Put Your Mind To It. How Dutch speakers of L2 English speak and gesture about placement events.
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2017-08-15
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en
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This thesis investigated the use of placement verbs and placement gestures during the description of placement events. Native Dutch speakers of L2 English took part in a study based on Gullberg’s (2009) methodology. Dutch does not have a superordinate verb that can be applied to all placement gestures, while English has to put. Moreover, placement gestures in Dutch are characterized by object-oriented shapes of the hand, while English tends to have placement gestures which mostly focus on the path of the placement, without an object-oriented handshape. The main topic of research was whether native Dutch speakers would resemble native English speakers’ use of placement verbs and use of placement gestures, or if their verbs and gestures would resemble their native (Dutch) verbs and gestures. The study used an event description task, during which native speakers of Dutch explained – in English - the placement of an object to another participant. Their verbs and gestures were subsequently analysed. The results showed that, while the use of placement verbs by Dutch speakers of L2 English very closely resembled that of native speakers of English, their placement gesture use was significantly different. Dutch speakers were more likely to use object-incorporating handshapes, which shows that their native language Dutch affected their use of placement gestures in English. This means that placement gestures can be instrumental in the study L1 to L2 transfer.
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