Is Sylvester pacing up and down or is he going back and forth? Onomasiological analysis of the multimodal expression of motion events in French and Dutch as L1 and L2

The typological differences between verb-framed and satellite-framed languages observed by Talmy (2000) have been shown to be reflected in co-speech gestures as well (Brown & Chen, 2013; Kita & Özyürek, 2003; McNeill, 2005; McNeill & Duncan, 2000). More specifically, studies indicate different correlations between the types of language and (i) the realization of manner fog gestures and (ii) the synchronization between gestures and speech (Kita & Özyürek, 2003; McNeill & Duncan, 2000). Such gestures should therefore be taken into account when studying L2 learners’ thinking for speaking patterns (Stam, 2018). Against this background, our study aims at determining how motion events are expressed in speech and co-speech gestures by native French speakers, native Dutch speakers, and CLIL French-speaking learners of Dutch.

We conducted an elicitation experiment in which participants recounted scenes from a Tweety and Sylvester cartoon. Fifteen French speakers, fifteen Dutch speakers, and fifteen CLIL French-speaking learners of Dutch with a pre-intermediate level completed the task. Using Kopecka's (2006) taxonomy, we identify the semantic components (manner and path) encoded in the verbs and satellites. Gestures are classified as iconic, beat, metaphoric, deictic, or pragmatic (Kendon, 2004; McNeill, 1992). Iconic and deictic gestures are further analyzed regarding the aspects of motion they convey (e.g., manner, path, ground). Finally, we look at the synchronization between speech and gestures following Stam (2006).

In the present study, we opted for a qualitative approach by focusing on the expression of two specific self-propelled motion events (hereby taking an onomasiological perspective on our data).