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Handling discourse: Gestures, reference tracking, and communication strategies in early L2

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Author

Summary, in English

The production of cohesive discourse, especially maintained reference, poses problems for early second language (L2) speakers. This paper considers a communicative account of overexplicit L2 discourse by focusing on the interdependence between spoken and gestural cohesion, the latter being expressed by anchoring of referents in gesture space. Specifically, this study investigates whether overexplicit maintained reference in speech (lexical noun phrases [NPs]) and gesture (anaphoric gestures) constitutes an interactional communication strategy. We examine L2 speech and gestures of 16 Dutch learners of French retelling stories to addressees under two visibility conditions. The results indicate that the overexplicit properties of L2 speech are not motivated by interactional strategic concerns. The results for anaphoric gestures are more complex. Although their presence is not interactionally motivated, their spatial articulation is. A learner‐ and processing‐oriented account for both speech and gesture is discussed.

Publishing year

2006

Language

English

Pages

155-196

Publication/Series

Language Learning

Volume

56

Issue

1

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Wiley-Blackwell

Topic

  • General Language Studies and Linguistics

Keywords

  • visibility
  • communication strategies
  • reference tracking
  • gesture
  • second language acquisition
  • discourse
  • information structure

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 0023-8333