Language is comprised of many different factors and facets that aid the flow of information and communication cross-culturally. One of these factors is gestures and their ability to either enhance or suggest meaning. In the study by Zielinski and Wakefield (2021), gestures are defined as, “..spontaneous hand movements that are tied temporally and semantically to speech, and used naturally when we communicate with others”. Furthermore, they also break gestures down into multiple different categories. For example, a speaker can do a matching gesture which enhances the speech and serves to further the meaning of the speech. Conversely, a speaker may use a mis-matching gesture which adds additional meaning not found in speech. In the study by Zielinski and Wakefield (2021), the researchers use Polish-English bilingual students to measure if co-speech gestures have alternating benefits when used in languages of alternating proficiency. They concluded that co-speech gestures in narratives presented in students' second language have greater memory recall when matching gestures are used. Meaning that when a mis-matching gesture or the first language is used the effects are not found to be significant. Thus, gestures are only helpful when they reinforce the speech presented. The reason for this effect is thought to be due to increased dependence on gestures when listening in a second language as it increases learning (Zielinski & Wakefield, 2021). The idea of greater gesture dependence in a second language is not only limited to observation but also gesture enactment.
In a 2023 article by Oppici and colleagues, they speak about the importance of gestures in the learning process. They specifically focus on the importance of gesture production in L2 (Second language) learning. The article then states that semantically related gesture use (i.e. matching gestures) improves memory performance during L2 learning. Therefore this suggests that not only does gesture observation enhance L2 learning but also gesture enactment. Further in the article, the researchers also say gesture enactment is superior to gesture observation (Oppici et al., 2023). To support this claim the article cites many theories including the theories of Piaget and Popper which focus on the construction of schemas as the primary mode of learning, these schemas, however, may be better constructed via enactment rather than observation as enactment provides a more detailed construction (Oppici et al., 2023).
The precise use of gestures and their benefits may be hard to pinpoint due to the broad-scale applications of everyday gestures. However, researchers have been able to find uses for them in learning a second language and it seems that there are benefits all around. One can use gestures through either observation or even better, through enactment and find themselves learning a second language quicker. Therefore, we can assert that gestures should be used in addition to speech as posited by the research from Zielinski and Wakefield (2021) as well as Oppici and colleagues (2023).
References
Oppici L, Mathias B, Narciss S, Proske A. Benefits of Enacting and Observing Gestures on Foreign Language Vocabulary Learning: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Behav Sci (Basel). 2023 Nov 10;13(11):920. doi: 10.3390/bs13110920. PMID: 37998667; PMCID: PMC10669578.
Zielinski, N., & Wakefield, E. M. (2021). Language Proficiency Impacts the Benefits of Co-Speech Gesture for Narrative Understanding Through a Visual Attention Mechanism. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 43. Retrieved from https://escholarship.org/uc/item/63r5d3qq
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