The present study investigates children's production of gesture-speech combinations and how they relate to language acquisition. 16 children were observed at seven age points (0;9, 1;0, 1;3, 1;6, 1;9, 2;0 and 3;0), and their gesture-speech combinations were classified into the categories complementary, supplementary and discourse combinations. The results show that the production of gesture-speech combinations over time follows different patterns in children with high, average and low productive vocabulary. Furthermore, the amount of gesture-speech combinations produced at four age points predicted productive vocabulary at the age of 2;6, and the amount produced at the age of 1;6 predicted sentence complexity at 3;0. The use of complementary gesture-speech combinations at three age points was also linked to productive vocabulary. The age of onset of supplementary gesture-speech combinations predicted sentence complexity at 3;0, while the age of onset of discourse gesture-speech combinations predicted productive vocabulary at 2;6. The results support previous research suggesting that complementary and supplementary gesture-speech combinations play an important role in child language acquisition. Additionally, the results of the present study suggest that discourse gesture-speech combinations are also connected with language development. / Den här studien undersöker barns produktion av gest-ordkombinationer och hur dessa är relaterade till språkutveckling. 16 barns produktion undersöktes vid sju ålderspunkter (0;9, 1;0, 1;3, 1;6, 1;9, 2;0 och 3;0), och deras gest-ordkombinationer klassificerades i kategorierna komplementära, supplementära och diskursiva kombinationer. Resultaten visar att produktionen av gest-ordkombinationer följer olika mönster hos barn med högt, medel och lågt produktivt ordförråd. Mängden gest-ordkombinationer som producerades vid fyra ålderspunkter predicerade produktivt ordförråd vid 2;6, och mängden gest-ordkombinationer som producerades vid 1;6 predicerade meningskomplexitet vid 3;0. Användningen av komplementära gest-ordkombinationer vid tre ålderpunkter uppvisade ett samband med produktivt ordförråd vid 2;6. Tillägnandeåldern för supplementära gest-ordkombinationer predicerade meningskomplexitet vid 3;0, medan tillägnandeåldern för diskursiva gest-ordkombinationer predicerade produktivt ordförråd vid 2;6. Resultaten i den här studien ger stöd åt tidigare forskning, som har visat att komplementära och supplementära gest-ordkombinationer spelar en viktig roll i barns språkutveckling. Därutöver visar resultaten i den här studien att diskursiva gest-ordkombinationer också har ett samband med språkutveckling. / Modeling infant language acquisition from parent-child interaction (MINT)

This essay deals with translation changes and problems that occur when translating collocations, i.e. sequences of words that are usually combined such as work hard, from Swedish to German. Being an essential part of our communication, collocations are common both in everyday-life and in technical terminology. This qualitative research deals with collocations in scientific texts about children’s literature and aims to increase attention on collocations in the translation process. The term collocation as used here refers to the concept of hierarchical relations between the lexemes of a collocation by the German linguist F. J. Hausmann (1984), distinguishing between bases and collocators. It proved itself useful in the translation process and showed that the translator must pay special attention to the collocator in order to find the equivalent expression in the target language. In doing so he/she is not at all obliged to translate a collocation with the respective target collocation. In fact due to stylistic reasons collocations were replaced by individual lexemes or paraphrases. Referring to Hausmann’s terminology and the studies of Baker (1992) this essay highlights the importance of considering collocations as translation units, i.e. not translating the lexemes of a collocation separately. Furthermore the assumption was disproved that translation errors, e.g. interferences and semantic deficits, are mainly caused when translating collocations to a foreign language. Even translators translating into their mother tongue have to examine collocations carefully to avoid errors that can result in doubts about the quality of the whole translation.