Typological analysis of the world’s language shows that, of the 6 possible basic word orders, SOV and SVO orders are predominant, a preference supported by experimental studies in which participants improvise gestures to describe events. Silent gesture studies have also provided evidence for natural ordering patterns, where SOV and SVO orders are used selectively depending on the semantics of the event, a finding recently supported by data from natural sign languages. We present an artificial language learning task using gesture to ask to what extent preferences for natural ordering patterns, in addition to biases for regular languages, are at play during learning in the manual modality.

While the grammatical use of space for referential strategies is attested across many sign languages of Western Europe, Kata Kolok, a rural sign language used in Northern Bali, has not developed anaphoric pointing in space nor agreement verbs (Engberg-Pedersen, 1993; Liddell, 2003; de Vos, 2012). To find out whether such typological differences can be explained by differences in the respective co-speech gesture systems, this preregistered study is collecting data for a cross-cultural comparison. Building on Motamedi et al. (2021), we are conducting studies in Bali and the Netherlands using an iterated learning silent gesture paradigm in which hearing people communicate transitive events using only gestures. Preliminary data indeed suggest that our Balinese participants do not employ space the same way our Dutch participants do. We will present comparative analyses and evaluate the role of co-speech gesture systems in sign language emergence in the lab or when evolving from spontaneous interaction.

Spatial cognition and spatial language are a core site for diversity, both within and across language communities. For instance, when describing motion events, speakers through speech and gesture may anchor information either (egocentrically) to their body or (allocentrically) to geographical landmarks in the environment. Here we investigate whether the use of such egocentric versus allocentric frames of reference in co-speech gesture indeed depends on both bodily and environmental axes. In a real-world experiment, members from the traditionally allocentric Balinese community were shown small-scale motion events and asked to retell them. To evaluate the potential influence of both types of axes on gestural frame of reference use, in a 2x2 between-participant design they were assigned to conditions that contrasted the body-anchored axis the motion events unfolded on with the underlying geographical environment-anchored axis. It was observed that the type of body-anchored axis significantly predicted frame of reference representation in participants' gestures, consistent with previous research. The type of environment-anchored axes, however, did not affect characteristics of participants' gestures. These findings advance our understanding of the intricate interplay between language, space, culture, and environment.