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The chapters in this volume have generally accepted the argument that speech-gesture integration is basic to language use. But what explains the integration itself? I will attempt to make the case that it can be understood with the concept of a `growth point' or GP (McNeill & Duncan this volume) It is called a GP since it is a theoretical unit in which principles that explain mental growth -- differentiation, internalization, dialectic, and reorganization -- apply to realtime utterance generation by adults (and children). It is also called a GP since it is meant to be the initial form of a thinking-while-speaking unit out of which a dynamic process of organization emerges. The emergence unpacks the GP into a surface utterance and gesture that articulates its meaning implications.

Many bilingual speakers believe they engage in different forms of thinking when they shift languages. This experience of entering different thought worlds can be explained with the hypothesis that languages induce different forms of `thinking-for-speaking'-- thinking generated, as Slobin (1987) says, because of the requirements of a linguistic code. "`Thinking for speaking' involves picking those characteristics that (a) fit some conceptualization of the event, and (b) are readily encodable in the language"[2] (p. 435). That languages differ in their thinking-for-speaking demands is a version of the linguistic relativity hypothesis, the proposition that language influences thought and that different languages influence thought in different ways.

The signature form of abstract deixis is the classic pointing G-hand aimed at absolutely nothing. This gesture is extremely widespread and frequent in conversational discourse.[2] A speaker says "and there was [this guy]", and flexes an index finger at a certain locus, although there is no person there. In effect, the gesture `creates' a reference, in this case an imaginary person identified as "this guy". What I am terming `abstract deixis' is, according to Bühler (1982), concrete deixis that has been transposed to the realm of imaginary referents. His term for this process was deixis at phantasma. As in all cases of pointing, abstract deixis entails a coordinate center, or origo, and an indicated line connecting this center to a locus (the G-hand is an iconic sign of this line). A `target' then is created at this locus that may be used for later anaphoric references. The creative use of pointing in abstract deixis fleshes out the deictic paradigm with new meanings for the target and origo cross-hairs. Another component of pointing is the deictic field or ground over which the pointing act is understood to extend. In the concrete case, the deictic field is spatial and ranges from the immediate perceptual present to vast regions such as the entire Yucatan peninsula that Haviland (in press) describes in acts of pointing to distant locales. In the abstract case, the ground takes on non-spatial meanings. The components of deixis are all part of the referential creation of abstract pointing, and can be analyzed as parameters set by the speaker for the context. Creative deictic use is prominent in the example that I will now present.

Bulk quantities of graphene nanosheets and nanodots have been selectively fabricated by mechanical grinding exfoliation of natural graphite in a small quantity of ionic liquids. The resulting graphene sheets and dots are solvent free with low levels of naturally absorbed oxygen, inherited from the starting graphite. The sheets are only two to five layers thick. The graphene nanodots have diameters in the range of 9-29 nm and heights in the range of 1-16 nm, which can be controlled by changing the processing time., Comment: * Corresponding authors: p.papakonstantinou@ulster.ac.uk; ngshang@hotmail.com

Gestures of six young adults were transcribed from videotaped narrations. Iconic, or imitative, gestures were found to have a tendency to depict whole scenes, and to correlate positively with motions implied in accompanying verbs. Gestures were found to be marked for such contrasting grammatical features as agent and patient, and transitive and intransitive. "Beats," or imprecise gestures, were not found to have the correlations characterizing iconic gestures. Furthermore, iconics correlate positively and beats negatively with handedness. Many metaphoric gestures, which iconically depict the vehicle of a metaphor, were identified. The sum of the evidence shows a close connection between the form of gestures and the organization of speech. This is interpreted to mean that concrete conceptual representations (or models) are involved at different levels of speech organization. (JB)

In an experiment conducted with 31 three-, four- and five-year-old Japanese children evidence was found for self-created definitions of the direct and indirect objects of verbs. Linguistic rules undergoing change during the course of the experiment were also observed. The results can be understood as showing that children are guided in their behavior by certain universals of language. Long before children master grammar they show the effects of systematic rules for the construction and comprehension of sentences. Sometimes these rules can be regarded as imperfect copies of adult rules. But often, when the two kinds of rules differ radically, the child's rules are better explained as being grammatical inventions, creations by the child which rest as much on his a priori expectations of the general form of language as on his experience with adult grammar. This experiment is one in which the effects of several such grammatical inventions are seen. The experiment focuses on a small point of grammar, the direct and indirect objects of verbs, but a number of rules are found that are unlike Japanese, the language to which the Ss are exposed, and like certain universals of language, in particular the universal distinction between marked and unmarked categories. (Author/KM)