Beyond Foreigner Talk

This paper challenges the common belief that first language (L1) speakers simplify their language when communicating with second language (L2) users, which is captured in Charles Ferguson’s ‘Foreigner Talk’ hypothesis. Academic research has long suggested that, along with simplified vocabulary and syntax, L1 speakers use more illustrative and larger gestures to accommodate L2 addressees. Since this stereotype remains empirically unverified, we analyzed L1 gesture production in two video corpora, implementing automated motion-tracking techniques to measure gesture size. We found that L1 speakers produced larger gestures when describing a picture to an L2 addressee than to an L1 addressee, whereas this difference did not occur during free conversation. In both communicative tasks, however, they used more deictic gestures and organized their gesture space to structure the interaction. In sum, gesture qualifies as a versatile resource in L1–L2 interaction, which is tailored to the conversational task at hand.