A critical appraisal of the relationship between speech and gesture and its implications for the treatment of aphasia

Abstract

The paper by Rose is an important and timely attempt to outline the implications of research on gesture and speech for the treatment of aphasia. But this is not an easy task given that major theoretical disagreements exist within the field; fundamental disagreements as to whether iconic gestures function primarily for the speaker or for the listener. It is also not made easy by the apparently contradictory research findings that many of the core empirical studies have produced. The current paper argues that Rose needs to take a much more critical perspective on some of the core studies in this area, including research on the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon, which is one important area of disagreement with regard to the lexical retrieval hypothesis of iconic gesture and research on the possible communicational effects of iconic gesture. This paper argues that much of the research, when critically reviewed, points towards the communicational theory of gesture and away from the lexical retrieval hypothesis and it proposes that only by taking such a critical stance on the published literature will researchers be able to formulate truly effective principles for the treatment of aphasia.

Keywords:

• Iconic gesture
• lexical retrieval hypothesis
• gesture and communication
• aphasia

Notes

1 In terms of transcription conventions, the boundaries of the meaningful part of the gesture, the so-called “stroke” phase, are shown by enclosing the concurrent part of the speech in square brackets.

2 All two-tailed tests.