Representational gestures correlated with meaning-associated aspects of L2 speech performance

Abstract

Gesture and speech are closely associated channels involved in conveying meaning. Previous studies have reported the relationship between gesture use and speech performance for highly proficient speakers. This study extends the investigation of this relationship by correlating the representational gesture rate and complexity, accuracy, and fluency measures for L2 speech produced by lower-intermediate-level EFL learners with Chinese as their L1. Three speech tasks were adopted with two activating concrete concepts and one abstract concepts. The results showed that the representational gesture rate was correlated with meaning-associated but not form-associated speech measures for L2 learners, and that the task type did not influence the relationship between gesture and speech. This study suggests that representational gesture use has a close relationship with meaning-related speech measures for lower proficiency L2 speakers when they talk about both concrete and abstract concepts.