The Effectiveness of Gestures in Learning Novel Sounds.
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2019-01-21
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en
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The purpose of the present study is to investigate the role of gestures in the acquisition of novel sounds in a foreign language. A large number of studies provide evidence that there is a strong relation between language and gestures, which gives reason to believe that gestures can help in second language (L2) acquisition. On a semantic level, various studies have pointed out that using gestures in L2 acquisition has several beneficial outcomes (e.g. the ability to reproduce words or expressions). However, few studies have focused on the lowest level of language processing, i.e. the phonetic level. The studies that have been conducted focused on the recognition of small distinctions in a foreign language (e.g. vowel length contrasts in Japanese). The present study focuses on the production of the phonemes /θ/ and /u/ in L2 Spanish. More specifically, it was studied whether receiving one of different gesture trainings (audio-visual training, audio-pointing gesture training, or audio-iconic gesture training) has an effect on the phoneme pronunciation of Dutch L2 speakers of Spanish. In an experiment sound fragments of Dutch speakers of Spanish were judged on comprehensibility and accentedness by native Spanish listeners (N = 46). The main findings revealed that the more visual information is provided in the pronunciation training, the more comprehensible and less accented the Dutch L2 speakers of Spanish were judged by native Spanish listeners. One exception was for the Dutch L2 speakers of Spanish who received audio-iconic gesture training of the target phoneme /θ/; native Spanish listeners judged these sounds as least comprehensible and most accented.
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