Handgebaren in interacties met anderstaligen: een detailanalyse

Abstract

Foreigner Talk refers to a repertoire of linguistic and non-verbal strategies that a language community regards as appropriate in interactions with less proficient L2 speakers. Such adaptations often include the use of hand gestures, as illustrated by different communication guidelines. However, research on gestures in Foreigner Talk has almost exclusively focused their ability to illustrate concrete actions and objects, limiting our understanding of how more abstract gestures can be helpful in interactions with L2 speakers. In this paper, we propose a qualitative analysis of gestures in four excerpts from a corpus of semi-spontaneous conversations between L1 and L2 speakers and we highlight gestures that motivate their meaning at different degrees of abstraction.