Infants’ Use of Iconicity in the Early Periods of Sign/Spoken Word-Learning

Abstract

Abstract The aim of this research was to analyze the use of iconicity during language acquisition of Israeli Sign language and spoken Hebrew. Two bilingual-bimodal infants were observed in a longitudinal study between the ages of 10–26 months. I analyzed infants’ production of iconic words, signs, and gestures. The results showed that infants’ use of vocal iconicity reached its peak between the ages of 16–20 months. The proportion of imagic iconic signs in the infants’ lexicon was also high during that period. In contrast, the infants’ use of iconic gestures gradually increased during the study period, as well as their co-production with lexical items. The results suggest that infants’ use of lexical and gestural iconicity scaffold the learning of novel labels and fill the gap in their expressive repertoire. It was concluded that teachers/therapists should use iconicity and encourage their students to use it in pedagogical settings.