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A Cross-Species Study Of Gesture And Its Role In Symbolic Development: Implications For The Gestural Theory Of Language Evolution, K. Gillespie-Lynch, P. M. Greenfield, Y. Feng, S. Savage-Rumbaugh, H. Lyn

Faculty Publications

Using a naturalistic video database, we examined whether gestures scaffold the symbolic development of a language-enculturated chimpanzee, a language-enculturated bonobo, and a human child during the second year of life. These three species constitute a complete clade: species possessing a common immediate ancestor. A basic finding was the functional and formal similarity of many gestures between chimpanzee, bonobo, and human child. The child's symbols were spoken words; the apes' symbols were lexigrams - non-iconic visual signifiers. A developmental pattern in which gestural representation of a referent preceded symbolic representation of the same referent appeared in all three species (but was …