running head: gesture during story …web.pdx.edu/~jkh/hellermann lsa 2012 draft.pdfrunning head:...

Running head: GESTURE DURING STORY RETELLING IN LANGUAGE LEARNING CLASSROOMS 1

Abstract

Adding to the findings from experimental and psycholinguistic research on gesture by language learners

of the past ten years, this paper takes a micro‐ethnographic approach to understanding gesture use as it

is situated in language practices in a classroom setting. The study focuses on video recordings of five

beginning learners of English engaged in a classroom literacy event (story retelling). These events were

not elicited but captured on video recordings as part of a four‐year classroom recording project. The

paper describes the role of gesticulation (that is, spontaneous gestures of the hand) in organizing this

particular event. Implications are drawn for both teaching and learning and for a theory of the linguistic

nature of gesture.

Keywords: gesture, conversation analysis, embodied cognition, task interaction, adult learners

Full title: Gesture during story re‐telling in language learning classrooms: Reference and other work

GESTURES DURING STORY RE‐TELLING IN LANGUAGE LEARNING CLASSROOMS: REFERENCE AND OTHER WORK 2 Draft of paper for poster presentation at LSA 2012 in Portland. Comments are welcome. Please do not cite without permission of the author. [email protected]

Introduction

The study of the coordinated use of language and gesture has a long history (Efron, 1941)

though there has been a more recent renewal in work by Kendon and McNeill. This empirical and

theoretical work on the coordination of gesture with speech developed by researchers focusing on what

are called gesticulation or spontaneous gestures1 (Kendon, 1972, 1980, 2004; McNeill, 1992): hand and

arm movements used together with spoken language and without conscious planning. With

spontaneous gestures (as opposed to pantomimes or emblems (Ekman & Friesen, 1969), the meaning of

the gesture is underspecified and cannot be recovered without the speech with which it is used.

Research by Kendon (1967, 1972, 1980, 2004) and McNeill (1992, 2000, 2005) has been the most

influential in developing methods for studying gesture and language use. McNeill’s work, especially, has

been taken up by psycholinguists in the area of second language acquisition. This line of research

investigates the degree of visible coordination of co‐produced gesture and spoken language. This work

focuses on the semantic nature of gesture using McNeill’s theory of the common source for gesture and

speech (1992, 2005) and of gesture as evidence of the on‐line formulation of language as it is produced

for particular contexts: thinking for speaking (Slobin, 1996). Working in this theoretical tradition, SLA

researchers have focused on the degree to which gesture use by language learners is different in

different in learners first or subsequent languages (McCafferty & Stam, 2008; Gullberg, 1998;

McCafferty, 2002; Stam, 2006). Evidence from this research suggests that gestures are, to some degree,

language specific and it is suggested that for learners of a new language, an L2 system of gesture is

acquired as part of an L2 communication system (Choi & Lantolf, 2008; Gullberg, 1999, 2003, 2006;

Stam, 1999, 2006, 2008, 2010).

Another theoretical orientation to the relationship of gesture and language comes out of

research in linguistic anthropology (Goodwin, 1981; Goodwin & Goodwin, 1986; Kendon, 2004; Streeck,

1 Although there is an analytic difference, I will use the term gesture throughout the paper to refer to gesticulation.


2003, 2009), interactional sociolinguistics (Ford, Fox, & Thompson, 1996; Fox, 1999; Hayashi & Mori,

2006; Schegloff, 1984). This research considers gesture as more than a visible and embodied product of

cognitive linguistic processing. It is seen also as an object of interaction and co‐constructed language

and as such, a catalyst for both thought and speech (Johnson, 1987). While gesture is a visible, imagistic

expression that provides an instantaneous analogue of thought complementing spoken language, it can

be seen, at the same time, as an a device at the intersection of social interaction, the context of

participation, and individuals’ linguistic expressions. In this sense, gesture can play a role in the co‐

construction, reinforcement, and emergence of a grammar for a learned language during spontaneous

interaction.

Socio‐interactive research using methods from conversation analysis (CA) has long been

interested in the coordination between the body and language in use. Beginning with Schegloff’s

analysis of the coordination of manual gesture with naturally‐occurring talk (1984), researchers have

focused on the role of gesture (and gaze) in turn construction (Ford, Fox, & Thompson, 1996; Goodwin,

1986; Goodwin & Goodwin, 1986; Hayashi, 2003), turn‐taking, (Streeck, 1993; Streeck & Hartge, 1992;

Mondada, 2007), recognitional work (Sidnell, 2005), the co‐construction of articulating concepts for

learning (Koschmann & LeBaron, 2002). This research has shown the ways in which the gesture of

speakers and their interlocutors are crucial factors for producing orderly language interactions.

The socio‐interactive nature of gesture, this truly embodied aspect of communication has been

described in detail by Streeck (2009). Rather than looking for evidence of the common psychological

origin of gesture and speech, Streeck has investigated the truly embodied nature of language use that

includes the visible use of the body as producer of and product for language in interaction. From this

perspective, gestures of the hand should be seen as the hands’ representation of the world for other

and self. Gestures of the hand are co‐expressive with spoken language not in that they attempt to add

to or express an internal symbolic/semantic representation. Rather, Streeck proposes that gestures are


a conduit or connection of the body to the world around the body and exemplifies the complex,

everywhere/omnipositus nature of language. Although there may be generalizable semantic properties

to gestures, they are co‐expressive with speech in how they localize or specify for a particular context a

particular communicative intent. Gestures are where we can use a generalized linguistic symbol such as

chair to refer to a piece of furniture to sit on, with our hands, we can make that particular reference

more explicit with a gesture of the hands that situate it in time and space. Such a gesture may indicate

where the chair is, what type of chair it is, express some kind of action affiliated with a chair, or all of

these together.

This local, situated perspective to gesture has been used with CA research to investigate how

gesture facilitates the co‐construction of language among learners seeing the importance of the role of

gesture in embodied completions of turns (Olsher, 2004) and repair (Olsher, 2008). The use of gesture

for embodied completions by native speakers interacting with language learners was also shown to have

interactional import in implicating more talk by the learner in the turn following the embodied

completion (Mori & Hayashi, 2006). Gesture use between language learners and their tutors has also

been shown to function as an aid in defining problematic words (Belhiah, 2005) and in organizing word

searches (Park, 2007). Although these papers have studied interaction among non‐native speakers of a

language, no research on socially‐situated gesture has investigated the gesture use of language learners

to gain insight on language learning2 .

The recent work by conversation analysts and gesture researchers can be seen as part of a

paradigm shift that the field of second language acquisition (SLA) has taken due, in part, to the

recognition of a need for studies of learning to be conceptualized in new ways (Block, Ortega). Despite

some empirically validated findings regarding the development of L2 grammatical systems (Ellis, 2008),

recent publications (Batstone, 2011; Block, 2003; Eskildsen, 2009; Firth & Wagner, 1997; Author, Author,

2 Lazaraton (2004) has investigated gesture use by teachers.


& Author, 2011; Larsen‐Freeman, 2009; Ortega, 2010; Tarone et al. 2009) have called for more

comprehensive and contextualized approaches to research on language learners. Calls for such re‐

conceptualizations come from a wide range of theoretical perspectives including Vygotskian

Sociocultural Theory (Lantolf, 1996; Lantolf & Thorne, 2006), ethnomethodology (Firth & Wagner, 1997;

Author, 2008; Kasper, 2006; Markee & Kasper, 2004), Chaos/Complexity Theory (de Bot et al, 2005;

Larsen‐Freeman & Cameron, 2008), and cognitive linguistic theories of acquisition (Eskildsen, 2009;

Sanz, 2005). Theorists from each of these perspectives advocate for rigorous, contextualized empirical

description of language in use to show how different linguistic subsystems interact in SLA.

Part of this move toward more contextualized and process‐focused research into language use is

seen in the fast growing literature in two areas of SLA. One area is research on learners’ development of

language practices that draws on research from sociocultural and ethnomethodological theoretical

perspectives on language (Hall & Verplaeste, 2000; Kasper, 2006; Lantolf & Thorne, 2006; van Lier, 2004;

Young, 2003). Within this area are studies using insights from and the methodological strengths of

conversation analysis (CA) for the analysis of data from language learners. This research investigates

changes in language competence that is visible in sequential practices for language use that serve to

accomplish the recurring actions inherent in talk‐in‐interaction (author, 2008; Markee, 2008; Mori &

Markee, 2009; Pekarek Doehler, 2010). Research in this area has focused on ways to see learning in

language use for social interactions, for example, in the contextualized use of new lexical items, in the

noticing of learning objects, in starting and ending interactions, and in managing disagreements.

This particular project started after repeated viewing of the data from the corpus of video

recordings for other research on language learning. During this research (author, 2006, 2007, 2008;

Author et al, 2012), working with these data, our team found the number of gestures used by the

participants notable and warranted further investigation to discover the role those gestures play in the

organization of the interactions of the participants.


Using naturalistic data from classroom interaction and methods from conversation analysis, this

paper describes the results of an exploratory study of the use of gesture by adult English language

learners in a classroom setting. The data collection methods (see below) offer a unique window on the

ecology of the classroom, in this case dyadic interaction between learners in a full‐class setting doing a

story retelling task after sustained silent reading. The report describes how gesture is a visible semiotic

resource for interaction and learning in this particular context. The analysis of gesture with talk‐in‐

interaction in these situations shows visible evidence of embodied, situated cognition in gesture use for

purposes of meaning making in story re‐telling tasks. The longitudinal nature of the data also provide an

opportunity to look for evidence of language development as seen in the language practices (Pekarek

Doehler, 2010) of learners by focusing on gesture in sequences of talk of two learners that occur at

different points in time. After describing the data and methods for analysis, the first analytic section of

the paper describes the different gesture types and functions observed. The second analytic section

focuses on interactions involving one learner over the course of forty weeks to illustrate how changes in

gesture use might provide evidence of language development.

Data and Methods

The data for this study come from a large corpus of video recorded classroom interaction of

adult learners (authors, 2003). The classrooms were for beginning adult learners of English in the USA3.

The classes were held in a lab school setting (author, 2005) where two classrooms were each equipped

with six cameras and five microphones. Four cameras were fixed in the ceilings and provided complete

coverage of participants in the classroom. Two other cameras and two microphones in each classroom

3 The data collection for this project was supported, in part, by grant R309B6002 from the Institute for Education Science, U.S. Dept. of Education, to [Center name]. The [Project name] was a partnership between [university name] and [community college name]. The school and research facilities were housed at the university while the registration, curriculum, and teachers of the ESL students were from the community college.


captured dyadic interactions between learners. These cameras, also embedded in the ceiling, were

mobile and operated remotely. The classes were recorded continuously in two classrooms, three days a

week, for three hours, over four years.

For this study, the interactions of five beginning level adult learners of English were investigated

(2 L1 Mandarin; 3 L1 Spanish). Each of the learners participated in classes at the data collection site for

at least three ten‐week terms of study. During one year of the four year project, the teachers at the data

collection site tried a variation of sustained silent reading (McCracken, 1971) in their classes in which

every day, students were given 30 minutes to choose a book and read it alone. After the reading, the

teacher asked the students to speak briefly (usually 10‐15 minutes) about the book they had just read.

These dyadic interactions between students were transcribed and analyzed. Up to this point,

approximately 250 minutes of interactions involving the learners has been transcribed for talk and

gesture4.

Methods for transcription and analysis come from ethnomethological conversation analysis (CA)

(see Drew, 2005 for a recent overview). CA research is pre‐theoretical with respect to the analysis of any

spate of spoken interaction. The analyst attempts data‐driven analysis of the turn‐by‐turn sequences of

language in use. Through the construction of a sequential transcription, CA tries to show how

participants formulate social actions in their talk and how the sequences of talk and action co‐construct

micro‐level social organization. The analysis of data starts by making detailed written transcriptions of

the interactions without guiding research questions. The detailed transcriptions of language in use

attempt to represent a full range of sound production and timing of the participants’ language and

4 A program called (name of program) was used to access the video and to transcribe gesture and talk (Name of program (© NAME, NAME OF UNIVERSITY) is a proprietary software package for viewing streaming video from six cameras simultaneously. Two of the six cameras focused on learner‐learner dyadic interaction and it is from these camera views that the gestural coding was made.


includes notation of nonverbal behavior. A specialized system of transcription conventions has been

established (see appendix A) and is used to capture this detail.

Gestures are indicated in the transcript using and adaptation of McNeill’s system (see appendix

B). Descriptions of gesture are made to show how they serve to co‐construct language practices during

the interaction of the participants. When gestures were noted, the video was slowed to view the

interaction in a frame‐by‐frame manner to show the synchrony between talk and gesture in the

transcriptions. This synchrony was also checked by a research assistant.

By preparing detailed transcriptions of the talk and interaction, the analyst can show the

‘methods’ that participants use for formulating particular actions in the co‐construction of their

sequences of turns of talk. These methods are the repeated and expected lexical, syntactic, and

discursive ways to formulate actions through talk and include phenomena like restarting a turn of talk

(Schegloff, 1987), repairing talk (Schegloff, Sacks, & Jefferson, 1977), or prefacing marked (‘dispreferred’

in CA parlance) responses with hedges (Pomerantz, 1984). When analysts find phenomena in the data,

actions or particular turn constructions that are oriented to by the participants in the data as notable in

some way, the analytic question why that now? is raised to focus on describing how the participants

make their own interpretations of the talk and action visible to others in the interaction. This description

is done by repeatedly observing the sequence of talk around that point in the interactions. These

repeated observations are made by viewing recorded media with the transcriptions both privately and

in group data analysis sessions.

CA methods have been shown to be a valuable contribution to research on language learning

(Markee & Mori, 2009) particularly as a method for researchers who conceptualize language learning as

learners’ development of interactional competence (author & author, 2011). Also, due to its agnostic

stance on the competencies of participants in interaction, it allows the researcher to be more purely


descriptive focusing on what talk and interaction is produced than what talk might have been produced

(Firth & Wagner, 1997).

In summary, the focus for CA research is on the sequences of turns of talk and interaction and

actions formulated in that talk by the participants in the interaction. It is the orderly turn by turn

sequencing of language that makes the participants’ interpretations of their language and interaction

visible. Rather than analyzing elicited talk, writing, or standardized language assessments, CA

researchers look at sequences of language in language practices as the evidence for and analysis of

language structure. In the analysis reported here, a category system of gestures is not used to code the

data and conduct quantitative analysis of particular gestures. Rather, when gestures occur, they are

described in their relationship to the talk, action, and general context of the situation. In this way, the

hope is that we can better see the role of gesture as a semiotic resource used to co‐construct embodied

and situated discourse structure. Secondly, by investigating gesture in the context of a particular

learning situation, we can gain insight into the role that gesture plays in facilitating language learning in

dyadic interaction.

Keeping track: Gesture use for reference work during story retelling

The first set of excerpts in (1) and (2) provides a view of the way learners formulate a situation‐

appropriate level of specificity for references to definite entities from the story they are re‐telling. The

system of human language works within cultural and actional contexts that enable and necessitate using

shortcuts. Those we interact with expect the use of such shortcuts and we as subjects or in speaker

position expect just as much that those we interact with are expecting us to use conventional shortcuts

(Levinson, 1981; Sacks & Schegloff, 1979). For example, when referring to persons, speakers have a

number of lexical items to choose from during talk‐in‐interaction. I can refer to myself in a number of

ways including: I, me, myself, [first name], faculty member at [name of university] etc. The choice that is


made to refer to a person, for example, depends on with whom one is speaking, the context in which

the interaction is occurring, and the sequence of talk up to the current point in the interaction.

Language learners have the same choices before them. The choices of particular language to

encode a referent that language learners make will display that learner’s lexico‐grammatical

competence with the language (in English, in the examples from the previous paragraph, the use of

nominative or oblique case pronouns, reflexive pronouns, the construction of noun phrases with

embedded prepositional phrases) but also that learner’s competence to make discourse coherent and to

design turns for a particular recipient (Sacks, 1992, [1970 Spring lecture 4]). Previous longitudinal case

studies of beginning adult learners have shown evidence for this developing competence (author, 2008).

It appears that as learners gain more experience with the language, as their overall competence in the

language increases, their focus on what aspects of talk are oriented to as objects of explicit learning

shifts from lexico‐grammatical structures to discourse organization (author, 2009; Bardovi‐Harlig, 1998).

The set of excerpts in (1) compare the way one learner, Abby, does referencing work during

story re‐tellings at different points in time during her study at the data collection site. The excerpts show

the complex nature of referring to story, story characters, and story places in interaction and the role

that gesture plays in such formulations, they come from week 12 of Abby’s participation in classes at the

data collection site.

The first set of excerpts (1), highlights Abby’s choices for previously mentioned noun phrases

relevant to the story (the story itself, the characters, the setting) and how gesture and recipient design

are part of that formulation. The key points for the analysis of this excerpt are the way Abby references

her book and the characters in the story, and the way she formulates subsequent references to the first

mention.

Excerpt (1a) starts with a question from her peer, Fernando (line 21, what is your book). Abby

responds to Fernando’s question with the title of the book (lines 22‐23). Fernando follows Abby’s


answer with a change of state token oh and a re‐saying of part of the title and offering a positive receipt

token. Abby continues (line 25) by nodding and either confirming or repairing Fernando’s saying with

the affirmative token yeah and a full re‐saying of the title of the book, this time with a gesture that

conceptualizes writing5. The peak of this gesture occurs on the last word of the title: press. In discourse

analytic terms, the book title is a given referent and a gesture is not necessary for purposes of

highlighting this reference. It may be, however, that the gesture is used here for interactional reasons

(Bavelas, et al, 1992).

The sequence of talk just outlined started with a question‐answer adjacency pair followed by

Fernando’s third position (line 24) news token, resaying, and affirmation token. Abby expands the

sequence by nodding, affirming, and resaying the full title (line 25) adding the ‘writing’ gesture to the

resaying as a gestural upgrade (Olsher, 2008). Abby uses a gesture on the already mentioned and active

referent (the book title) as part of the practice for doing repair on Fernando’s partial re‐saying of the

book title.

(1a)

Abby, term 2: 01‐10‐03, 204, 2:45:15

21 F: what (.) is your book.

22 A: eh:::(.) my book is (.) my- (1) my book is eh easy (1) easy

23 story press.

24 F: oh press. (.) ┌mm hmm

25 A: └((nods)) [(yeah) ease story pres┌s.]

5 Streeck (2009) makes the distinction between a gesture used to depict and similar gestures used to conceptualize. This gesture by Abby does not depict writing because she is not looking at the gesture as she performs it. Rather, the gesture performs a more abstract conceptualization of writing.


r.h. moves above page like writing

26 F: └eh::

After some clarification of the task, Abby begins retelling her story (excerpt (1b), line 31)

highlighting new information with gestures. She uses the pronoun it to refer back to the story (a given

referent). She produces a beat gesture on the predicate of the clause, about and then in line 33 an

gesture with the word two (two fingers of her right hand are extended) and a beat gesture (the hand of

the two finger gesture moves down to the table) on people highlighting the new referent and the new

action of the referent from the story.

(1b)

31 A: what ┌i s i t ’ s a b o- it’s about it’s about ] mm

B B

32 F: └what is the pre- press

33 A: [ two people] [is talking, (.)] is

holds up two fingers B

The next sequence of talk continues from (1b) and shows Abby making her reference to the

characters (people) more specific through the coordination of gesture and talk. In (1c), after introducing

the two people and shifting her posture, at line 35, Abby specifies one of the two people with the


indefinite formulation one people, her right hand index finger extended on one and her hand coming

down on people. When she repairs that phrasing to one person, her index finger is raised prominently

again. Fernando offers an affirmative receipt token after this (line 36) and Abby continues with a more

specified formulation a woman, accompanied by a gesture. Abby begins to repeat the predicate in line

37 perhaps eliciting some display of receipt by Fernando who then collaboratively completes (Lerner,

1991) the predicate in line 38 with the specific person reference woman.

(1c)

33 [ two people] [is talking, (.)] is

holds up two fingers B

34 ((shifts posture))

35 [(.) one (.) one people one person, is a:: woman

holds up one finger B holds up one finger B

36 A: yeah

37 A: is a::]

38 F: woman

In (1c) we see Abby introduce characters in the story formatting the information from more

general to more specific and marking the new, more specific references with gestures (two people

talking one people one person woman). The self repair sequence in which this narrowing work

happens in line 35 is especially interesting as it shows how grammar can emerge incrementally and in an


embodied way (Fox, 1999) in interaction: Abby repairs people to person using a gesture iconic of the

concept ‘singular’, the raised index finger with the target form singular noun person. Here gesture is

used for discourse reference work as well as to help accomplish a sequence of self repair targeting a

language structure issue.

Following this introduction of characters, in (1d), the setting of the story (in the hospital) is

introduced which makes relevant even more specific formulation of the female character. The previous

referent in line 39, the story, is referred to with the pronoun it’s and without gesture and the new

information (hospital) is marked by a beat gesture. This new information is restated by Fernando

(hospital in the hospital) and then by Abby (line 42) who formulates it as a full clause with a pronoun

(he) for the already mentioned character (a woman). After Fernando’s receipt token, Abby self repairs

the pronoun gender (line 44) and formulates a more specific reference for the woman character

changing “he” to “she” and adding a predicate for the woman’s profession “is um nurse” (line 45). This

new information, the professional identification, is accompanied by a beat gesture and repeated by

Fernando (line 46).

(1d)

38 F: woman

39 A: it’s a: (.) [in the re- in the hospital, yeah]

B

40 F: hospital.

41 in the hospital,

42 A: he was in the hospital.

43 F: mm hmm


44 A: he he she she

45 is [um (.) nurse. yeah.]

B pencil on paper

46 F: she (.) ‘s a nurse. mnuh.

In (1d), the two new referents, hospital and nurse, are introduced as predicates of clauses and

each is accompanied by a beat gesture. This is similar to the referencing done in (1a‐1c) where new

referents at the start of the turn (grammatically, the theme position) were marked with a more

representational gesture (Ruiter, 2000) new information positioned near the end of the turn

(grammatically, the rheme position) were marked with beat gestures.

The set of excerpts in (1) show how gesture is used for reference work that constructs language

that is grammatically felicitous, textually coherent, and locally‐designed for a particular recipient. For

the most part, in relaying her story to her interlocutor, Abby mentions characters and places moving

from general to specific referencing and using gestures to mark the information that is new or salient in

the course of the telling. When gesture accompanied active, given referents we see that it was also part

of Abby’s repair work (in 1a, 1b, 1c).

In this interaction, gesture type is also ordered with respect to information status of the

referencing. When new referents are introduced at the start of the turn, they are accompanied by a

more representational gesture that transparently index some meaning of the verbal turn. When the new

referents are mentioned later in the turn, they were accompanied by non‐representational beat

gestures.

We saw also that after most of the references in which Abby relays new information regarding

her story, her interlocutor, Fernando, marked the receipt of that new information with re‐sayings (lines

23, 39, 41). The re‐sayings (rather than non specific receipt tokens such as mm hm, okay, etc.) are not


characteristic of sequences of talk in mundane conversation and show a co‐participant’s orientation to

new information that is marked with gesture and that re‐saying the new referent is a relevant next

action at this sequential point during story retelling.

The next excerpt (2) shows a slightly different use of gesture for discourse structuring work by

Inez, a Mexican Spanish speaking student also in her 2nd term of study at the data collection site. A

notable difference is her use of the full NPs for subsequent mentions of the referents followed by a

pronoun.

In (2), line 16, after some discussion about different insects, Inez re‐introduces one character

from her book (housefly) indicating either the picture or text from her book. After Marla’s receipt token,

Inez repeats the referent, again pointing to the book, and then reformulates the reference to the

pronominal form he repaired to she. Each pronoun is accompanied by a slight beat of the index finger on

the same place in the book. The repair of gender on the pronoun is accompanied by a slight head shake.

After Marla’s receipt in line 20, Inez packages the next definite reference in a similar way. The character

grasshopper (line 21) is accompanied by a pointing gesture to the book. After Marla’s receipt token in

line 22, Inez uses the pronominal form he for the next predication which I will gloss as ‘he is a negative

leader’.

(2)

2‐4‐03, 204, 2:52:00

16 I: [ housefly. ] [ * ]

points to book points to another place in book

17 M: housefly okay,

18 I: [ housefly is ((grimaces)) he: she: is bra::nf


points to book B B + shakes head

19 angry. angr┌y¿

20 M: └angry ye┌s¿

21 I: └angry, ┌with the grasshopper,

points to book

22 M: └angry mm hm

23 I: for grasshopper, he is (.) leider? leader negative

slight finger movement for all these

The type of gestures used in (2) suggests Inez relied on the text to a greater degree than Abby

did in (1) to keep track of the references during the story re‐telling. Inez keeps her right hand index

finger close to the book as a resource for her and her peer Marla who is looking at Inez and her book as

they interact. Such pointing by Inez is used for “data gathering” (Streeck, 2009, p. 69), to parse the

activity she is engaged in and to help her maintain focus on the available and needed semiotic resources

to re‐tell the story. Her peer, Marla, also orients to the use of pointing and locates for herself (looking in

the book) the references that Inez makes. We also do not see the match of representational gesture

with new information as we did in Abby’s retelling (1) where full NPs indexed new referents in the

discourse. Instead, Inez uses full noun phrase referents followed by pronouns both marked with pointing

or gestures rather than more abstract conceptual gestures. This formatting for referencing characters

from the text suggests a strategy of topicalization, not an influence of the Inez’s L1 but rather a general

characteristic of the pragmatic mode of language development (Givón, 1979).


Novice tellers: pointing to text

Although the interaction Inez and her peer in excerpt (2) suggested she had a lower level of

proficiency than Abby, interactions in the following excerpts come from learners who are even more

novices with English. In the following interactions, the re‐telling tasks by the learners involve much more

collaborative reading and as a s result, the gestures in these interactions are dominated by deictic type

gestures in which one or both participant either points to or traces over the written text as they read

and highlight portions of the text. In (3), after the sustained silent reading, the teacher instructed

students to ask one another what the title of their book is and where it takes place. Gongyi (foreground

in the screen grab) speaks with Angelica (white sweatshirt). The screen grab shows Gongyi leaning over

to Angelica’s book. With her right hand, she traces over the text in Angelica’s book as she reads.

(3)

2‐17‐03, 204, 2:45:35‐2:46:11

40 G: she pick up a piece, then she put it in a box for ( )

41 a piece for it in lies ( ). it is his

42 A: family

43 G: family ( )

44 A: (Bob)

45 G: (Bob)

46 A: telephone


47 G: telephone his fami- fami friends.

During this collaborative reading, Gongyi’s right hand moves across the text of Angelica’s book

as they read cooperatively. These re‐reading passages with tracing gestures are also punctuated by

representational gestures that are done to help define the particular words being read. From the same

interaction, in excerpt (4), Gongyi shifted her tracing hand (right hand) to her head as she read the word

haircut. In this case, as Gongyi struggles to enunciate the word haircut during her reading, the hand’s

conceptualization of the printed and spoken form haircut is done without as much for herself as it is for

her peer.

(4)

2‐17‐03, 204, 2:43:51

55 G: he’s getting a ( ) a bea- (.) cut

56 ah [air cut the air cut ]

r.h. moves from text to touch head moves off and touches head again

57 A: family


An interaction between two other novice readers (Eduardo and Vladimir) shows a similar role

for gesture (excerpt (5)). The pair are looking at and reading some words from Vladimir’s book about

volcanoes. Eduardo is moving his right hand index finger over the words he reads from Vladimir’s book

in lines 20, 22, and 24. In line 24, Eduardo utters a change of state token ah and comments on what he

just read (twenty feet). At this point, Vladimir raises both arms indicating height. Eduardo asks if

Vladimir needs clarification about the meaning of feet in the next line (26) punctuates this by pointing

upward while looking at his gesture.

(5)

2‐6‐03, 204 2:46:41

20 E: pom: (.) pei

21 V: pompy

22 E was ( under ┌ )

23 V: └( )

Lines 20‐23: Eduardo (with hat) and Vladimir read from Vladimir’s book. Vladimir points to text and pictures.

24 E: thirty feet ah twenty feet.

25 V: yeah ((pushes both hands and arms from neck to waist))

Line 25: Vladimir makes a downward gesture.


26 E: do you understand [the feet the * ]

Line 26: Eduardo points up, looks at the gesture, then looks to Vladimir.

27 V ffweh ((throws arms upward, like an explosion, looks at E))

Line 27: Vladimir makes an upward, exploding gesture.

28 E yeah. [the up. * ]

Line 28: Eduardo reiterates the depictive gesture.

29 V: city. city pompei

Locally contextualized re‐use of ‘open hand supine’ gesture

It has been suggested that some types of gesture carry generalized meaning with respect to the

action that they implement in an interaction. Such gestures function in a similar way to speech acts


(Kendon, 2004). One such gesture is a gesture in which the hand is open and the palm is facing upward,

the palm up open hand (Müller, 2004) or open hand supine (Kendon, 2004). The following excerpts (6)

show Abby’s use of this gesture. In (6a), Abby has told Dalia about some characters in her story when

she attempts to address a question from the teacher: when did the story take place. After thinking out

loud about when this part of her story took place, in line 57, Abby says the question again, with a kind of

perplexed to and raised pitch. After a three‐second pause, Abby makes the open palm gesture and shifts

her gaze to Dalia while saying no time. After some talk that is difficult to interpret, Dalia asks another

question about the story, the location (line 67) and, getting no more help about when this particular

part of the story happened, Abby concludes in line 68 with I don’t know when.

(6a)

Feb 7, 2003, 204, 2:46:56

57 A: what’s ↑time.

58 :

(3)

59 A: [ no time.]

Abby makes the palm up gesture and looks at Dalia

60 D: no time


61 A: mmyeah. this ((turns page)) [ *] Saturday morning.

points to book

62 it’s no it’s no point in the: it’s another: sente- another:

63 naw no. note.

64 D: when

65 A: note

66 D: hmm where. Mexico,

67 A: whe:n¿ (1.0) I don’t know when.

Just a minute later in the interaction, Abby uses what appears to be the same gesture but this

time in a coordinated way with her gaze and speech to suggest that she does not know the location of a

character and is looking for assistance from her peer. In line 83, Abby locates the character, Anita, in her

book and then gives a candidate location in New York with the palm up gesture. Her gaze, however,

remains on the text.

(6b) 2:48:10

80 D: let me read it. Anita is in New York.

81 A: [ ┌she is calling her nephew in New Yo:rk, ]

Abby points to text in the book as she reads

82 D: └she is call

83 A: [ Ani- Anita ] [in New York]


points to book r.h. palm up, gaze remains on page

84 [or her nephew ] [in New York. ]

points to a different place in the text r.h. palm up, gaze shifts to Dalia

85 D: it says ( )

(1)

86 D: nephew in New York

(3)

87 A: [ mmm oh. (.) nephew in] [ New York ]

pointing to text as she reads

88 D: yeah

In line 84, Abby produces the second part of an alternative type query or her nephew in New

York. Her hand moves to a different place in the text (presumably, locating nephew) and the when she

says New York, she repeats the open palm gesture but this time shifts her gaze to Dalia. This time, Dalia

responds with the information Abby is missing. She tells Abby that it is written in the text that nephew in

New York (lines 85‐86). Abby scans the text, finds the information, and reads it aloud. Here, the gesture

is used two times in a sequence to indicate information is lacking. During its second use, Abby’s gaze to

Dalia in combination with the gesture seems to be what elicits a response from Dalia.


Kendon (2004) writes that the palm up gesture has a metadiscursive effect of offering or

inviting. In these cases of Abby doing a story retelling task, the gesture has the specific effect of soliciting

assistance from a peer to help locate a time point in the story (unsuccessfully in (6a)) and to help locate

a location for one of the characters in her story (6b). More generally, we can consider it an instance of

Kendon’s and Müller’s (2004) gesture family as offering a space for or inviting a peer to assist or

comment. Other examples of the use of this gesture type was noted in the talk of Inez as well.

Summary of analysis

The excerpts presented in this report show the contextualized and contingent nature of gesture

with speech in naturalistic language in use. Using data from adult language learners in similar

interactional contexts, we saw how gesture is used together with speech for purposes of discourse

coherence. Though the purpose of the interactions was similar, the forms and functions of the gestures

varied from interaction to interaction. Representational and beat type gesture occurred in all

interactions. In excerpts (1) and (2) with Abby and Inez, we saw that representational and beat type

gestures are used to mark references made in a coherent narrative, a re‐telling of a story. Abby and Inez

used gestures to organize their story re‐tellings by marking the reference to new information with

gestures to suggest, to some degree, how active the referent is currently in the discourse (Givón, 1984).

When gestures were used with references active in the discourse, we saw that for Abby, there were

interactional reasons shown for gestural marking of these referents. In (1), Abby started the retelling by

introducing the title of her book before presenting characters in the book. She used a representational

gesture (writing) as part of a second mention of the title, which, with respect to marking a referent

would seem to be redundant. This second mention of the title of the book accompanied by gesture,


however, can be seen as part of the repair work that Abby does on Fernando’s incomplete saying of the

title.

Inez uses a similar structure for re‐telling her story in that she states the title and characters.

The reference to the characters, however, relies more on deictic gestures to refer to the characters as

they appear in print rather than conceptualizations of the characters in gesture. Topicalized, full noun

phrases are used to introduce the characters with their pronominal forms used in the same clause.

Previous research on the role of L2 gesture and discourse coherence (Gullberg, 2003, 2009,

2006; Yoshioka, 2008) found evidence for the over‐use of full noun phrases creating, potentially,

confusing references. For example, in making reference to people in discourse, learners in these studies

formulated utterances in the following way:

uh she has a a prescription (.) that she uh (.) give to the (.)

woman (.) who is in the reception (.) and the woman doesn’t

understand (.) and the woman (.) in the reception uh give the

prescription uh of (.) the (.) supervisor (.) of the pharmacy

(from Gullberg, 2003, p. 338)

The use of repeated definite references is potentially confusing for interlocutors. In this example, it

becomes less clear to whom the speaker is referring when the second and third use of the definite

expression the woman is used. Subsequent mentions of the same referent are expected to be marked

with anaphoric forms (Givón, 1984). Gullberg noted that in her data, learners use gesture to

disambiguate these overly‐definite (and potentially confusing) references. The gestures function

anaphorically to mark the overly‐definite references as active in the discourse (2003, 2006).


As we saw in the naturalistic data presented here, learners do not always use gesture to

disambiguate repeated definite references and used pronominal references even in the beginning

stages of learning6. From the data presented above, it appears that beginning learners use manual

gesture in a variety of ways to configure their talk‐in‐interaction around general principles previously

noted in CA research. In doing reference work, speakers minimize their reference to persons or things

yet also ensure that their references are explicit enough at that time for that particular interlocutor

(Sacks & Schegloff, 1979). In terms of sequential structure, gestures play a role in demarcating sequence

boundaries in sequence closing third position. Gesture also plays a role in doing repair work. The

consistency in the location of gesture during repair work was seen to give the reference a deictic

inflection (Gullberg, 2006; Kendon, 2004) visually highlighting the trouble source for repair.

The more abstract referential function of gesture that we saw used by Abby appears to be

contingent on a particular level of language proficiency. While we saw more reliance on the text for re‐

telling a story by Inez (a student in the level ‘B’ classes like Abby), the data from the two subjects in the

level ‘A’ courses (Eduardo and Gongyi) show this even more. Their spoken language use was heavily

reliant on printed text and gesture use for them focused on following the printed page to re‐read and

parse the text collaboratively. These deictic uses of gesture were supplemented with representational

types of gesture to illustrate for self and other a conceptualization of a printed word.

Finally, an example of a species of a particular gesture family was noted occurring during the

story retelling. The ‘open hand supine’ gesture as an invitation was shown to be used as part of practice

for indicating lack of knowledge and subsequently to solicit help in getting that knowledge. Although the

6 The differences I am seeing compared to what was found by Gullberg are likely the result of differences in the context of the data collection (elicited versus not elicited) and the L2 involved (English in my case, Swedish and French in the case of Gullberg). It could also be that pronominal forms are used for active references in my data because of the context of the language learning classroom. Although I never witnessed a lesson devoted to the explicit teaching of pronouns, personal pronouns became relevant in the explicit instruction of verb forms ‐‐ third person singular verb forms and the forms of be.


form of the gesture is fairly transparent, the interpretation of its function relies on observing how it is

used in coordination with the sequence of talk and action and the gaze of the gesture producer.

Conclusions: Contextualized gesture use, contextualized learning

The findings from this study have import for both the way gesture is conceptualized as part of

language and for understanding gesture for second language acquisition. First, the use of gesture with

spoken language is seen to be both a conscious practice and an unconscious artifact of language use.

While some research attempts to decontextualize the study of gesture in attempting to find its

psycholinguistic correlates, the goal of other gesture research is to describe and find the possibilities for

meaning making that gesture offers. Although the semantics of gesture are clearer in their functions as

emblems (the ‘okay’ sign) or pantomimes (drawing something in the air), even such conventionalized

signs are used in context and, therefore, contextualized. And as seen in the example of the ‘open hand

supine’ gesture above, such a gesture type or ‘family’ achieves its status as a member of that family

through negotiated use in context. Such negotiated and co‐constructed language use was uncovered

through the use of CA methods, methods that bring with them a focus on the dynamic nature of

language for the study of gesture with language in use and language structure. Such a perspective does

assume a separate abstract, linguistic system, but rather, looks to interaction as the foundation of any

linguistic system. The study of gesture in language use provides an appropriate focus for the

investigation of this dynamism. The written bias in the study of linguistics is widely known but still not

adequately heeded (Linell, 2005). Because of its dynamic nature and lack of codification in writing, the

study of gesture allows linguists to consider language use without this bias.

Finally, rather than exploring gesture use as language‐specific and proposing to find L2 learners’

gesture use in English to be influenced by L1 gesture, when investigating natural language use in

meaningful interaction, we see linguistic systems as systems of practical action through talk and


interaction. The findings here support the proposal by Pu (2011) that there are general discourse factors

that allow participants to track referents in an L2. They also provide evidence for the multi‐

competencies of multi‐lingual individuals using language and gesture in context to work toward

intersubjectivity and meaning making.

References

Author (2005). The "L

Author (2006). Applied Linguistics

Author, (2008). Social ac

Author, (2009). Looking for

Author and Author (2011) = H & PD chapter

Author, Author, and Author (2011) = Ed bk

Author 6 in LL

author 3 in TQ

Bardovi‐Harlig, K. (1998). Narrative structure and lexical aspect: Conspiring factors in second language

acquisition of tense‐aspect morphology. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 20(4), 471–508.

Batstone, R. (Ed.) (2010). Sociocognitive perspectives on language use and language learning. Oxford:

Oxford University Press.

Bavelas, J. B., Chovil, N., Lawrie, D. A., & Wade, A. (1992). Interactive Gestures. Discourse Processes, 15,

469‐489.

Belhiah, H. (2005). The partnership between vocal and nonvocal aspects of language in ESL tutorials: A

conversation analytical approach. Unpublished PhD dissertation. University of Wisconsin.

Block, D. (2003). The social turn in second language acquisition. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.


Brouwer, C. E. (2004).Doing pronunciation: A specific type of repair sequence. In R. Gardner & J. Wagner

(Eds.), Second language conversations (pp. 93‐113). London: Continuum.

Choi, S. J. & Lantolf, J. P. (2008). The representation and embodiment of meaning in L2 communication:

Motion events in speech and gesture in L2 Korean and L2 English speakers. Studies in Second

Language Acquisition, 30(2), 191–224.

De Bot, K., Lowie, W., & Verspoor, M. (2005). Second language acquisition: An advanced resource book.

London: Routledge.

Drew, P. (2005). Conversation analysis. In K. L. Fitch & R. Sanders (Eds.), Handbook of Language and

Social Interaction (71–102): Lawrence Erlbaum.

Efron, D. (1972). Gesture, race and culture; a tentative study of the spatio‐temporal and “linguistic”

aspects of the gestural behavior of eastern Jews and southern Italians in New York City, living

under similar as well as different environmental conditions. The Hague: Mouton.

Ekman, P., & Friesen, W. V. (1969). The repertoire of non‐verbal behavior: Categories, origins, usage,

and coding. Semiotica, 1(1), 49–98.

Eskildsen, S. (2009). Constructing another language: Usage‐based linguistics in second language

acquisition. Applied Linguistics, 30(3), 335–357.

Firth, A., & Wagner, J. (1997). On discourse, communication, and (some) fundamental concepts in SLA

research. Modern Language Journal, 81(3), 285–300.

Ford, C. E. (1993). Grammar in interaction: Adverbial clauses in American English conversations.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Ford, C. E. & Fox, B. A. (1996). Interactional motivations for reference formulation: He had. This guy had,

a beautiful, thirty‐two O:lds. In B. A. Fox (Ed.), Studies in anaphora (pp. 145‐ 168). Amsterdam:

John Benjamins.


Ford, C. E., Fox, B. A., & Thompson, S. A. (1996). Practices in the construction of turns: The "TCU"

revisited. Pragmatics, 6(3), 427–454.

Fox, B. (1999). Directions in research: Language and the body. Research on Language and Social

Interaction, 32(1–2), 51–59.

Givón, T. (1979). From discourse to syntax: Grammar as a processing strategy. In T. Givón (Ed.), Syntax

and semantics (pp. 81‐112). New York: Academic Press.

Givón, T. (1984). Universals of discourse structure and second language acquisition in W. Rutherford

(ed.), Language Universals and Second Language Acquisition (109–127). Amsterdam: John

Benjamins.

Goodwin, C. (1981). Conversational organization. New York: Academic Press.

Goodwin, C. (1986). Gesture as a resource for the organization of mutual orientation. Semiotica, 62

(1/2), 29–49.

Goodwin, C. & Goodwin, M. H. (1986). Gesture and coparticipation in the activity of searching for a

word. Semiotica 62(1/2), 51–75.

Gullberg, M. (1998). Gesture as a communication strategy in second language discourse: A study of

learners of French and Swedish. Lund: Lund University Press.

Gullberg, M. (2003). Gullberg, M. (2003). Gestures, Referents, and Anaphoric Linkage in Learner

Varieties. In C. Dimroth & M. Starren (Eds.), Information structure and the dynamics of language

acquisition (pp. 311‐328). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Gullberg, M. (2009). Reconstructing verb meaning in a second language: How English speakers of L2

Dutch talk and gesture about placement. Annual Review of Cognitive Linguistics, 7, 221–245.

Gullberg, M., & Homqvist, K. (1999). Keeping an eye on gestures: Visual perception of gestures in face‐to‐

face communication. Pragmatics & Cognition, 7, 35‐63.


Hall, J. K., & Verplaeste, L. S. (Eds.). (2000). Second and foreign language learning through classroom

interaction. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Hayashi, M. (2003). Language and the body as resources for collaborative action: A study of word

searches in Japanese conversation. Research on Language and Social Interaction 36(1), 109–141.

Johnson, M. (1987). The body in the mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Kasper, G. (2006). Beyond repair: Conversation analysis as an approach to SLA. AILA Review, 19, 83–99.

Kellerman, E., & van Hoof, A.‐M. (2003). Manual accents. International Review of Applied Linguistics,

43(3), 251–269.

Kendon, A. (1967). Some functions of gaze direction in social interaction. Acta Psychologica 26, 22–63.

Kendon, A. (1972). Some relationships between body motion and speech: An analysis of an example. In

A. W. Seigman & B. Pope (Eds.), Studies in dyadic communication (177–210). Elmsford, N.Y.:

Pergamon Press.

Kendon, A. (1980). Gesticulation and speech: Two aspects of the process of utterance. In M. R. Key (ed.),

The relationship of verbal and nonverbal communication (207–227). The Hague: Mouton.

Kendon, A. (2004). Gesture: Visible action as utterance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Koschmann, T., & LeBaron, C. (2002). Learner articulation as interactional achievement: Studying the

conversation of gesture. Cognition and Instruction, 20(2), 249–282.

Lantolf, J. P. (1996). Second language theory building: Letting all the flowers bloom! Language Learning,

46(4), 713–749.

Lantolf, J. P., & Thorne, S. L. (2006). Sociocultural theory and the genesis of second language

development. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Larsen‐Freeman, D. (2009). Adjusting expectations: The study of complexity, accuracy, and fluency in

second language acquisition. Applied Linguistics, 30(4), 579–589.


Larsen‐Freeman, D., & Cameron, L. (2008). Complex systems and applied linguistics. New York: Oxford

University Press

Lerner, G. H. (1991). On the syntax of sentences in progress. Language in Society, 20(4), 441‐458.

Levinson, S. C. (1981). The essential inadequacies of speech act models of dialogue. In H. Parret, M.

Sbisà, & J. Verscheuren (Eds.), Possibilities and limitations of pragmatics: Proceedings of the

Conference on Pragmatics, Urbino, July 8–14, 1979 (473–492). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Linell, P. (2005). The written language bias in linguistics: Its nature, origins and transformations. London:

Routledge.

Markee, N. (2008). Toward a learning behavior tracking methodology for CA‐for‐SLA. Applied Linguistics,

29(3), 404–427.

Markee, N., & Kasper, G. (2004). Classroom Talks: Introduction to the special issue. Modern Language

Journal, 88(4), 491–500.

McCafferty, S.G. (2002). Gesture and creating zones of proximal development for second language

learning. The Modern Language Journal, 86(2), 192–203.

McCafferty, S.G. (2004). Space for cognition: Gesture and second language learning. International

Journal of Applied Linguistics, 14(1), 148–165.

McCafferty, S.G. (2006). Gesture and the materialization of second language prosody. International

Review of Applied Linguistics, 44(4), 195–207.

McCafferty, S. G., & Stam, G. (Ed.). (2008). Gesture: Second language acquisition and classroom

research. New York: Routledge.

McCraken, R. A. (1971). Initiating sustained silent reading. Journal of Reading, 14, 521‐524; 582‐583.

McNeill, D. (1992). Hand and mind: What gestures reveal about thought. Chicago: University of Chicago

Press.

McNeill, D. (Ed.). (2000). Language and gesture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.


McNeill, D. (2005). Gesture and thought. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Mori, J. & Markee, N. (2009). Language learning, cognition, and interactional practices: An introduction.

International Review of Applied Linguistics, 47(1), 1–9.

Mori, J., & Hayashi, M. (2006). The achievement of intersubjectivity through embodied completions: A

study of interactions between first and second language speakers. Applied Linguistics, 27(2),

195–219.

Müller, C. (2004). The palm‐up‐open‐hand. A case of a gesture family? In C. Müller & R. Posner (eds.),

The semantics and pragmatics of everyday gestures, pp. 233‐256. Berlin: Weidler Verlag.

Olsher, D. (2004). Embodied completions. In R. Gardner & J. Wagner (Eds.), Second language

conversations (221–245). London: Continuum.

Olsher, D. (2008). Gesturally enhanced repeats in the repair turn: Communication strategy or cognitive

language‐learning tool? In S. G. McCafferty & G. Stam (Eds.), Gesture: Second language

acquisition and classroom research (109–130). New York: Routledge.

Ortega, L. (2009). Understanding second language acquisition. London: Hodder.

Ortega, L. (2010). The bilingual turn in SLA. Plenary talk at the American Association for Applied

Linguistics, March 6‐9, Atlanta, Georgia.

Park, I. (2007). Co‐construction of word search activities in native and non‐native speaker interaction.

Teachers College, Columbia University, Working Papers in TESOL & Applied Linguistics 7(2), 1–23.

Pekarek Doehler, S. (2010). Conceptual changes and methodological challenges: On language and

learning from a conversation analytic perspective on SLA. In P. Seedhouse, S. Walsh, & C. Jencks

(Eds.), Conceptualizing ‘learning’ in applied linguistics (105–126). Baskingstoke, UK: Palgrave

Macmillan

DeRuiter J. P. (2000). The production of gesture and speech. In McNeill D (ed.) Language and Gesture.

(pp. 201‐226). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.


Sacks, H. (1992). Lectures on conversation. Oxford: Blackwell.

Sacks, H., Schegloff, E., & Jefferson, G. (1974). A simplest systematics for the organization of turn‐taking

for conversations, Language, 50(4), 696–735.

Sacks, H., & Schegloff, E. A. (1979). Two preferences in the organization of reference to persons in

everyday conversation and their interaction. In G. Psathas (Ed.), Everyday language: Studies in

ethnomethodology (15–21). New York: Irvington.

Sanz, C. (ed.). (2005). Mind and context in adult second language acquisition. Washington, D.C.:

Georgetown University Press.

Schegloff, E. (1991). Reflections on talk and social structure. In D. Boden & D. H. Zimmerman (Eds.), Talk

and social structure (44–70). Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Schegloff, E. A. (1984). On some gestures' relation to talk. In J. M. Atkinson & J. Heritage (Eds.),

Structures of social action (266–296). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Schegloff, E. A. (1987). Recycled turn beginnings. In G. Button & J. R.E. Lee (Eds.), Talk and social

organization (70–85). Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters.

Schegloff, E. (1991). Reflections on talk and social structure. In D. Boden & D. H. Zimmerman (Eds.), Talk

and Social Structure (pp. 44‐70). Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Schegloff, E. A. (2000). Overlapping talk and the organization of turn‐making for conversation. Language

in Society, 29(1), 1–63.

Schegloff, E. A. (2007). Sequence organization in interaction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Schegloff, E. A. (2009). One perspective on conversation analysis: Comparative perspectives. In J. Sidnell

(Ed.), Conversation analysis: Comparative perspectives (357–406). Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press.

Slobin, D. I. (1996). From "thought and language" to "thinking for speaking". In J. J. Gumperz & S. C.

Levinson (Eds.), Rethinking linguistic relativity (70–96). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.


Stam, G. (1999). Speech and gesture: What changes first in L2 acquisition? Paper presented at the

Second Language Research Forum, September 23‐25, Minneapolis, MN.

Stam, G. (2006). Thinking for speaking about motion: L1 and L2 speech and gesture. International

Review of Applied Linguistics, 44(2), 145–171.

Stam, G. (2008). What gestures reveal about second language acquisition. In S. G. McCafferty & G. Stam

(Eds.), Gesture: Second language acquisition and classroom research (231–255). New York:

Routledge.

Stam, G. A. (2010). Can an L2 speaker’s patterns of thinking for speaking change? In Z. Han & T. Cadierno

(Eds.), Linguistic relativity in SLA (pp. 59‐83). Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters.

Streeck, J. (1993). Gesture as communication I: Its coordination with gaze and speech. Communication

Monographs, 60(4), 275–299.

Streeck, J. (2003). The body taken for granted: Lingering dualism in research on social interaction. In P.

Glenn, C. D. LeBaron & J. Mandelbaum (Eds.), Studies in language and social interaction (427–

440). Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Streeck, J. (2009). Gesturecraft: The Manufacture of Meaning. Amsterdam: Benjamins

Streeck, J., & Hartge, U. (1992). Previews: Gestures at the transition place. In P. Auer & A. di Luzio (Eds.),

The contextualisation of language (135–157). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Tarone, E., Bigelow, M. & Hansen, K. (2009). Literacy and second language oracy. Oxford: Oxford

University Press.

Yoshioka, K. (2008). Gesture and information structure in first and second language. Gesture 8(2), 236–

255.

Young, R. F. (2003). Learning to talk the talk and walk the walk: Interactional competence in academic

spoken English. North Eastern Illinois University Working Papers in Linguistic, 2, 26–44.


Appendix A. Transcription conventions (adapted from Schegloff, 2000)

┌ the start of simultaneous talk

└

= ‘latched utterances’ no break or pause between utterances

(1.5) Numbers in parentheses indicate silence, represented in tenths of a second.

(..) Period in parentheses indicate a micropauses less than .5 seconds.

. A period indicates a falling intonation contour, not necessarily the end of a sentence

? Question marks indicate high rising intonation.

¿ Inverted question marks indicate rising intonation, not as high as regular question mark.

, A comma indicates ‘continuing’ intonation.

:: Colons are used to indicate the stretching of the sound just preceding them. The more colons,

the longer the stretching.

‐ A hyphen after a word or part of a word indicates a cut‐off or self interruption

wordy Underlining is used to indicate pitch accent.


↑↓ The up and down arrows mark sharper rises or falls in pitch.

WORdy Capital letters are used to indicate increased volume.

°we° Markedly quiet or soft stretches of talk are included between degree signs

>< The combination of ‘more than’ and ‘less than’ symbols indicates that the

talk between them is compressed or rushed.

<> Used in the reverse order, they can indicate that a stretch of talk is

markedly slowed or drawn out.

hhh audible out‐breath

.hh audible in‐breath

(( )) Descriptions of events: ((cough)), ((sniff)), ((telephone rings)), ((footsteps))

(word) All or part of an utterance in parentheses indicates transcriber uncertainty

( ) empty parentheses indicate something was said but the transcriber cannot

recover it in any way


# creaky voice

$ smile voice

Appendix B. Gesture transcription conventions (adapted from McNeill, 2005).

Square brackets [ ] enclose the text with which a gesture phrase occurs. The gesture phrase is

the start of the hand movement from rest position to the end of the hand movement. In the excerpt

below, the gesture phrase starts before the speaker says “after” and ends after the speaker says

“school”.

07 I: to do today [ after the school]

points behind herself

Bold font indicates the location of a gestural stroke, that is, the lexical affiliate on which the peak of the

movement of the gesture occurs. Asterisks indicate a gesture stroke where there is no lexical affiliate. In

the same example, above, the peak or stroke of the gesture occurs on the word “after”.

Italics below the gestural phrase in brackets describe the gesture. In the example, the speaker is

pointing behind herself. A B indicates a ‘beat gesture’ which is a short rhythmic movement that

punctuates talk.

running head: gesture during story …web.pdx.edu/~jkh/hellermann lsa 2012 draft.pdfrunning head:...

Documents