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Space for cognition: gesture and second language learning
Author(s) -
McCafferty Steven G.
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
international journal of applied linguistics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.712
H-Index - 39
eISSN - 1473-4192
pISSN - 0802-6106
DOI - 10.1111/j.1473-4192.2004.0057m.x
Subject(s) - gesture , embodied cognition , deixis , intrapersonal communication , psychology , perspective (graphical) , cognition , intonation (linguistics) , relation (database) , linguistics , cognitive psychology , cognitive science , communication , interpersonal communication , computer science , artificial intelligence , neuroscience , philosophy , database
This paper explores the possibility that L2 learners utilize gesture, like speech, for intrapersonal problem solving. Kita (2000) argued that the “default” organization of information when speaking is analytic but that the use of representational gestures, specifically iconic and abstract deictic gestures, can constitute a spatio‐motoric mode of thinking, that is, that we deploy “gesturing for thinking”. Thus, Kita believes that gestures are actional as opposed to representational and form as part of the physical environment in conjunction with the cognitive system. In applying this perspective to second language learning, it is argued in the current study that, because of an inability to fully command discourse in the L2, at times learners utilize this mode of thinking. There is also speculation that the use of gestures in the form of beats in relation to prosodic features, notably intonation and syllable structure, may be a form of enaction , that is, internalizing the L2 through embodied processes.