Walking while talking

This project investigates human language in the very environment in which it has evolved, is acquired, and very frequently is used: while walking. Yet, moving communication contexts differ significantly from static ones, as they are dynamic. This unique character of walking and the challenges it yields for perception and experience is prone to impact grammar, lexicon, and verbal interaction profoundly. In Walk and Talk, we conduct a cross-linguistic investigation into grammar and lexicon as they unfold in real time when traditionally mobile Indigenous foragers are walking. The approach involves innovating methodologies for studying language in motion and a data collection from a diverse language sample to develop an explanatory model describing how language takes shape in dynamic speech contexts.