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Monolingual and bilingual preschoolers’ use of gestures to interpret ambiguous pronouns
Journal article   Peer reviewed

Monolingual and bilingual preschoolers’ use of gestures to interpret ambiguous pronouns

W. QUIN Yow
Journal of child language, Vol.42(6), pp.1394-1407
01/11/2015
PMID: 25403225

Abstract

Brief Research Report
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.

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