A limited role of hand gestures and head nods in native English speakers’ production of Mandarin tones

Abstract

Theories of embodied cognition have emphasized the importance of the whole body in human communication (Lakoff & Johnson, 1999), and numerous empirical studies have shown that bodily actions affect multiple aspects of speech production and perception. This study examined the roles that hand and head gestures play in production of Mandarin tones by native English speakers. Twenty-four native English speakers were asked to imitate the four Mandarin tones from a model across three conditions: (1) audio-only, (2) audio and hand gestures, and (3) audio and head nods. For (2) and (3), participants watched videos in which a native Mandarin speaker visually depicted the tones with her hand and head, respectively. The participants’ production was then presented to seven native Mandarin listeners in an identification test to determine percent correctly produced. A 3 (conditions) x 4 (tones) ANOVA revealed a significant main effect of tone (1 > 3, 4 > 2) but no main effect or interaction of condition, indicating that hand and head gestures did not help learners accurately produce Mandarin tones. The results corroborate earlier acoustic analysis of the production data, confirming a limited role of hand and head gestures in phonetic and phonological aspects of L2 learning.