Handling Discourse: Gestures, Reference Tracking, and Communication Strategies in Early L2

TLDR

Early L2 speakers struggle to maintain cohesive reference in discourse. The study examines whether overexplicit maintained reference in speech and gesture serves as an interactional communication strategy in early L2 discourse. The authors analyzed speech and gestures of 16 Dutch learners of French retelling stories under two visibility conditions. The study found that overexplicit speech is not driven by interactional strategy, whereas gesture use is more complex, with spatial articulation motivated by interactional concerns, suggesting a learner‑ and processing‑oriented account.

Abstract

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.