Same speech, different gestures?
Résumé
Individuals have their own unique way of gesturing; therefore, it is unlikely that different speakers saying the same sentence will gesture in the same way. However, what happens when a single person repeats the same thing to a single partner or to different partners? In an ongoing study on gestures in foreigner talk (Tellier, & Stam, 2010), we asked 10 future teachers of French to make different partners guess 12 words. They had to explain the same words to both a native and a non-native partner (a learner of French, level B1/B2 - European Framework), and we investigated how the change of partner affected their gestures. In a descriptive analysis, we have focused on self-repetitions. Participants tend to use the same sentences or expressions in both conditions (native and non-native) but with different gestures. For instance, gestures used in the non-native condition tend to be more iconic (examples 1 & 2) and/or larger, hence more helpful for the listener. Moreover, when talking to a non-native, in a conversation that fails more often, participants often use self-repetitions in the course of the same interaction. In this case, gestures sometimes evolve to become more significant and visible (examples 3, 4 & 5). However this is not a consistent pattern.