Multimodality of language: constituting speech genres

Abstract

From authors like Bruner (1964, 1966a, 1966b, 1969, 1983) and McNeill (1985) as far as the acquisition of the language and gesture are concerned and Bakhtin (1979) in relation to the analysis of the textual genres, we analyse data of one dyad speech therapist and french-canadian cochlear implanted child. The analysis shows that the child from inserts himself in the genres of the therapeutic sphere by multimodality acts – gesture concomitant to the verbal productions – as it is proposed by McNeill (1985), when he states that gesture and speech are from a same matrix of meaning.