Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2006. / Title from first page of PDF file (viewed January 4, 2007). Available via ProQuest Digital Dissertations. Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--Ohio State University. / Bibliography: leaves 97-106. Available online via OhioLINK's ETD Center

Abstract This study investigated the giving of objects in relation to the child's incipient development of language. The theoretical frame of reference for the study comprised Vygotsky's cultural historical viewpoint of the social origins of development and of the division of development into stages. Development is also determined by the development of communicative activity and the child's stages of mental development alternating between need-motivation and technical skills. Cultural development is founded on the use of signs and on mediated relationships. The basis of the sign is social. It exists in those forms of social interaction in which the child participates before beginning to use language independently. In emotional interaction with another person the child develops social operational models with respect to his dealings with objects. The giving of objects is one such example of this. It is mediated action and one stage of the child's communicative development towards language. In giving objects the child is engaged in meaningful activity. It is action which involves feelings and is both initiated and managed by the child himself. The study consisted of a longitudinal observation of six mother-child pairs in the laboratory. At the beginning of the study the children were six months old and by the end had reached three years of age. The study investigated how the process of giving objects advances and how a developmental transition may be recognised. The relation between giving objects and pointing gestures and the beginning of speech was also a source of interest. Mother-child pairs visited the laboratory monthly and one visit lasted about one hour and half. The study focused on the adult-child pairs'mutual activity episodes and these were analysed micro-analytically. Episodes were classified in terms of mother-child activity, communication through gestures, interaction through speech and metacommunication. The results showed that it is the adult who is the active party in the early stages of the object giving development process. She interprets object giving as a social phenomenon. The child's own self-initiated giving of objects begins between the ages of nine and fifteen months. The giving of objects continues from this moment on throughout successive development stages and assumes a variety of forms of expression. To begin with the child's attention is directed towards the significance of the objects while later on attention shifts towards social relationships. Object giving reveals two developmental transition during the pre-verbal stage: the first of these begins as the child approaches one year of age and the second at the age of about eighteen months. During these transitions the child's relation to his environment, objects and other people become organised in a new way. Before each transition the child's independent movement and imitative behaviour becomes activated while symbolic activity begins after the transition has occurred. Words become to be associated with giving of objects from the age of about thirteen months though most commonly between seventeen and twenty-one months. Between twenty-seven and thirty months the giving of objects stops. By this stage the child has begun to communicate using whole sentences and speech has become an adequate means of communication. The study supported Vygotsky's theory by bringing forth the central importance of the adult in the turning points of child development. The study also revealed the overlapping of the development stages of the social sign with developmental transitions. The giving of objects may be said to describe the child's mental development in a more general way and may be called a social sign anticipating language. / Tiivistelmä Tutkimuksessa selvitettiin esineiden antamista suhteessa lapsen alkavaan kielelliseen kehitykseen. Tutkimuksen teoreettisen perustan muodosti Vygotskyn kulttuurihistoriallinen näkemys kehityksen sosiaalisesta alkuperästä ja kehityksen vaiheittaisuudesta. Kehitystä määrittävät myös kommunikatiivisen toiminnan kehitys ja lapsen kehityksen vaiheet tarve-motivationaalisten ja teknisten taitojen vuorotteluna. Kulttuurinen kehitys perustuu merkkien käyttöön ja välittyneisiin suhteisiin. Merkin perusta on sosiaalinen. Se on olemassa niissä sosiaalisen kanssakäymisen muodoissa, joihin lapsi osallistuu ennen kuin alkaa käyttää kieltä itsenäisesti. Emotionaalisessa vuorovaikutuksessa toiseen ihmiseen lapsi kehittää esineen käsittelyn sosiaalisia toimintamalleja. Esineiden antaminen on näistä yksi. Se on välittynyttä toimintaa ja yksi vaihe kehityksessä kohti kielen hallintaa. Esineitä antaessaan lapsi on mielekkäässä toiminnassa. Toiminta on tunneväritteistä, lapsen itsensä aloittamaa ja hallitsemaa. Tutkimuksen empiirinen vaihe toteutettiin kuuden äiti-lapsiparin pitkäaikaisseurantana laboratoriossa. Tutkimuksen alussa lapset olivat puolivuotiaita ja sen päättyessä kolmivuotiaita. äiti-lapsiparit kävivät laboratoriossa kuukausittain. Yksi käynti kesti noin puolitoista tuntia. Selvitettiin, miten esineiden antaminen etenee sekä miten tunnistaa kehitysmuutos. Myös esineiden antamisen suhde osoittavaan eleeseen ja alkavaan puheeseen oli kiinnostuksen kohteena. Huomion keskiössä olivat äiti-lapsiparin keskinäiset toimintaepisodit, joita analysoitiin mikroanalyyttisesti. Episodeista luokiteltiin äidin ja lapsen toiminta, elekommunikaatio, puhevuorovaikutus sekä metakommunikaatio. Tulosten mukaan esineiden antamisen kehityksessä aikuinen on aluksi aktiivinen osapuoli. Hän tulkitsee esineen antamisen sosiaaliseksi. Lapsen omaehtoinen esineiden antaminen alkaa ikävälillä 9 - 15 kuukautta. Esineiden antaminen käy tästä eteenpäin läpi kehitysvaiheita ja saa erilaisia ilmenemismuotoja. Aluksi lapsen huomio on esineiden merkityksissä, sitten huomion kohteena ovat sosiaaliset suhteet. Esineiden antaminen ilmentää kahta kehityksellistä muutosta esikielellisen vaiheen aikana: ensimmäinen vaihe on ensimmäisen elinvuoden lopulla, toinen lähellä puolentoista vuoden ikää. Tällöin lapsen suhteet ympäristöön, esineisiin ja toisiin ihmisiin järjestyvät uudella tavalla. Molemmissa vaiheissa ennen siirtymää aktivoituvat lapsen omaehtoinen liikkuminen ja jäljittelevä käyttäytyminen sekä sen jälkeen symbolinen toiminta. Sanat alkavat liittyä esineiden antamiseen 13 - 34 kuukauden iässä, tavallisimmin ikävaiheessa 17 - 21 kuukautta. Ikävaiheessa 27 - 30 kuukautta esineiden antamista ei juuri enää esiinny. Tällöin lapsi on alkanut kommunikoida kokonaisin lausein, ja puhekielestä on tullut riittävä kommunikoinnin väline. Tutkimus tukee Vygotskin teoriaa tuomalla esiin aikuisen keskeisen merkityksen lapsen kehityksen käännekohdissa. Tutkimus osoittaa sosiaalisen merkin kehitysvaiheet ja niiden limittymisen kehityksellisiin siirtymiin. Esineiden antaminen kuvastaa lapsen henkisen kehityksen kulkua yleisemmin ja sitä voi kutsua kieltä ennakoivaksi sosiaaliseksi merkiksi.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-26T18:18:00Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Elisabeth Leone Gandini Romero.pdf: 1417367 bytes, checksum: f50be271658d860eba1795a024151a7c (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009-05-29 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / The goal of this work is to investigate hand gestures in both communication and culture. It also aims to understand the gesture as image, analyzing some hand gestures in Image History. There are genetic and social-cultural codes interlaced in hand movements. Consequently, there is no way not to take them into account, for hands incorporate everything they reach for and everything that reaches for them too. This study embraces some aspects of gesture phylogeny due to the fact that mankind has its roots lost in time. Supported by recent etiologists researches, it confirms that no abyss separates man from other primates, and there are only common distinctions among species. Free hands encompass a true body revolution as well as a revolution in man s communication. In partnership with the brain, man faces material challenges with his technical gestures as well as with his psychological survival gestures present in culture. Gesture and image are mediators and both have their point of origin in the body. Therefore, this work privileges the primary media, but it also scopes secondary media. It shows the abundant hand gesture testimony present in cult images, art images and media images (Belting). The analysis of this corpus through Culture Semiotics Theory allows us to delineate an approach into hand gesture through some of its images: in communication and culture, ontogeny and phylogeny. Therefore the research supports itself on methodological resources developed by Ivan Bystrina, Harry Pross, Edgar Morin, Hans Belting, Régis Debray. It also articulates a dialogue with ideas and thoughts that come from the work of Ashley Montagu, Boris Cyrulnik, Eibl-Eibesfeldt, among other specialists in Communication Theory, Image Theory, Media Theory and Culture Theory / Este trabalho visa a investigar a gestualidade das mãos na comunicação e na cultura e, entendendo o gesto como imagem, refletir sobre as imagens de alguns gestos das mãos na História da Imagem. Nos gestos das mãos se entretecem os códigos genéticos e os socioculturais, e não se pode desconsiderá-los, pois as mãos incorporam tudo o que alcançam e tudo o que as alcança também. O estudo aborda alguns aspectos da filogênese do gesto pelo fato de os hominídeos terem raízes bem longínquas e, apoiado em recentes pesquisas de etólogos, confirma que nenhum abismo separa o homem dos outros primatas, mas apenas distinções comuns entre espécies. As mãos livres ensejam uma verdadeira revolução no corpo e na comunicação humana, e, em parceria com o cérebro, o homem enfrenta os desafios da matéria com seus gestos técnicos e os da sobrevivência psíquica, com seus gestos culturais. O gesto e a imagem são mediadores e têm seu ponto de origem no corpo. Assim, o trabalho focaliza a mídia primária, mas tange também a mídia secundária, evidenciando-se o testemunho prolixo da gestualidade das mãos presente nas imagens de culto, nas imagens da arte e nas imagens da mídia (Belting, 2001). A análise deste corpus pela Semiótica da Cultura nos permite delinear um percurso da gestualidade das mãos e de algumas de suas imagens, na comunicação e na cultura, na ontogênese e na filogênese. Para tanto, apoia-se em recursos metodológicos desenvolvidos por Ivan Bystrina, Harry Pross, Edgar Morin, Hans Belting e Régis Debray e articula um diálogo com as ideias de Ashley Montagu, Boris Cyrulnik e Eibl-Eibesfeldt, entre outros, nas teorias da Comunicação, da Imagem, da Mídia e da Cultura