A prosódia facial e vocal na interação bebê-cuidador: explorando a multimodalidade na aquisição da linguagem

Abstract

This research investigates multimodality in the language acquisition process of Brazilian Portuguese, focusing on the integration of facial and vocal prosody during motherinfant interactions. It is a longitudinal case study, following a single dyad at two crucial developmental moments: 6 and 12 months of age. The literature points to a close relationship between vocal and facial prosody, indicating that both play fundamental roles in the expression of communicative intentions (Esteve-Gibert; Guellaï, 2018). In the Brazilian context, there are still few studies on language acquisition from this multimodal perspective, especially in the first year of life. The study aims to analyze the evolution of dyadic synchrony and mutual co-regulation strategies, interpreting how the mother's performance and the infant's response are reconfigured over time. To this end, data were collected in naturalistic contexts, and multimodal analyses were conducted using specialized software such as PRAAT and FaceReader. Results suggest a transition from an interaction based on face-to-face affective synchrony at 6 months to a more complex dynamic of negotiating joint attention in a triadic context at 12 months. These findings are expected to contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of infants' communicative development, exploring how facial and vocal gestures co-construct the foundation for language. Furthermore, this study contributes to the research on the perception of facial prosody in infants acquiring Brazilian Portuguese, offering insights for future investigations into language acquisition from a multimodal approach.