We are excited to share our latest publication examining how first-language structure and second-language proficiency jointly shape the way bilingual speakers think about and describe motion events. The study also shows that these patterns are not fixed; they shift depending on the type of event being communicated (e.g., whether someone is acting on something or whether something happened spontaneously).

By analyzing both speech and gestures, we compared Persian (L1)–English (L2) bilinguals with native English speakers to investigate how motion events are packaged across languages. The findings contribute to a long-standing debate in linguistic typology regarding the status of Persian: Is Persian a verb-framed language like Turkish and Korean, or a satellite-framed language like English?

Our results reveal a more nuanced picture, demonstrating that motion-event encoding in Persian cannot be fully understood without considering bilingual experience, language proficiency, and communicative context. More broadly, the study highlights how language, cognition, and gesture work together in shaping bilingual communication.

Read the article here:
https://authors.elsevier.com/tracking/article/details.do?aid=105769&jid=YBRLN&surname=Ghobadi

Citation:
Ghobadi, A., & Özçalışkan, Ş. (2026). Navigating through space in speech and gesture: Effects of speaker proficiency, language type, and event type. Brain and Language, 278, 105769.

The Spring Research Festival at Barnard showcased a strong set of student research projects this year, including several developed within the Ghobadi Lab.

These projects were part of a year-long research focus on toddlers (24–37 months), examining gesture production, imitation, and the role of private speech in self-regulation. 

The projects presented reflect the full research process, from initial conceptual development to final presentation, and highlight students’ engagement with empirical methods and developmental theory.

Congratulations to the Class of 2026 on their contributions and upcoming next steps!

See more here: LinkedIn post

4/23/26

Congratulations to Angela Yun on her acceptance to the MA program at Georgia State University, along with being awarded the BEES scholarship (Behavioral Early Education Scholars).

We’re incredibly proud of Angela and excited to see what’s ahead for her!

4/21/26

Gabriela De Souza Costa, Angela Yun, and Cindy Kim presented their research at the GSURC 2026 Undergraduate Research Conference at Georgia State University (Atlanta, GA).

Their study examined how language exposure in bilingual children relates to executive function, and whether these relationships vary as a function of diagnosis (autistic vs. neurotypical).

We are proud to see their work contribute to ongoing conversations on bilingualism, cognition, and neurodevelopment.

4/7/2026

In our latest study, we examine how bilingual speakers with different levels of proficiency compare to native English speakers in the way they communicate.

The findings are striking: both speech and gesture shift depending on the task—whether individuals are retelling a story or explaining a concept—and on their proficiency in a second language.

In other words, the same person can adopt different communication styles across contexts.

If you are interested in bilingualism, multimodal communication, or the relationship between language and cognition, this work may be of interest.

Ghobadi, A., & Özçalışkan, Ş. (2026). Patterns of speech and gesture production in the communications of bilinguals and monolinguals: Do speakers’ proficiency and discourse context matter? Language and Cognition, 18, e19. doi:10.1017/langcog.2026.10071

3/24/2026

Professor Armita Ghobadi will join colleagues at MoLA Bridge Day for a breakout session on Saturday, March 14 (10:10–11:00 AM) at the Claudia Nance Rollins Building, Emory University (Atlanta, GA).

The session, “Communication Is More Than Words: The Importance of Gestures and Facial Expressions in Autism,” will examine how gesture and facial expression contribute to communicative development in autism, highlighting current research on multimodal communication beyond speech.

3/8/2026

Opening the Gesture and Cognition panel, Angela Yun presented our latest research, “The Effect of Writing System on Gesture Directionality: Do Proficiency and Task Type Matter?”

The study examined whether speakers of leftward writing systems (e.g., Hebrew, Arabic, Persian) shift the direction of their hand gestures when describing temporal events in English, a rightward writing system. We tested whether such shifts vary as a function of language proficiency (low, high, native) and task type (narratives versus explanations), with explanatory tasks placing greater cognitive demands on speakers.

11/25/2025