The Relationship Between Gesture Use and Second Language Experience: An Exploratory Study with Second Language Speakers of English

Gestures are movements of arms and hands that are semantically and pragmatically relevant to communication and are temporally synchronized with speech or sign (Kita & Emmorey, 2023). These co-speech movements emerge spontaneously in both our first (L1) or second language (L2) and help us convey the message we intend to communicate to our peers. Although it is spontaneous, in the case of second language speakers, co-speech gesture use can be influenced by cognitive and social factors, such as language experience (Nicoladis & Smithson, 2023). Having this in mind, this exploratory research aims at investigating the relationship between manual gesture use and second language experience in a population of native speakers of Brazilian Portuguese who uses English as a second language. More specifically, the study aims to (i) quantify the rates of iconic, metaphoric, deictic and non-referential gestures during oral production in the L1 and the L2 and (ii) investigate the relationship between input quantity and input quality and manual gestures use. To do this, participants will answer a Biographical and Linguistic Background Questionnaire (Kivistö-de Souza, 2015; Mendes, 2017) and LexTALE vocabulary test (Lemhöfer & Broersma, 2012). They will also perform a cartoon retelling task in both their L1 and in their L2. Results from this exploratory study can help researchers to better understand the relationship between gesture use and second language experience.