Visual modes of Language: Gesture and Sign 

Most research on language takes speech as the main domain of investigation. However, speakers use not only speech but also meaningful hand movements called ‘gestures' when they speak. Furthermore, deaf communities use sign languages that are produced and perceived only in the visual-spatial modality. This course aims to give an interdisciplinary and state of the art overview of the role of the body in the structuring, functioning and the development of the human language faculty. The course will present findings from these new fields relating them to discussions of embodied cognition and semantics, situated use of language, the link between language and action and their neural correlates.

• Introduction to gesture basics - definitions; structure; theories
• The role of gestures in processing of language - production and comprehension
• The role of gestures in language acquisition (first, second, bilingual)
• The role of gestures in social-cognitive development
• Gestures and the brain

• Pantomimes, home signs

• Introduction to sign language grammar (phonology, morphology, syntax)
• Emerging sign languages
• Sign language processing/comparison with speech processing
• Sign language and the brain

The literature consists of a Reader of chapters and journal articles.

Lectures; student presentations; practical exercises.
The final examination is a course paper based on a small empirical study or a detailed proposal for a study on gestures and/or sign language

via STUDENT PORTAL untill 5 working days before the start of the course
Note this course is for CNS students only. Non-CNS students can contact Yvonne Schouten () or Arno Koning ().