Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-29T01:14:52.543Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Gesture restriction affects French–English bilinguals’ speech only in French*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2014

ANGÉLIQUE LAURENT  and
ELENA NICOLADIS
ANGÉLIQUE LAURENT*
Affiliation:
Université de Sherbrooke
ELENA NICOLADIS
Affiliation:
University of Alberta
*
Address for correspondence: Angélique Laurent, Département de psychoéducation, Faculté d’éducation, Université de Sherbrooke, 2500, boul. de l’Université, Sherbrooke (Québec) J1K 2R1, Canada[email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Some studies have shown that bilinguals gesture more than monolinguals. One possible reason for the high gesture frequency is that bilinguals rely on gestures even more than monolinguals in constructing their message. To test this, we asked French–English bilingual adults and English monolingual adults to tell a story twice; on one occasion they could move their hands and on the other they could not. If gestures aid bilinguals in information packaging and/or lexical access, bilinguals should tell shorter stories with fewer word types than monolinguals when their gestures are restricted. In fact, we found that gesture restriction affected bilinguals’ stories only in French, the language in which they used more gestures. These findings challenge the interpretation that bilinguals gesture frequently as an aid in constructing their message. We argue that cultural norms in gesture frequency interact with gesture use in message construction.

Keywords

bilingual adultsspeech productiongesture usecultural norms
Type
Research Article
Information
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , Volume 18 , Special Issue 2: L3 Acquisition: A Focus on Cognitive Approaches , April 2015 , pp. 340 - 349
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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.)

Footnotes

*

We would like to thank all the participants, the research assistants, and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful feedback on an earlier version of the paper. This study received funding from a grant to the second author from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

References

Alibali, M. W. (2005). Gesture in spatial cognition: Expressing, communicating, and thinking about spatial information. Spatial Cognition and Computation, 5, 307–331.Google Scholar
Barzini, L. (1964). The Italians. London: Hamish Hamilton.Google Scholar
Beattie, G., & Shovelton, H. (1999). Mapping the range of information contained in the iconic hand gestures that accompany spontaneous speech. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 18, 438–462.Google Scholar
Dart, S. N. (1992). Narrative style in the two languages of a bilingual child. Journal of Child Language, 19, 367–387.Google Scholar
Efron, D. (1941). Gesture and environment. New York: Kings Crown Press.Google Scholar
Genesee, F., Nicoladis, E., & Paradis, J. (1995). Language differentiation in early bilingual development. Journal of Child Language, 22, 611–631.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
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., & Acenas, L.-A. R. (2004). What is a TOT? Cognate and translation effect on tip-of-the-tongue states in Spanish–English and Tagalog–English bilinguals. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 30, 246–269.Google ScholarPubMed
Grosjean, F. (2001). The bilingual's language modes. In Nicol, J. L. (ed.), One mind, two languages: Bilingual language processing, pp. 1–22. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Gullberg, M. (1999). Communication, strategies, gestures, and grammar. Acquisition et Interaction en Langue Etrangère, 2, 61–71.Google Scholar
Hostetter, A. B., & Alibali, M. W. (2008). Visible embodiment: Gestures as simulated action. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 15, 495–514.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hostetter, A. B., Alibali, M. W., & Kita, S. (2007). I see it in my hands’ eye: Representational gestures reflect conceptual demands. Language and Cognitive Processes, 22, 313–336.Google Scholar
Hostetter, A. B., & Skirving, C. J. (2011). The effect of visual vs. verbal stimuli on gesture production. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 35, 205–223.Google Scholar
Iverson, J. M., Capirci, O., Volterra, V., & Goldin-Meadow, S. (2008). Learning to talk in a gesture-rich world: Early communication of Italian vs. American children. First Language, 28, 164–181.Google Scholar
Iverson, J. M., & Goldin-Meadow, S. (1997). What's communication got to do with it? Gesture in children blind from birth. Developmental Psychology, 33, 453–467.Google Scholar
Kendon, A. (1992). Some recent work from Italy on quotable gestures (‘emblems’). Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 2, 72–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kendon, A. (1995). Gestures as illocutionary and discourse structure markers in Southern Italian conversation. Journal of Pragmatics, 23, 247–279.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kendon, A. (2004). Gesture: Visible action as utterance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kita, S. (2000). How representational gestures help speaking. In McNeill, D. (ed.), Language and gesture: Window into thought and action, pp. 162–185. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kita, S., & Davies, T. S. (2009). Competing conceptual representations trigger co-speech representational gestures. Language and Cognitive Processes, 24, 761–775.Google Scholar
Krauss, R. M., Chen, Y., & Chawla, P. (1996). Nonverbal behaviour and nonverbal communication: What do conversational hand gestures tell us? In Zanna, M. (ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology, pp. 389–450. San Diego, CA: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Kroll, J. F., Michael, E., Tokowicz, N., & Dufour, R. (2002). The development of lexical fluency in a second language. Second Language Research, 18, 137–171.Google Scholar
Laurent, A., Nicoladis, E., & Marentette, P. (2010). Discours, gestes et dominance linguistique: une étude développementale. Enfance, 3, 275–285.Google Scholar
Marcos, L. R. (1979). Nonverbal behavior and thought processing. Archives of General Psychiatry, 36, 940–943.Google Scholar
McNeill, D. (1992). Hand and mind. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
McNeill, D. (2005). Gesture and thought. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Nagpal, J., Nicoladis, E., & Marentette, P. (2011). Does proficiency or task difficulty explain bilinguals’ gesture? International Journal of Bilingualism, 15, 205–214.CrossRefGoogle 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., Mayberry, R., & Genesee, F. (1999). Gesture and early bilingual development. Developmental Psychology, 35, 514–526.Google Scholar
Nicoladis, E., Nagpal, J., & Marentette, P. (2011). Language proficiency and culture affect bilinguals’ gesture frequency. Presented at the American Association for Applied Linguistics, Chicago, IL.Google Scholar
Nicoladis, E., & O’Carroll, S. (2012). “I gesture a lot because I’m French”: The myth of French as a high gesture frequency language. Presented at the International Society for Gesture Studies, Lund, Sweden.Google Scholar
Nicoladis, E., Pika, S., & Marentette, P. (2009). Do French–English bilingual children gesture more than monolingual children? Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 38, 573–585.Google Scholar
Nicoladis, E., Pika, S., Yin, H., & Marentette, P. (2007). Gesture use in story recall by Chinese–English bilinguals. Applied Psycholinguistics, 28, 719–733.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pika, S., Nicoladis, E., & Marentette, P. (2006). Across-cultural study on the use of gestures: Evidence for cross linguistic transfer? Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 9, 319–327.Google Scholar
Rauscher, F. H., Krauss, R. M., & Chen, Y. (1996). Gesture, speech, and lexical access: The role of lexical movements in speech production. Psychological Science, 7, 226–231.Google Scholar
Sherman, J., & Nicoladis, E. (2004). Gestures by advanced Spanish–English second-language learners. Gesture, 4, 143–156.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smithson, L., & Nicoladis, E. (2013). Verbal memory resources predict iconic gesture use among bilinguals and monolinguals. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 16, 934–944.Google Scholar
Smithson, L., Nicoladis, E., & Marentette, P. (2011). Bilingual children's gesture use. Gesture, 11, 330–347.Google Scholar
So, W. C. (2010). Cross-cultural transfer in gesture frequency in Chinese–English bilinguals. Language and Cognitive Processes, 25, 1335–1353.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stevanoni, E., & Salmon, K. (2005). Giving memory a hand: Instructing children to gesture enhances their event recall. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 29, 217–233.Google Scholar
Wesp, R., Hesse, J., Keutmann, D., & Wheaton, K. (2001). Gestures maintain spatial imagery. American Journal of Psychology, 114, 591–600.Google Scholar