Informing language training with multimodal analysis: insights from the use of gesture in tandem interactions

Abstract

In Chapter 7, Camille Debras explores face-to-face tandem interactions between undergraduate university students who are native speakers of French and English and the role multimodality plays in these. Drawing from linguistics research on the multimodality of tandem interactions, four multimodal interactional linguistics studies based on the annotation and/or qualitative analysis of data from a corpus made of audio- and video-recorded face-to-face tandem interactions provide evidence for the crucial communicative functions of gesture during exolingual interactions. Findings underscore the need to involve the nonverbal dimension in language learning and teaching and professionalization in higher education, so as to prepare L2 learners for the (international) workplace.