La gestualità di segnanti e non segnanti nella narrazione orale

Abstract

This study aims to compare the use of coverbal gestures in three adult populations: bilingual (Italian Sign Language/Italian) and oral deaf people as well as hearing people with no sign language skills, using an oral storytelling task in Italian. The principal idea of this work is that the exposure to a visual-gestural language influences the production of coverbal gestures, both in quantity and in quality. At the same time, this study shows that, despite having the same sensory deficit as bilingual deaf people, the oral ones gesticulate in a comparable way to the hearing people, who use less meaningful gestures compared to those who use any sign language.