Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-j824f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T07:20:47.678Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The effect of bilingualism on the use of manual gestures

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2007

ELENA NICOLADIS
ELENA NICOLADIS
Affiliation:
University of Alberta
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Gestures are often used while speaking to aid in the speaker's packaging of the verbal message and/or to aid the listener in decoding the message. The ways in which bilinguals use gestures are reviewed in this article. Researchers have predicted that bilinguals' gesture use is related to bilinguals' language proficiency. However, no clear pattern of a link between proficiency and gesture use has been observed across studies, probably because gestures rarely compensate for weak language proficiency, functioning instead to facilitate speech production in both first and second language use. Researchers have reported bilinguals using language-specific gestures in the other language. In addition, bilinguals have been shown to use gestures at a higher rate than monolinguals. These results suggest that cross-linguistic transfer can apply to gestures, as well as to other linguistic units. In conclusion, gestures play an important role in accessing language in the process of speech production. This conclusion has implications for second-language teaching; teaching through gestures and speech might be more effective than teaching the spoken component alone.

Type
Articles
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 28 , Issue 3 , July 2007 , pp. 441 - 454
Copyright
© 2007 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Acredolo L. P., & Goodwyn S. W. 1985 Symbolic gesturing in language development. Human Development, 28, 40– 49.Google Scholar
Acredolo L. P., & Goodwyn S. 1988 Symbolic gesturing in normal infants. Child Development, 59, 4450– 4466.Google Scholar
Alibali M. W., & DiRusso A. A. 1999 The function of gesture in learning to count: More than keeping track. Cognitive Development, 14, 37– 56.Google Scholar
Alibali M. W., Kita S., & Young A. J. 2000 Gesture and the process of speech production: We think, therefore we gesture. Language and Cognitive Processes, 15, 569– 613.Google Scholar
Armstrong D. F., Stokoe W. C., & Wilcox S. E. 1995 Gesture and the nature of language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Asher J. J. 1969 The total physical response approach to second language learning. Modern Language Journal, 53, 3– 17.Google Scholar
Barsalou L. W. 2003 Situated simulation in the human conceptual system. Language and Cognitive Processes, 18, 513– 562.Google Scholar
Barzini L. 1964 The Italians. New York: Atheneum.
Beattie G., & Shovelton H. 2000 Iconic hand gestures and the predictability of words in context in spontaneous speech. British Journal of Psychology, 91, 473– 491.Google Scholar
Bialystok E. 1997 The structure of age: In search of barriers to second language acquisition. Second Language Research, 13, 116– 137.Google Scholar
Broca P. 1861 Nouvelle observation d'aphémie produite par une lésion de la moitié postérieure des deuxième et troisième circonvolutions frontales. Bulletin de la Société d'Anatomie de Paris, 6, 398– 407.Google Scholar
Brown A. 2006 Revealed as an L2 user: Features of L2 gestures in L1 production. Paper presented at the Workshop on Gestures in Language Development. Groningen, The Netherlands, April 22, 2006.
Brown R. 1979 Why are signed languages easier to learn than spoken languages? In E. Carney (Ed.), Proceedings of the national symposium on sign language research and teaching (pp. 9– 24). Silver Spring, MD: National Association of the Deaf.
Bub D. N., Masson M. E. J., & Bukach C. M. 2003 Gesturing and naming: The use of functional knowledge in object identification. Psychological Science, 14, 467– 472.Google Scholar
Butcher C., & Goldin-Meadow S. 2000 Gesture and the transition from one- to two-word speech: When hand and mouth come together. In D. McNeill (Ed.), Language and gesture (pp. 235– 257). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Butterworth B. L., & Beattie G. W. 1978 Gestures and silence as indicators of planning in speech. In R. N. Campbell & P. T. Smith (Eds.), Recent advances in the psychology of language: Formal and experimental approaches (pp. 347– 360). New York: Plenum Press.
Cohen R. L., & Borsoi D. 1996 The role of gestures in description-communication: A cross-sectional study of aging. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 20, 45– 63.Google Scholar
Comeau L., Genesee F., & Lapaquette L. 2003 The modeling hypothesis and child bilingual code-mixing. International Journal of Bilingualism, 7, 113– 126.Google Scholar
Donald M. 1991 Origins of the modern mind: Three stages in the evolution of culture and cognition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Dromi E. 1987 Early lexical development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Efron D. 1941 Gesture and environment. New York: Kings Crown Press.
Freedman N. 1977 Hands, words and mind: On the structuralization of body movements during discourse and the capacity for verbal representation. In N. Freedman & S. Grand (Eds.), Communicative structures and psychic structures: A psychoanalytic approach (pp. 109– 132). New York: Plenum Press.
Frick-Horbury D., & Guttentag R. E. 1998 The effects of restricting hand gesture production on lexical retrieval and free recall. American Journal of Psychology, 1, 43– 62.Google Scholar
Genesee F., Boivin I. & Nicoladis E. 1996 Talking with strangers: A study of bilingual children's communicative competence. Applied Psycholinguistics, 17, 427– 442.Google Scholar
Goetz P. J. 2003 The effects of bilingualism on theory of mind development. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 6, 1– 15.Google Scholar
Goldin-Meadow S. 2000 Beyond words: The importance of gestures to researchers and learners. Child Development, 71, 231– 239.Google Scholar
Goldin-Meadow S. 2003a The resilience of language: What gesture creation in deaf children can tell us about how all children learn language. New York: Psychology Press.
Goldin-Meadow S. 2003b Hearing gesture: How our hands help us think. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Goldin-Meadow S., Nusbaum H., Kelly S. D., & Wagner S. 2001 Explaining math: Gesturing lightens the load. Psychological Science, 12, 516– 522.Google Scholar
Gollan T. H., & Silverberg N. B. 2001 Tip-of-the-tongue states in Hebrew–English bilinguals. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 4, 63– 83.Google Scholar
González A. M. 1996 El acceso al sistema lingüístico por parte del niño preescolar sordo. Un estudio evolutivo. Infancia y Aprendizaje, 76, 59– 68.Google Scholar
Graham J. A., & Argyle M. 1975 A cross-cultural study of the communication of extra-verbal meaning by gestures. International Journal of Psychology, 10, 57– 67.Google Scholar
Grosjean F. 2001 The bilingual's language modes. In J. L. Nicol (Ed.), One mind, two languages: Bilingual language processing (pp. 1– 22). Oxford: Blackwell.
Guidetti M. 2001 How the study of conventional gestures can contribute to our understanding of the early lexicon. Paper presented at Early Language Acquisition in Lyons, France.
Gullberg M. 1999 [Communication strategies, gestures, and grammar] Acquisition et Interaction en Langue Étrangère. Paper presented at the 8th EUROSLA Conference, Paris.
Hadar U., & Butterworth B. 1997 Iconic gestures, imagery, and word retrieval in speech. Semiotica, 115, 147– 172.Google Scholar
Hanlon R. E., Brown J. W., & Gerstman L. J. 1990 Enhancement of naming in nonfluent aphasia through gesture. Brain and Language, 38, 298– 314.Google Scholar
Hockett C. F. 1960 The origin of speech. Scientific American, 203, 89– 96.Google Scholar
Kendon A. 1991 Some considerations of a theory of language origins. Man, 26, 199– 221.Google Scholar
Kendon A. 1992 Some recent work from Italy on quotable gestures (‘emblems’). Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 21, 72– 93.Google Scholar
Kendon A. 1994 Do gestures communicate? A review. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 27, 175– 200.Google Scholar
Kendon A. 1995 Gestures as illocutionary and discourse structure markers in southern Italian conversation. Journal of Pragmatics, 23, 247– 279.Google Scholar
Kita S. 2000 How representational gestures help speaking. In D. McNeill (Ed.), Language and gesture (pp. 162– 185). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kita S., & Özyürek A. 2003 What does cross-linguistic variation in semantic coordination of speech and gesture reveal?: Evidence for an interface representation of spatial thinking and speaking. Journal of Memory and Language, 48, 16– 32.Google Scholar
Krauss R. M., & Hadar U. 1999 The role of speech-related arm/hand gestures in word retrieval. In R. Campbell & L. Messing (Eds.), Gesture, speech, and sign (pp. 93– 116). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Krauss R. M., Morrel-Samuels P. & Colasante C. 1991 Do conversational gestures communicate? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 61, 743– 754.Google Scholar
Marcos L. R. 1979 Nonverbal behavior and thought processing. Archives of General Psychiatry, 36, 940– 943.Google Scholar
Masur E. 1983 Gestural development, dual-directional signaling, and the transition to words. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 12, 93– 109.Google Scholar
McNeill D. 1992 Hand and mind: What gestures reveal about thought. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Meisel J. M. 1983 Transfer as a second language strategy. Language and Communication, 3, 11– 46.Google Scholar
Namy L. L., Campbell A. L., & Tomasello M. 2004 The changing role of iconicity in non-verbal symbol learning: A U-shaped trajectory in the acquisition of arbitrary gestures. Journal of Cognition and Development, 5, 37– 57.Google Scholar
Nicoladis E. 2002 Some gestures develop in conjunction with spoken language development and others don't: Evidence from bilingual preschoolers. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 26, 241– 266.Google Scholar
Nicoladis E. 2006 Cross-linguistic transfer in adjective-noun strings by preschool bilingual children. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 9, 15– 32Google Scholar
Nicoladis E., & Genesee F. 1996 Bilingual communication strategies and language dominance. In A. Stringfellow, D. Cahana-Amitay, E. Hughes, & A. Zukowski (Eds.), Proceedings of the 20th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (pp. 518– 527). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.
Nicoladis E., Mayberry R., & Genesee F. 1999 Gesture and early bilingual development. Developmental Psychology, 35, 514– 526.Google Scholar
Nicoladis E., Pika S., & Marentette P. 2005 Gesturing bilingually: French–English bilingual children's gestures. Paper presented at the International Congress for the Study of Child Language, Berlin, July 2005.
Nicoladis E., Pika S., & Marentette P. 2006 Are non-arbitrary number symbols easier than conventional ones? Paper presented at the Jean Piaget Society, Baltimore, MD, June 2006.
Nicoladis E., Pika S., & Marentette P. 2007 Are iconic gestures linked with the sensori-motor schemas of the corresponding words? Manuscript submitted for publication.
Nicoladis E., Pika S., Yin H., & Marentette P. 2007 Gesture use in story recall by Chinese–English bilinguals. Manuscript submitted for publication.Google Scholar
Pearson B. Z., Fernández S. C., Lewedag V., & Oller D. K. 1997 The relation of input factors to lexical learning by bilingual infants (ages 10 to 30 months). Applied Psycholinguistics, 18, 41– 58.Google Scholar
Pika S., Nicoladis E., & Marentette P. 2006 A cross-cultural study on the use of gestures: Evidence for cross-linguistic transfer? Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 9, 319– 327.Google Scholar
Ravizza S. 2003 Movement and lexical access: Do noniconic gestures aid in retrieval? Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 10, 610– 615.Google Scholar
Saltz E., & Donnenwerth-Nolan S. 1981 Does motoric imagery facilitate memory for sentences? A selective interference test. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 20, 322– 332.Google Scholar
Scheflen A. E. 1972 Body language and the social order: Communication as behavioral control. Englewood Cliffs, NJ/New York: Prentice Hall.
Sherman J., & Nicoladis E. 2004 Gestures by advanced Spanish–English second-language learners. Gesture, 4, 143– 156.Google Scholar
Tellier M. 2006 The effect of teaching gestures in second language vocabulary teaching. Paper presented at the Workshop on Gestures in Language Development, Groningen, The Netherlands, April 21, 2006.
Ullman M. T., Corkin S., Coppola M., Hickok G., Growden J. H., Koroshetz W. J., et al. 1997 A neural dissociation within language: Evidence that the mental dictionary is part of declarative memory, and that grammatical rules are processed by the procedural system. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 9, 266– 276.Google Scholar
Wagner S. M., Nusbaum H., & Goldin-Meadow S. 2004 Probing the mental representation of gesture: Is handwaving spatial? Journal of Memory and Language, 50, 395– 407.Google Scholar
Werner H., & Kaplan B. 1984 Symbol formation: An organismic–developmental approach to the psychology of language. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Wesp R., Hesse J., Keutmann D., & Wheaton K. 2001 Gestures maintain spatial imagery. American Journal of Psychology, 114, 591– 600.Google Scholar