A growth point is a technical term in

cognitive linguistics Cognitive linguistics is an interdisciplinary branch of linguistics, combining knowledge and research from cognitive science, cognitive psychology, neuropsychology and linguistics. Models and theoretical accounts of cognitive linguistics are cons ...

and gesture research. It refers to the earliest beginnings of a spoken

utterance In spoken language analysis, an utterance is a continuous piece of speech, by one person, before or after which there is silence on the part of the person. In the case of oral language, spoken languages, it is generally, but not always, bounded ...

in the mind of a speaker, combining the beginnings of a mimetic gesture with the preliminary verbal expression of the person's thought.McNeill, D.1992. '' Hand and Mind: What Gestures Reveal about Thought. ''Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press

References

{{Reflist Psycholinguistics Cognitive linguistics