Bilinguals’ gestures Elena Nicoladis University of Alberta

Speech-gesture system McNeill (1992) argued that “speech” should be called the speech-gesture system Evidence: –Gestures mean the same things as co-occurring speech –Gestures are usually timed with similar meaning words –Aphasia affects gestures

Why gesture? Maybe to organize our own thoughts –People remember more words when free to gesture than when not –Children gesture more when a task is difficult –Problem-solving can emerge earlier on the hands than in speech for children –People gesture when talking on the phone and to themselves

Why gesture? Maybe to help the listener understand –People tend to gesture more with low frequency word combinations than high Maybe both for ourselves and our listeners –Gesture may have as many functions as speech

Bilinguals’ gestures Bilinguals often speak one language better –Gestures might compensate for weak proficiency (so, be for the listener) –Gestures might correspond to level of proficiency Bilinguals might activate both languages at once all the time –Gesture rate might not be suppressed

Bilingual gestures: compensation? Do bilinguals use more gestures with their weaker language to compensate for their weak proficiency? One study with 4 French-English bilingual children showed that children did not gesture more in their weaker language (Nicoladis & Genesee, 1996)

But, there are different kinds of gestures Iconic gestures –Symbolic, e.g., walking or bird Deictic gestures –Pointing, even abstractly Conventional gestures –Culture-specific gestures like number gestures

Iconic gestures-speech McNeill’s studies refer exclusively to iconic gestures Children start using deictic and conventional gestures before they speak but iconic gestures only after they speak Maybe iconic gestures are more closely related to speech than deictic or conventional

First preschool study Study with five French-English bilingual boys, videotaped every six months, once in French and once in English, at 2;0, 2;6, 3;0 and 3;6 We transcribed their speech and coded their gestures

First preschool study We found that: –The more iconic gestures they used, the longer their utterances in each language –This was not true for deictic and conventional gestures Conclusion: iconic gestures strongly related to language development

Other evidence for kinds of gestures Other studies of aphasia have shown that iconic gestures are lost but not necessarily deictic or conventional As language loss occurs with aging, iconic gestures tend to get used less (no studies on conventional or deictic)

Second preschool study 8 French-English bilingual children between 3 and 5 years 4 were French-dominant and 4 were English-dominant Videotaped once in French and once in English

Conventional gestures

Deictic gestures

Iconic gestures

Second preschool study Children used more iconic gestures in their dominant language than their non-dominant language Not true for conventional or deictic gestures Children were more likely to use conventional or deictic gestures without speech when communicating in their weaker language

What about adults? One study with French-Swedish intermediate L2 learners showed that they used more iconic gestures in their L1 and more deictic gestures in their L2 (Gullberg, 1999)

Adult study 13 Spanish-English bilinguals and 13 English-Spanish bilinguals; all late learners All advanced bilinguals Watched a cartoon and told back the story Once in Spanish and once in English We coded iconic and deictic gestures

Iconic gestures

Deictic gestures

Adult summary Advanced bilinguals showed no difference in their two languages with iconic gestures They did use more deictic gestures in their L2

Interim conclusion Different kinds of gestures relate to language differently –Iconic gestures strongly related to language –Deictic conventional gestures can compensate for weak proficiency Maybe the iconic gestures help people to create longer utterances

Bilingual mode Some researchers argue that bilinguals have both languages activated all the time (Grosjean, 2000) This can explain how code-switching happens –As well as results of studies on language processing To speak one language (“monolinugal” mode), the other language is suppressed

Gesturing in bilingual mode What happens if a bilingual knows a high gesture language (like French or Spanish) and a low gesture language (like English)? If they are in bilingual mode all the time, bilinguals might use a higher rate of gestures than English monolinguals Because there is no need to suppress a high gesture rate

Adult study 10 English-Spanish bilinguals 10 French-English bilinguals 10 English monolinguals All watched a cartoon and told the story back The bilinguals did this twice, once in each language

Results in English

L1 vs L2

Summary of results Both French-English and English-Spanish bilinguals gesture more than English monolinguals in English Here there was no difference between the rate of gestures in L1 and L2 Maybe bilinguals do not suppress the high gesture rate of a high gesture language, even when speaking a low gesture language

Bilingual mode for preschoolers? Even bilingual children are thought to be in bilingual mode all the time (Grosjean, 2000) so these same results should hold for children This study: 10 French-English simultaneous bilinguals between 4 and 6 years and 10 English monolinguals of the same age

Results

Bilingual mode conclusions These results support the idea that bilinguals do not suppress a high gesture rate when speaking English Note that we cannot rule out an alternative explanation –Bilinguals gesture more than monolinguals because they have more word finding difficulty We need other monolingual comparisons

Conclusions Bilinguals’ gesture use shows that iconic gestures and speech are strongly related –They are used more often with greater proficiency –They are borrowed from a high gesture language Other kinds of gestures may compensate for weak proficiency

Conclusions Language is not just the spoken component Gesturing appropriately for a culture is part of one’s linguistic knowledge: –Conventional counting gestures –Gender differences in Chinese L1 learners of English AND gesture differences

Acknowledgements Paula Marentette Simone Pika Jody Sherman Natasha Tuck