Gesture - Volume 24, Issue 1, 2025

Abstract

Human communicative discourse can be understood as a form of nano-scale niche construction. If our burst-like communicative moves in the medium of language are to create niches that persist long enough to be exploited as shared informational environments, then we need ways to bind individual moves into larger, temporarily stable structures. One important resource for this purpose is multimodality, as found in pioneering work in gesture research by Adam Kendon and by David McNeill, among others. The discussion points to areas where gesture studies and evolutionary approaches to human communication have potential for collaboration and innovation.

Abstract

The study investigated whether the perspective of multimodal input in visuospatial maps predicts children’s spatial performance, particularly verbal recall and direction-following behavior. 5-year-old monolingual Turkish children were engaged in the Directions Task, which included visuospatial maps and videos of a speaker describing routes on maps in three conditions: Speech-Gesture combination with a front-facing view, Speech-Gesture combination with an upper back angle, and Speech-only condition with a front-facing view for control. Children were asked to verbally recall and draw the route described in the videos. They also engaged in perspective-taking, mental rotation, and relational reasoning tasks. Results showed that children’s verbal recall, but not necessarily behavioral recall, was enhanced by receiving multimodal directions. Moreover, children’s relational reasoning and perspective-taking abilities modulate their verbal recall performances. The results of this study underline the importance of multimodal input and presentation perspective in enhancing children’s spatial performance.

Abstract

This paper challenges the common belief that first language (L1) speakers simplify their language when communicating with second language (L2) users, which is captured in Charles Ferguson’s ‘Foreigner Talk’ hypothesis. Academic research has long suggested that, along with simplified vocabulary and syntax, L1 speakers use more illustrative and larger gestures to accommodate L2 addressees. Since this stereotype remains empirically unverified, we analyzed L1 gesture production in two video corpora, implementing automated motion-tracking techniques to measure gesture size. We found that L1 speakers produced larger gestures when describing a picture to an L2 addressee than to an L1 addressee, whereas this difference did not occur during free conversation. In both communicative tasks, however, they used more deictic gestures and organized their gesture space to structure the interaction. In sum, gesture qualifies as a versatile resource in L1–L2 interaction, which is tailored to the conversational task at hand.

Abstract

Gestures integrate with speech and support planning and delivery. This study examined whether restricting gesture degrades simultaneous interpreting quality. Eight L1-Spanish interpreters rendered two matched English speeches (EN→ES) in a within-subjects design: gestural (as usual) and non-gestural (hands holding a table-mounted bar). Outputs were rated on accuracy, terminology, cohesion and prosody; pauses and self-repairs indexed fluency. Inter-rater reliability for total scores was acceptable (Spearman ρ = .614, p < .01). Quality declined without gesture: total weighted score 8.2 vs. 7.0, t test p = .0003. All criteria fell (accuracy p = .0001; prosody p = .0012; cohesion p = .0072; terminology p = .0185). Fluency worsened, with more pauses/self-repairs (21.3 vs. 27.6 per speech), t(7) = 3.58, p = .009. No participant improved on any criterion. Findings indicate that preventing gesture removes a resource that supports management of parallel demands on comprehension, memory, and production in a complex language task.

This article reviews Gazes, Words, and Silences in Pragmatics