
Young children typically do not use order-of-mention to resolve ambiguous pronouns, but may do so if given additional cues, such as gestures. Additionally, this ability to utilize gestures may be enhanced in bilingual children, who may be more sensitive to such cues due to their unique language experience. We asked monolingual and bilingual four-year-olds and adults to determine referents of ambiguous pronouns given order-of-mention and co-referential localizing gestures. Results showed that bilingual children, like adults, but not monolingual children, used order-of-mention with gestures to resolve ambiguous pronouns. This highlights a wider implication of bilingualism for socio-cognitive development in children.
Singapore University of Technology and Design.
W Quin
WQ
Yow
D000328:Adult; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003463:Cues; D005260:Female; D005868:Gestures; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008037:Linguistics; D008297:Male; D019303:Multilingualism