Motion in speech and gesture in a CLIL context

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). Such gestures should therefore be taken into account when studying L2 learners’ thinking for speaking patterns (Stam, 2018). More specifically, studies show 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). Against this background, our study aims at determining how motion events are expressed in speech and co-speech gestures by French speakers (FS), Dutch speakers (DS), and CLIL French-speaking learners of Dutch (CLIL-FSLD).
We conducted an elicitation experiment in which participants recounted scenes from a Tweety and Sylvester cartoon. Fifteen FS, fifteen DS, and fifteen CLIL-FSLD with a pre-intermediate level completed the task. Using Kopecka's (2006) taxonomy, we identified the semantic components (manner and path) encoded in the verbs and satellites. Gestures were classified as iconic, beat, metaphoric, deictic, or pragmatic (McNeill, 1992; Kendon, 2004). Iconic and deictic gestures were further analyzed regarding the aspects of motion they convey (e.g. manner, path, ground) and their type (only for iconic gestures: enacting, representing, drawing, or molding (Müller, 2014)). Finally, we looked at the synchronization between speech and gestures following Stam (2006).
So far, 418 utterances and 534 gestures have been analyzed and our results show that FS tend to use PathVERBS+PathSATELLITES+PathGESTURES in both their L1 and L2 descriptions, whereas DS prefer using MannerVERBS+PathSATELLITES+PathGESTURES. Second, CLIL-FSLD align path gestures with verbs more often than in the case of FS and DS. Finally, CLIL-FSLD produce more manner fog and non-substantive gestures.
These tendencies suggest that CLIL-FSLD rely more on gesture than L1 speakers and that they tend to replicate the thinking for speaking pattern of FS.