This exploratory study examines the pragmatic functions of gestures employed by teachers in a foreign language classroom. We focus on Open Hand gestures and their variations. This paper is grounded in the work on pragmatic gestures (e.g., Kendon 2004, 2017; Müller 2004) and the social semiotic perspective on embodied meaning making (e.g., Holland, 2011).
There has been a growing body of research about the role of gesture in foreign language teaching/learning practices in domains such as comprehension (e.g., Sueyoshi & Hardison, 2005), vocabulary learning (e.g., Tellier, 2008) and grammar (Matsumoto & Dobs, 2016). These studies mainly analyze the referential (semantic) meanings carried by representational gestures (McNeill 1992). Gestures also carry pragmatic meanings (Kendon 2004). However, compared to the studies of the efficacy of teachers' gestures in L2 learning, those investigating the social/pragmatic functions of such gestures are fairly limited.
According to Kendon (2017), four pragmatic functions can be ascribed to gestures (modal, performative, parsing and operational functions). As a language classroom abounds with social interactions, and Open Hand gestures are very widely used (Kendon, 2004), we would expect these gestures to be also used by teachers. The questions we address are: what kind of functions do these gestures mostly carry, and are there any language classroom-specific patterns ?
The data for the study were drawn from the recorded class sessions of Japanese as L2 available on YouTube as well as those recorded by the author. The analysis followed the methodological procedure used by Müller (2004). The results show that Open Hand gestures are frequently used by language teachers. However, in some cases, their functions may not be so straightforward. Furthermore, the timing of the teacher's gesture in relation to the interlocutor's utterance (i.e. before vs. after) may reflect different pragmatic functions. We will discuss the applicability of Kendon's classification in language classroom discourse and the implications of the findings for the notion of embodied meaning-making in a classroom setting.
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