STUDIA UNIVERSITATIS BABEŞ-BOLYAI, PHILOLOGIA, LIV, 4, 2009
GESTURES AND PARALANGUAGE IN SECOND LANGUAGE
ACQUISITION: IMMERSION STUDENTS IN ROMANIA
DIANA ROXANA COTRĂU1
ABSTRACT. Gestures and Paralanguage in Second Language Acquisition:
Immersion Students in Romania. Of late, sociocultural theory has inspired a
number of applied linguists to forge new lines of research on second language
acquisition. Starting from the SCT (sociocultural theory) basic tenet that
language, culture and cognition are inextricably linked, and that no social
activity – learning a foreign language included – can be studied outside
the learner’s sociocutural context, linguists are trying to establish the ways in
which cultural specific concepts in the second language are internalized by
the L2 learner and the extent to which thinking and meaning making are, or
may be, coded in L2. This paper studies the way a group of immersion L2
advanced learners externalize their thoughts and experiences in the foreign
language and how they complement their language production with
paralanguage and gestures, for appropriate and efficient communication.
Keywords: sociocultural theory, immersion students, mediation, internalization,
self- and other-regulation
ZUSAMMENFASSUNG. Gebärden und Körpersprache in der Aneignung
der Zweitsprache: Immersion-Studenten in Rumänien. Die soziokulturelle
Theorie hat die Sprachwissenschaftler dazu angeregt, neue Forschungsrichtungen
im Bereich der Aneignung der Zweitsprache zu erfinden. Ausgehend vom
Grundsatz der sozialkognitiven Lerntheorie, dass die Sprache, die Kultur
und die Erkenntnis miteinander verbunden sind, und dass keine soziale
Tätigkeit, – die Erlernung einer Fremdsprache einbegriffen –, außerhalb
des soziokulturellen Zusammenhang des Lerners untersucht werden kann,
versuchen die Sprachwissenschaftler die Möglichkeiten festzustellen, wie die
kennzeichnenden kulturellen Begriffe in der Zweitsprache vom L2 Lerner
verinnerlicht werden, sowie inwiefern die Denkweise und die Bedeutungsbildung
in der Zweitrsprache verschlüsselt werden oder werden können. Der vorliegende
Beitrag untersucht die Art und Weise, wie die fortgeschrittenen L2 Lerner
ihre Gedanken und Erfahrungen in der Fremdsprache äußern, und wie sie ihre
Sprachproduktion mit Körpersprache und Gebärden zwecks entsprechender
Kommunikation ergänzen.
1
Diana Roxana Cotrău, Phd, Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, No. 1 Mihail Kogălniceanu St.,
[email protected].
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DIANA ROXANA COTRĂU
Introduction
Some substantial research on second language acquisition has set off on a
path less trodden, whose main paradigms are private speech as self-regulation: L2
learners organize their thinking by internalizing cultural specific concepts, and
gestures and paralanguage as an object-regulating task: when focusing on their L2
production, L2 learners may have to (and often do) resort to extra-linguistic help. It
is both through self-regulation and externalization that the L2 learners mediate
themselves, yet the outcome is nascent from more than a mere combination of the
two processes.
The basic query as to how L2 learners mediate themselves through the new
language has received several answers, most of which stem from the argument2
that late acquisition of languages (L2, L3, etc.) beyond the first are laid down on
the psychological foundation of the system of meanings already internalized in
one’s first language (L1). The second language will thus be incorporated into the
classification system available in the first language and will rely on the extant semantic
system. Thus, it has been said that although one may be capable of speaking
several languages – L2, L3, etc. in addition to L1, the inner speech is only one –
L1. In other words, our thinking processes operate in our L1 code. Indeed, studies
focusing on private, self-directed speech in L2 have revealed that even advanced
L2 speakers find it difficult to sustain complex thinking processes in L2. However,
more studies have found that extensive cultural immersion L2 learners are able to
internalize culturally organized L2 meanings and use them to mediate their
thinking, which thus may replace gradually and partially, but never completely, the
L1 semantics.
Sociocultural Theory and Second Language Acquisition
There are several approaches to acquiring a new language. It would seem,
however, that cultural immersion is among the more successful ones: learners acquiring
the language by residing in the country where L2 is spoken progress faster than
those learning it at home, be it in a formal institutionalized setting. The former are
in a cultural immersion situation that creates the congenial conditions for them to
internalize culturally specific meanings and organize their thinking (partially) in the L2
code. Eventually, this will enable L2 speakers to produce more appropriate L2 verbal
patterns and structures. Language, culture and thinking are essentially intertwined
in the process of second language acquisition and successful acquisition is grounded
on the internalization of the L2 cultural specifics.
2
Ushakova (1994) (cf. Lantolf, p. 110).
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GESTURES AND PARALANGUAGE IN SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION…
It is along these lines that I should note that this paper has been inspired by
the fairly recent publication (2006) of a volume3 which resurrects, or rather continues,
a strand of theory and research focusing on second language acquisition founded
on the Vygostskian4 tradition, where culture is understood as an objective force
that infuses social relationships. The theory purports the understanding of culture
as objective, which in turn implies that human activity structures, and is structured
by, enduring conceptual properties of the social and material world. The central claim
is that everyday cognition, or higher-order mental functions, is enabled and organized
by historical and qualitative aspects of symbolic artifacts, material artifacts, and
social relationships. While Vygotsky himself used the syntagm cultural-historical
psychology in his theoretical corpus, the latter (or rather, parts of it) inspired new
applications, which were rebranded Sociocultural Theory. The primary concepts
within sociocultural theory include the genetic method, mediation, internalization,
and the zone of proximal development, while the main goal of SCT research is to
understand the relationship between human mental functioning and the cultural,
historical, and institutional setting5. Thus, while SCT is used to refer to social and
cultural contexts of human activity, from a narrower perspective it is a theory of the
development of higher mental functions (directly stemming from Vygotskian research),
which has since been informed by research acknowledging the strong connection
between culture, language, and cognition.
Like many other disciplines, applied linguistics, too, has used SCT as a
framework for research on second language acquisition, starting from the assumption
that human activities are mediated by symbolic artifacts, one of which is language.
The mediation is twofold, providing the support through which L2 learners are able to
appropriate new conceptual systems in a second language as well as mediate
themselves: self-mediation through private speech and other-mediation through
social speech.
Our focus in this paper will be on gesture and the elements of paralanguage
that externalize the speaker and mediate him/her to the speech entourage. We will
also make a point of the fact that self- and other-mediation are organically linked,
since inner speech can be externalized as private speech and, when audible, can easily
pass into the category of other-directed or social speech. We will first summarize
some of the theoretical highlights of self-regulation through private speech.
3
J.P Lantolf, S.L. Thorne. 2006. Sociocultural Theory and the Genesis of Second Language Development,
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
4
Lev (Leon) Semyonovich Vygotsky (Vygotskii) (1896 – 1934) was a Belarusian developmental psychologist
and the founder of cultural-historical psychology. He was a pioneering psychologist and carried many
interests in the fields of developmental psychology, child development, and education. His innovative
work in psychology includes several key concepts such as psychological tools, mediation, internalization,
and the zone of proximal development (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vygotsky).
5
J.P Lantolf, S.L. Thorne. Op. cit., p. 3.
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DIANA ROXANA COTRĂU
Inner Speech and Self-regulation
It has been ascertained6 that inner speech, more appropriately called and
defined as psychological speech aimed at regulating our own physical behaviour, is
the vehicle through which we gain voluntary control over our elementary biologically
endowed brain processes. The ontogenesis of inner speech traces its origins as
social speech aimed at regulating others. However, the psychological function of inner
speech does not emerge suddenly from social speech; rather it passes through an
egocentric phase in which its formal appearance is social but its function is increasingly
psychological (most obvious at children). Egocentric speech represents the ontogenetic
phase in which children develop the ability to use social speech as a means of regulating
their own mental functioning. Egocentric speech eventually develops into inner speech
as it discards its social dimension. With adults, we should also further distinguish
between private speech, or self-directed speech, and inner speech. While inner speech
regulates one’s thinking processes, private speech serves thinking by focusing the
speaker’s attention on specific features of the task at hand.
For obvious reason, research on inner speech is difficult, if possible,
therefore studies and monitoring have been limited to private speech. Where the
acquisition of a second language is concerned, the issue at hand is the measure in which
private speech is encoded either in L2 or L1 and why. Research in this area has
revealed that most L2 intermediate speakers used occasionally affective markers:
– laughs and sighs – as well as linguistic forms such as oh, ok, oho, oh boy, oh no, oh
my god, which were much more frequent in L2 intermediate speakers than in the L2
advanced speakers, both children and adults. However, when more complex cognitive
problems had to be solved, even advanced L2 learners switched, eventually, to L1.
Researchers have delved into even more refined matters, such as trying to cross the
divide between private speech as self-regulating (self-directed) and/or objectregulated, where the locus of task control resides not in the speaker but in the task
itself and results are forthcoming.
Gesture and Mediation
An even more novel venue for SCT L2 research is the appropriation of culture
specific gestures and the interface between speech and gesture7. McNeill (1992)8 calls
gesticulation the gestures that co-occur with speech. According to McNeill (2000),
the meanings imparted through gesticulation are global and synthetic and serve to
6
Ibidem, pp. 72-75.
Gestures consist of three phases – the preparation, or onset phase in which the speaker readies the hands to
make the gesture; the stroke phase where the hands actually move to present the meaning; the coda,
or rest phase, where the hands return to the rest position before another gesture is initiated. The key
component is the stroke, which is the portion of the gesture which coordinates with the spoken
portion of the utterance. Lantolf. Op. cit. pp.100-101.
8
According to McNeill (2000) speaking and gesturing form a unit that must be analyzed as a whole, a
single meaning system combining two distinct semiotic architectures in which each component can
surpass the meaning possibilities of the other. Cf. Lantolf. Op. cit. p. 95.
7
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GESTURES AND PARALANGUAGE IN SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION…
amplify the meanings expressed in synchronized speech. Gestures that co-occur
with speech have been classified as iconics – gestures that simulate or portray
movements or objects, metaphorics – gestures which form imagistic representations
of abstract ideas, beats – abrupt up-and-down movements of a finger or the entire
hand (esp. in narratives), and deictics – pointing at objects.
A further element that merits some consideration is that gesture, as part of
kinesics (including facial expression, eye-contact, body posture), presents patterns that
may be either universal or culture-specific9. Therefore, it may happen for some gestures
to lead to miscommunication, since they might mean different things in different cultural
communities. For instance, some gestures or non-verbal actions that are called ‘emblems’
and that may be substituted for words: e.g. nod of the head means agreement, shrug
of the shoulders means uncertainty, while deemed universal by most of us, may,
nevertheless, be absent from some cultural repertoires, in which case they can lead to
serious misinterpretation. Furthermore, in addition to being culturally constructed,
gestures may be gender-determined too, yet another possible source10 of misunderstanding.
However, our concern here is not with possible gesture-induced
miscommunication. On the contrary, it is with achieving successful communication
with the aid of gestures when an L2 learner/speaker has word difficulties. Moreover,
while it is quite natural an occurrence for all speakers to integrate gestures into their
speaking activity, our issue here is whether the L2 learners can appropriate gestures
in L2 communities even as they develop a new inner order for self-regulation. Speakers
synchronize their gestures with their private speech as they struggle to narrate. It is
common knowledge that speakers will produce iconic and metaphoric gestures as
compensatory strategies when they have word-finding difficulties. As well as all
this, with L2 learners gestures take on an additional function: while L2 learners
resort to gestures both to help them substitute or give them the respite to find words
in their additional language, gestures also become a means of soliciting mediation
from the interlocutor, be they the tutor, a native speaker, or a fellow L2 learner. Thus,
gestures can serve both a cognitive and communicative function, for they externalize
one’s lexical research for a word and then take on a social function if interpreted or
intended as a call for help with the word that is eluding the speaker (or is altogether
absent from his/her L2 vocabulary).
Function of Gestures and Paralanguage at Immersion Students
In order to reach some conclusions of our own we have studied a group of
L2 advanced learners studying Romanian as an additional language. Their status is
that of cultural immersion students as they are not merely institutionally learning an
9
Bonvillain, Nancy. 2003. Language, Culture, and Communication. 4th ed. Upper Saddle Valley:
Prentice Hall. Pp. 37-40.
10
Maltz, Daniel N., Borker, Ruth A. “A Cultural Approach to Male-Female Miscommunication” in Coates,
Jennifer (ed.). 1998. Language and Gender: A Reader. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. Pp. 417-434.
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DIANA ROXANA COTRĂU
additional language, but also actually spending substantial time in the country (Romania)
where L2 is spoken. The students in the group are of mixed ethnicities and come from
varied states in Europe: Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, Poland, Italy, and from
Russia. They are aged between 20 and 22 and their contact, past or current, with
Romania and the Romanian language is diverse. They have either previously studied
Romanian at universities in their home countries and are now in a one-year programme
in order to advance their L2 proficiency, or have embarked on a long term study course
that includes the high-intensity study of Romanian for one year before moving on
to studying a specialty of their choice at a Romanian university. Still others may be
doctoral students wishing to improve their Romanian language competence for reasons
of elaborating their doctoral thesis on a Romanian related issue.
The class taped was a 45 minute course in Romanian Culture and Civilisation
intended for advanced learners, and was divided into two distinct parts: the one, an
introductory section dealing with the day’s agenda: the 6th of December – St. Nicholas
Day, a festival of local prominence judged by the amount of related paraphernalia (sweets,
chocolate, fruit, the symbolic St. Nicholas rod) sold prior to and during the day, and by
its media coverage. The other was structured around several focal discussions triggered
by the students’ individual reading assignments. They had been asked in the preceding
class to select for individual reading Romanian newspaper columns tackling current
social, economic, political, cultural or administrative issues. While both sections supply
prolix material for our brand of SCT research, we have found the first to be more
congenial to fulfilling our goal, as we noticed at a cursory viewing that the students
resorted more frequently to gestures and paralinguistic behaviour than in the second
section. Indeed, the methodological unfolding of the first part of the class geared
them into recounting personal (cultural) experiences by comparing the celebration
specifics of the day in Romania (the immersion country) with those in their countries
of origin. They were seen actually struggling to rally their L2 linguistic resources
to recount the manner St. Nicholas Day is celebrated ‘at home’, for the L1 cultural
idiosyncrasies are difficult to render in the L2 for lack of equivalents.
The second section of the class posited somewhat less linguistic problems,
as the students had already processed the material of their presentations (as home
assignments), even while they had become familiar with the issues due to their
cultural immersion experience by then almost half a year long (one of the students is
actually Romanian born and spent part of her childhood in Romania prior to
emigrating to Germany with her family). Even so, the discussions following each
of the individual student presentations may lend themselves to SCT research, for the
participants deal with L2 concepts discussed against several different L1 thinking grills
(given the varied ethnicities of the students in the group we have mentioned above). In
addition, we should note that not only is the group ethnically heterogeneous, but the
group’s language proficiency (although they had been diagnosed as advanced L2
learners) varies in terms of language skills, so that some students were more
voluble than others.
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GESTURES AND PARALANGUAGE IN SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION…
Returning to the first section of the class, the first and foremost observation
is that the gestures and paralanguage were more varied and certainly not singlefunctional. Thus, most of the tutor’s non-verbal approach was geared towards eliciting
the (correct) answers from the learners:
e.g.
T: Chiar aş vrea să vă spun în două câteva cuvinte despre România ce cum
se sărbătoreşte … cred că aţi văzut … semnul cel mai ăăă semnul simbolic
pentru Moş Nicolae este … [looks invitingly at the students for an answer
while mimicking holding a rod in her hands]
I would really like to tell you in two a few words about Romania what how
it is celebrated … I think you have seen … the sign most uh: the symbolic
sign for Saint Nicholas is …
The iconic gesture used by the tutor is readily understood by all the student
participants, for, as the discussion unfolds, it turns out that they have all seen the
signs of celebrations in the city and, in addition, the festival is common in their
own cultural communities. It is natural that the tutor should use the gesture to elicit
the word (which is promptly uttered by one of the students – S2), and thus her nonverbal action, where we can also include the pauses made deliberately in an invitation
to the students to fill them in, is a purposeful methodological support. A little later
on, however, when the tutor provides a description of the typically Romanian Saint
Nicholas rod and pauses for as little as a few seconds searching for a particular word,
one of the students provides it swiftly in the caveat, perhaps not realising the pause was
genuine hesitation on the part of the tutor rather than the usual invitation to speak.
e.g.
T: Da … sau pur şi simplu se dădea cu un ... mmm ...
Yes … or it was simply coated with …
S1: spray [rising intonation uncertain whether she provided the right word
or whether the tutor actually expected someone to help with the word]
The students in the group, on the other hand, clearly use gesture precisely
when they have difficulty in finding the right word or appropriate structure. Quite often
the gestures are also synchronized with eye-contact – a glance at the tutor for approval or
for an invitation to continue – or with rising intonation, indicating different degrees
of uncertainty.
e.g. ăăă un băţ care: arată foarte kitschos deci eu [laughter from students]
am umblat prin oraş şi am ... şi nu am ... şi am întrebat ăă ce-i asta şi mi-a
spus că e un ... băţ de Moş Nicolae şi ... când am fost eu mică şi noi aveam băţul
dar noi le-am fffăcut ăăă [xxx] şi am făcut băţul cu aşa [iconic gesture of a rock]
o piatră care străluceşte [uses both hands like sunrays] ăă argintiu ... are aşa ...
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DIANA ROXANA COTRĂU
uhhh ... it’s a rod that looks very kitschlike so I walked about the town and
I ... I didn’t ... and I asked uhhh what is this and (s/he) told me it was ... a
Saint Nicholas rod and ... when I was little we had a rod too only we made
it [xxx] and we fashioned the rod with a stone that shines uh silvery … it
has like …
Sometimes the gestures are immediately followed by the word they were
supposed to substitute, proving that some apparently latent vocabulary items are easy to
retrieve. It may also be a case where the lexical item used is newly introduced into
the learners’ vocabulary and the learner feels it necessary to reinforce it through gesture.
An even further explanation could be provided by the fact that this particular group
is formed by students of varied ethnicities and the speaker may feel that accompanying
the word by an iconic (in this case) gesture will ensure that it is understood by all
the members of the class.
Besides the gestures mentioned above, we have also recorded frequent
nodding, the source of which was mostly the tutor showing a supportive attitude11,
shoulder shrugging mainly from the students, as well as (self- or other-directed)
laughter, all of which either substituted or complemented the words the learner had
difficulty in finding, or, actually, added some complex and meaningful nuances
that all the participants in the class could decipher. Most of the gestures (nodding,
facial expression, eye movement), supportive interventions and minimal responses
(da [yes], îhî [uhum]) can also be considered backchannel behaviour12, and rather
than exposing the speaker’s difficulty with words, fill in, instead, the pauses and
ensure the swift unfolding of the discussion.
Unfortunately, since we didn’t have the technology (individual microphones
pinned to each participant) to record and monitor the private speech which was
observed to occur in task-regulating situations (e.g. when the tutor introduced new L2
words, some of the students were seen softly pronouncing each item to themselves
while noting them down, or they could be seen ‘rehearsing’ in a low voice some of
the words whose pronunciation they were uncertain of before producing them out
loud to the class) we cannot venture in drawing any definite conclusions on this
particular issue.
Conclusions
This particular case of L2 immersion students learning Romanian has lent
itself generously to gesture and paralanguage study, for, given the varied ethnicities
of the group, each student was seen to double his/her effort in trying to achieve
11
Michael Coulthard has discussed at length classroom discourse and the types of conversational
contributions made by teachers and pupils.
12
Coates, Jennifer. 1993. Women, Men and Language. New York: Longman.
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GESTURES AND PARALANGUAGE IN SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION…
successful performance and communication in L2: producing ‘correct’ verbal items or
patterns in Romanian in a ‘class’ situation and communicating accurately with the
fellow participants with different L1s.
The repertoire of gestures ranged from iconic to metaphoric, both of which
had a higher incidence in the first part of the class monitored, where the task of the
students was to render in L2 some L1 cultural specifics not all of which had ready
equivalents. The incidence and variety of gesticulation decreased in the second part of
the class, as the students had prepared in advance for this section, having thus
psychologically pre-set their mind frames for the L2 semantic system. Compared to
the gestures employed in the latter section of the class, the ones in the former were more
spontaneous and urgent, and were meant to fill in the verbal gaps and to supplement
meaning, fulfilling in a classroom situation a communicational function.
It is quite obvious, on the other hand, that although their primary use was
to help communication, the gestures employed also reflected the inner workings of
the mind, which was, partially at least, operating along the L2 code, the code that
could provide successful meaning-making among interlocutors with different L1s. Not
only was L2 used as the external verbal code for an ethnically heterogeneous group
in a classroom situation, but it also provided the semantic system for the L2 learners’
thinking processes, profusely externalized in gesture and paralanguage.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Bonvillain, Nancy (2003). Language, Culture, and Communication. 4th ed. Upper Saddle
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Coates, Jennifer (1993). Women, Men and Language. New York: Longman
Coulthard, Michael (ed.) (1992). Advances in Spoken Discourse Analysis. London and
New York: Routledge
Lantolf, J.P., S.L. Thorne (2006). Sociocultural Theory and the Genesis of Second
Language Development, Oxford: Oxford University Press
Maltz, Daniel N., Ruth A. Borker (1998). “A Cultural Approach to Male-Female
Miscommunication” in Coates, Jennifer (ed.). Language and Gender: A Reader. Oxford:
Blackwell Publishers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vygotsky
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