Prominence in speech and gesture favour second language novel word learning

Abstract

While recent research has shown that iconic gestures and the so-called pitch gestures (or gestures that mimic melody in speech) favour word learning in a second language, little is known about (a) the potential benefits of beat gestures (or hand gestures that accompany prosodic prominence) for second language novel word learning, and (b) the contribution of prosodic prominence (independently or in combination with gestural prominence) to this effect. This study investigates the effects of prosodic prominence (e.g. focal pitch accent) and visual prominence (e.g. beat gesture) on L2 novel vocabulary learning. In a within-subjects design, 96 Catalan-dominant native speakers were asked to learn 16 Russian words in four conditions, namely the presence or absence of prosodic prominence in speech (L+H* pitch accent) combined with the presence or absence of visual prominence (beat gesture). The results of recall and recognition tasks conducted after a training session showed that the strongest effect corresponded to target words presented with visual prominence together with prosodic prominence; by contrast, the condition involving visual prominence with no prosodic prominence triggered smaller effects than the condition involving prosodic prominence alone. Thus, beat gestures produced naturally (that is, accompanied by focal pitch accent in speech) favour second language vocabulary learning. The results have implications for second language instruction practices and multisensory int…