Portfolio 1: Theorizing With the Mode: Gesture in Foreign Language Learning Contexts

In Bodo Winters' chapter “Why Study Gesture?”, Winters details how gesture is important as it relates to linguistics, and outlines various ways in which gesture. According to Winters, gesture is not just used in communication, but is also crucial in public speaking; in cultural contexts, such as how Germans would sign for “three” differently than Americans; in musical contexts, where conductors use gesture to convey orders to their orchestra; for memory, and more. One very useful way in which gesture is used linguistically that Winters didn’t bring up, however, is in foreign language learning.

I spent the last academic year living and studying in Japan, and while I was in Japan gesture played a crucial role in my ability to converse and relay information. Although I already knew quite a bit of Japanese before going to Japan and was able to converse relatively freely, there would often be times when I wouldn’t know the proper word for something, and would have to use a combination of gesture and description to express what I was trying to talk about. 

For example, one time I was talking to my friend about how I had seen a lizard on a recent hike. I realized I didn’t know the word for lizard, and explained that I saw a reptile that was “this big” (using gesture to display how big it was) that is like a snake with legs and was green, and moves like “this” (again, using gesture). The friend realized that I was talking about a lizard, and told me the word for it in Japanese.

Gesture was also largely used in the classroom. For example, one time we were learning a certain word that doesn’t have an equivalent in English. The word describes the emotion of being kind of annoyed and mad, and pouting about it. To try and make us understand the meaning of the word, our teacher used gesture. She said “it means to be like this,” and then puffed out her cheeks, crossed her arms, and raised her head. These gestures combined lead to the image of pouting, and helped us to understand the word, even though there was no version of it in English.

I also used gesture when teaching foreign language. While in Japan, I had a part-time job as an English teacher, and often relied on gesture to explain words and concepts. I would pair words with gesture so that even if the student didn’t know what the word meant, they could understand the gesture, and infer the meaning of the word from that. For example, I might say, “today I ate yakisoba,” and then gesture as if I was holding chopsticks and bringing them to my mouth to indicate eating.

Through these examples, it can be seen that gesture features heavily in importance in language education. Conveying certain words, actions, and emotions across cultures and languages can be very difficult, but gesture is universal.