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Gesture use in story recall by Chinese–English bilinguals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 September 2007

ELENA NICOLADIS ,
SIMONE PIKA ,
HUI YIN  and
PAULA MARENTETTE
ELENA NICOLADIS
Affiliation:
University of Alberta–Edmonton
SIMONE PIKA
Affiliation:
University of St. Andrews
HUI YIN
Affiliation:
University of Alberta
PAULA MARENTETTE
Affiliation:
University of Alberta–Augustana
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Abstract

Previous studies have shown inconsistent results concerning bilinguals' use of gestures to compensate for reduced proficiency in their second language (L2). These results could be because of differing task demands. In this study, we asked 16 intermediate English L2 speakers (whose first language [L1] was Chinese) to watch a story and tell it back in both languages. We attempted to link gesture use to proficiency while accounting for task complexity as measured by scenes recalled. The results showed that these L2 speakers told longer stories in their L1 and used more iconic gestures in their L2. There were also trends for the women to tell longer stories and use more gestures in their L2 compared to the men. These results are consistent with the idea that the relationship between gesture use and proficiency is mediated by task complexity. The trends for gender differences, however, point to the possibility that gesture use is also related to expressivity.

Type
Articles
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 28 , Issue 4 , October 2007 , pp. 721 - 735
Copyright
2007 Cambridge University Press

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